This spring and summer, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum is home to Design for the Other 90%. On view in the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden, the exhibition explores the variety of affordable and socially responsible objects designed for the more than five billion people across the globe (90 per cent of world’s total population of 6.5 billion) who often lack the means to purchase even the most basic goods. It features design solutions for the poor and marginalized around the world, ranging from the LifeStraw, a mobile personal water purification tool, to furniture made from hurricane debris through the Katrina Furniture Project, which works to rebuild the economic and social capabilities in New Orleans.
Exhibition objects include the Pot-in-Pot Cooler, a storage container that doubles the amount of crops saved by extending their shelf life; the Big Boda Load-Carrying Bicycle, which can easily carry hundreds of pounds of cargo or two additional passengers at a substantially lower cost; and the Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child project, an inexpensive, universal laptop computer to be used as an educational tool for children. Design for the Other 90% continues to Sept. 23.