Project H: Design for Healthy, Happy People and Habitats

Project H Design is a collective of designers who believe in the power of good design to change the world. Founded last year by architect and designer (and former Inhabitat.com managing editor) Emily Pilloton, the non-profit will kick off it its Design Revolution Road Show in February. During this tour, the crew will haul an Airstream trailer carrying an exhibit that features 40 different products aimed at addressing specific–and often humanitarian–issues, such as the need to easily transport and purify water, or the need for effective, low-cost eyeglasses.

The tour will hit 12 US states and 25 high schools and university design programs and was sprung from Pilloton’s book, Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, which was published late last year.

If you’re already well versed in sustainable design and appropriate technology, you’ll likely recognize many of the products featured in the exhibition, such as the OLPC computer or the Lifestraw. But by bringing these products and the design ethos behind them to budding designers around the country, Project H Design just might plant seeds for important future innovations. It may also teach these students that the gains they’ll achieve through their work won’t just be monetary, and that they have tremendous potential, as designers, to help solve social and environmental problems around the world.

As Pilloton remarked on The Colbert Report Monday night (see clip below), in response to Steve Colbert cracking wise about the not-so-lucrative nature of designing products for humanitarian uses:

We like to measure this as the triple bottom line, so it’s people, planet and profit.

Hat tip to Good.

PS: In case you were wondering: that fabulous Airstream will be hauled by a biodiesel-powered truck.

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