PMPD-290 Design for Freedom

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What does it mean to Design for Freedom? Although human rights advocates have begun to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of forced labor in construction projects around the world, the use of raw and composite materials produced by forced labor in the built environment largely continues with impunity. The panel will raise awareness of modern slavery in the built environment. Once you know, you can’t un-know it. And there is a duty to look. It is time to recognize our responsibility, and that the subsidizing of construction projects with forced labor on job sites is only one half of the slavery issue. Illuminating forced labor within the building material supply chains that design teams specify has not yet begun. We must turn our attention to the lagging built environment and eradicate modern slavery’s permanent imprint. This panel will begin to explore how the architecture, construction, and design industries grapple with these questions and how these industries might better use digital models, design-to-construction integration tools, big data, and analytics to ensure ethical building materials supply chains.