How Human-Centred Design Found Me: Designing Dignity for Construction Families in Argentina
How Human-Centred Design Found Me: Designing Dignity for Construction Families in Argentina
Before I ever became a consultant, a strategist, or a service designer, I learned my most important lesson in a tiny home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires: real change happens when you design with people, not for them.
A Social Impact Startup Rethinking Structural Housing Inequality
This is the story of how my very first design job, at a startup trying to solve a housing crisis, taught me everything I now use to help organisations create human-centred, purpose-driven impact.
VivE (Vivienda en Etapas), or “Housing in Steps,” was a social impact startup in Argentina focused on reducing long-standing structural housing inequalities.
Their mission: support construction workers, ironically the people who build homes for everyone else, who often live in unsafe, overcrowded, or deteriorating housing conditions.
With more than 40% of working-class families experiencing sanitation issues, overcrowding, and structural risks, VivE wanted to create a model of incremental, affordable, human-centred housing improvement.
The Challenge: Complex Human Problems No Blueprint Could Fix
What we uncovered in those early interviews went far beyond structural issues or material shortages. The challenges were deeply human, rooted in dignity, safety, childhood development, and the everyday decisions families were forced to make under extreme economic pressure. This wasn’t about fixing a house. It was about understanding why homes were breaking in the first place, and what that meant for the people living inside them. Each story revealed layers of complexity no architectural blueprint could ever capture.
Unsafe Sanitation That Impacted Health and School Attendance
Many families shared a single, deteriorated bathroom across several households. The consequences spiralled:
Kids avoiding showering or brushing teeth
Illnesses and asthma triggered by mould and humidity
Children missing school due to shame or sickness
Homes That Couldn't Grow as Families Grew
Families attempted to extend rooms, but poor planning, shaky structure, and leaky joints led to unsafe, dysfunctional living spaces.
With extreme inflation (up to 100% per month), saving for long-term improvements was nearly impossible.
People defaulted to quick, low-impact fixes—painting damp walls, patching leaks—that never solved the core issues.
Overcrowded, Multi-Generational Living Spaces
Entire families were sleeping in one room. Privacy, wellbeing, and relationships were all under pressure.
This wasn’t a design problem.
This was a human problem.
Our Approach: Human-Centred Research + Fast Prototyping in Real Homes
Listening First, Designing Later
Co-Design at the Core
We didn’t walk in with the “answer.”
We created prototypes with the families, adapting ideas based on what they said, did, and needed.
Rapid Prototyping That Met People Where They Were
My job was to turn insights into quick, testable ideas, sometimes overnight, so families could react, try, and improve them.
This was the project where I truly learned:
1. If you want to change behaviours, you have to understand behaviours.
2. You can’t force a solution on someone, it must grow from their reality.
3. People are not problems to solve; they are partners in the solution.
The Breakthrough Idea: A Plug-and-Play Bathroom Built in 8 Hours
A modular bathroom that could be built in 8 hours, with no plumbing or electrical skills required — plus a structural system that allowed safe, incremental home expansion.
We realised we needed to solve two of the hardest problems at once:
Unsafe bathrooms
Homes that couldn’t grow safely as families expanded
So the idea was born:
When Every Architect Said “Impossible”
In Argentina, everything is built with bricks.
Every architect I approached looked at me like I was delusional:
“You can’t build a bathroom like a product.”
“It can’t be modular.”
“It won’t work.”
So I set out to prove them wrong.
Increased School Attendance and Confidence
With improved hygiene and privacy, the kids were more confident, engaged, and consistent at school.
A Model Passed On to Scale
VivE has since passed the product on to social enterprises in Argentina who continue to evolve it and scale the bathroom system to more families.
This case study reshaped the way I design, work, and think—and it’s at the heart of everything I now help organisations do.
Why This Project Still Guides My Work Today
This project taught me that:
Real impact comes from deep understanding, not assumptions
Behaviour change requires respect, listening, and co-design
Complex social problems need creative, practical, human-led solutions
The people living the problem always hold the key to solving it
It’s why I now help organisations design services, experiences, and systems that are not only smart—but deeply human.
Ready to turn your policies and processes into experiences worth coming back to?
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Bring your biggest daily fire or clunky system frustration, and we'll have a 30 min practical, sleeves-rolled-up talk about it.
No beige solutions, no PowerPoint fantasies.
Just a real conversation to see if we're a good match.
You'll leave with at least one thing to try and a new way of looking at your never ending of things to fix.
