Ben Uyeda: Creativity, Risk, and Money
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Container House (2021), The Modern Home Project. image / provided
Entrepreneurship at Cornell
Abstract
Why a designer joined the creator economy...
Ben Uyeda wanted to design for people who couldn't afford to hire him, so he stepped away from the award-winning architecture firm he founded and started making videos that he shared online. Uyeda's design ideas have since reached more than 100 million people and the designs he gives away for free have been built on six different continents. Despite the populist and affordable nature of his work, his designs have been featured at some of the world's best museums and grace the homes of both the rich and the poor.
Biography
After graduating in 2005, Ben Uyeda (B.Arch. '04, M.Arch. '05) was hired as a Visiting Lecturer at Cornell where he created an original curriculum for teaching sustainable design, emphasizing the importance of critically understanding contemporary media and popular culture when trying to implement environmentally progressive technologies.
In 2006, Uyeda cofounded ZeroEnergy Design (ZED), a multi-disciplinary firm specializing in ecologically conscious housing. ZED's award-winning architectural designs have been featured in Architectural Record, Popular Mechanics, Design New England, and Boston Home. In 2008, Uyeda launched FreeGreen.com, a web-based media company that distributes green home designs over the internet. By 2009 FreeGreen became the largest supplier of house plans in the world and was recognized by I.D. Magazine in its annual I.D. 40 issue as one of the 40 projects/people that is transforming the world. FreeGreen's innovative business model has been discussed in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Architectural Record, and Fast Company. In 2010, Uyeda won the US Green Building Council's Natural Talent Design Competition by creating affordable green home designs for the New Orleans' Broadmoor neighborhood as part of the rebuilding effort following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
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