Bryan Bell founded Design Corps in 1991 with the mission is "to provide the benefits of architecture to those traditionally un-served by the profession."
In 1985, Bell worked as Project Director with Samuel Mockbee on three houses for rural families in Mississippi. The project received a Progressive Architecture Award in 1986. He has also worked at Steven Holl's and Richard Rogers's offices. He holds degrees from Princeton and Yale.
Bell has been a visiting studio professor at the Auburn Rural Studio teaching twenty-two thesis students for twelve design/build projects including the Greensboro Children's Center and the Mason's Bend Community Center. He has also held a chaired position in 'Activist Practice' at University of Chicago, Illinois and has taught three design/build studios at NC State University. He will be the Shure Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia in the spring of 2009.
At Design Corps, Bell started an internship program with the AmeriCorps national service program for young designers interested in the social application of architecture. Design Corps has organized 45 internships for students and graduates of design from twenty universities including Yale, Cornell, Rice, RISD, University of Virginia, and Syracuse University. The Design Corps' summer design/build studio teaches critical community organizing skills to designers.
His effort to share ideas with the newest generation of architects led to series of conferences hosted at universities. Structures for Inclusion has been a forum for students and recent graduates to learn about grass roots efforts making architecture more accessible. Selected presentations from these have been presented in two publications: Good Deeds, Good Design, was published by Princeton Architectural Press published in 2003 and Expanding Design: Architecture as Activism, published by Metropolis Press in October 2008.
Bell was selected for the ID Magazine Design 50 and Metropolitan Home Design 100. In 2007 he received a National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. The work of Design Corps was featured in Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum Exhibit "National Design Triennial: Design Culture Now"(March-August 2003) and four projects was included in the US Pavilion of the 2008 Venice Biennale. Design Corps has appeared in The New York Times, Metropolis, Metropolitan Home, Architecture, I.D. Magazine, Readymade, Dwell Magazine, and Architectural Record among others.