Photos: Open-source housing for those in need

The Open Architecture Network is an open-source, social-networking community charged with helping to shelter people grappling with poverty and natural disasters. It uses Web 2.0 technologies to enable architects anywhere to upload and share their designs online under a Creative Commons license.

In the coming decades, floods alone could force 1.6 billion people out of their homes, according to co-founder Cameron Sinclair. He expects the nonprofit network to expand dramatically in response to ecological calamities triggered by global warming.

Sinclair hopes to incorporate digital maps, live collaborative CAD drawings, and perhaps a carbon emissions calculator to the Web site's project management tools in coming year.

Caption text by CNET's Elsa Wenzel.