thinking about
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Originally published in The Huffington Post - Please comment there
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During a lunchtime assembly President Barack Obama will announce to students, teachers and parents, "I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms... ...but you've got to do your part too." Fortunately for him, a global network has spent the better part of a year already doing their part.
The 2009 Open Architecture Challenge, a biennial design competition, brought together more that 7000+ K-12 students, teachers and building professionals to work on upgrading and expanding their learning environments into innovative, cost-effective and sustainable classrooms for the future.
For Immediate Release: July 23, 2009
I'm up late trying to put together my three minute talk at TED Global taking place at Oxford University. It's much harder to do 3 minutes than my 20+ min. talk back in 2006. Anyway that's just one part of a crazy two weeks.
Next week we interview all the finalists of the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge. We've narrowed it down to the final seven and each one is a worthy recipient of the grand prize.
TED Global runs from July 21st-24th but I'm leaving early as Architecture for Humanity has been invited to the White House on the 24th. Michelle Obama is hosting the National Design award winners and as 09 Patron Award winners we get to come to this years reception.
Two days later we head out to Haiti for a 3 day trip through the country and to look at some potential projects. For those that have been following the growth of the organization we are working on:
1. An indoor skate board park in Afghanistan (for/by Skateistan)
2. A net positive rainwater basketball court in Kenya
3. A health center and community structures in Myanmar/Burma
4. A facility for the 2010 Homeless World Cup in Brazil
5. A secondary school in Liberia
6. Post-Katrina housing
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Originally Posted on The Huffington Post
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In honor of Frank Lloyd Wrights' birthday (June 8) Google SketchUp partnered with The Guggenheim Museum to launch a competition to design a simple shelter. By using Google SketchUp and Google Earth you can choose any site and create any basic dwelling (without water, gas or electricity). While it is a great creative initiative, it could go one step further by challenging participants to design with purpose.
