The First Facility Management Blog

Incheon Metropolitan City, Korea, together with designboom recently held a competition (iida) open to international professionals, students, and design enthusiasts. The subject of iida was “Green Life,” which was broken down into the following concepts:

• 21st century design is the philosophy that suggests harmony of humanity and nature.
• 21st century design is the imagination that enables sustained urban life.
• 21st century design is actions that buffer radical changes in society.
• 21st century design is a beautiful link between business activities and consumer activities.
• 21st century design is a tool that expresses beautiful imagination of people.
• the philosophy of the 21st century design is the philosophy of iida.

In the end, 3709 designers from 96 different countries participated. Rochus Jacob was awarded the first prize for his Murakami Chair (along with his thermodynamic cooler), which incorporates nano-dynamo technology into the skids of the chair to run an OLED light—thereby powering an attached reading lamp with energy generated from its own rocking motion. (Note: as one of the competition requirements, the product could not currently be in production.)

Jacobs explains his thoughts behind the design process:

I was looking for opportunities to generate energy through activities we naturally do. The final result is a rocking chair that enables the user to experience production and consumption of electricity in a gentle and rewarding way. An abstract process becomes tangible and eventually cultivates natural awareness. Complexity is covered by simplicity. During daylight, the energy gets stored in a battery pack. The construction of the flat and bendable organic light emitting diodes allows new form factors such as using the traditional shape of a lamp but instead of having a light bulb the lampshade himself turns out to be the light source. To have a drastic reduction of consumption the big challenge will be to make consuming less feel like getting more.

The jury, composed of Julien de Smedt, JDS, architect, Karim Rashid, industrial designer, Jerszy Seymour, industrial designer, Martin Videgård Hansson + Bolle Tham, Tham & Videgård Hansson Architects, Birgit Lohmann, designboom, Sang-Soo Ahn, Hongik University visual communication design professor, Soon-Jong Lee, Seoul National University design major professor, Joo-Yun Kim, Hongik University industrial design professor, Chul-Bae Lee, LG eletronics vice president, and Heung-Soo Jeon, Incheon Metropolitan City design manager awarded designs and concepts that were deemed innovative in terms of their formal/technological aspects as well as their social relevance.

The competition was hosted by Incheon Metropolitan City and organized by Incheon Business Agency.
Sponsors of this competition are: Ministry of Knowledge Economy of Korea, Korea Institute of Design Promotion, LG electronics, designflux, Incheon Industrial Design Association, and Incheon Design Company Association.

To stimulate new visions for the industry the International Council of Shopping Centers, Inc. (ICSC) is inviting industry professionals to envision what the architectural innovations of the shopping center of the future will be in 2029 to 2059 through its ‘Future Image’ Architecture Competition.

The ICSC “Future Image” Architecture Competition, which is open to all architecture professionals who are members of ICSC, encourages individuals to envision the shopping environment of the future, to inspire and entertain the retail real estate industry with out-of-the-box, innovative ideas that will progress the current understanding of the shopping experience. Ideas are not limited to design and architecture but may include any aspect—specific or general—of the retail continuum.

What elements will the shopping mall of the future contain?

Entries will be judged by a panel of professionals comprised of: Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture & Design at The Museum of Modern Art, and Professor of Architectural History in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University; Allison Arieff, New York Times “By Design” columnist and editor at large for Sunset magazine, and Reena Jana, Business Week “Innovation Department” editor and co-author of the book “New Media Art” (Taschen, 2006).  These individuals will choose winners in the following areas: The Mall Environment; The Shopping Experience; The Merchandise Mix; Dining and Entertainment; Parking and Transit; Green; and General Brilliance and Innovation.

All submissions in the competition will be exhibited in the Future Image Gallery during ICSC’s annual convention, RECon, in May 2009 in Las Vegas. The winners will be announced at the event. Entries are due by April 20, 2009.

Worldwide, 776 million people are illiterate. To address this crisis by providing access to a quality education for all children, there is an urgent need to upgrade the crumbling infrastructure of tens of millions of existing classrooms, and build ten million new classrooms. Meeting this challenge represents the largest building project the world has ever undertaken.

In response, Orient Global, Architecture for Humanity, and a consortium of partners have launched the “2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom”–a large-scale initiative to improve the design of classrooms around the world.

The Challenge invites the global design and construction community to collaborate with primary and secondary school teachers and students to create safer, healthier, and smarter learning environments. Teams can partner with a school of their choice or design a classroom for one of the Challenge’s school-building partners.

“Orient Global believes that education is the first step on the bridge to prosperity, yet it is inaccessible to many and is of poor quality for tens of millions,” said Richard F. Chandler, Chairman of Orient Global. “The 2009 Open Architecture Challenge is an exciting opportunity to better understand and serve the needs of schoolchildren worldwide, enhancing learning environments and delivering the knowledge and skills necessary to cross the bridge to a brighter future.”

“What sets this competition apart from others is that we are calling upon the design community to collaborate directly with schools to improve their own classrooms,” said Cameron Sinclair, executive director and co-founder, Architecture for Humanity. “By creating hundreds of locally appropriate and tangible solutions, we create a portfolio of designs for partners such as Orient Global and others to begin to scale globally.”

The winning school will receive up to $50,000 to build or improve its classrooms, and its design team will receive a $5,000 grant to help make it happen. The design competition will be judged by an international, interdisciplinary panel of experts in the fields of both education and architecture (including students themselves). The resulting entries will be available and accessible to all on the Open Architecture Network.

The challenge offers a companion design curriculum geared for primary and secondary age students hosted by online partner Curriki, as well as a series of video conferences between primary and secondary students and notable design professionals from around the world hosted by partner Global Nomads Group. These conversations will be shared on the Web during the submission period. By inviting design professionals to partner with schools, the challenge aims to inspire students around the world to become visionary architects and engineers of the future.

More About The Challenge

Launched on January 29, 2009, the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom is now open for registration until May 1, 2009. Entries are due June 1, 2009.

The Challenge is open to design professionals and non-professionals in partnership with primary and secondary school teachers and students. Entry fee is $25 per entry (fee waiver for entrants from developing nations).

The jury is made up of leaders in education and architecture (including students) to be hosted online and at the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival.

School Award: The winning entry will receive up to $50,000 to build or improve classrooms for their school.

Design Award: The winning design team will receive a grant of up to $5,000 to help their school build or improve classrooms.

Partners and Sponsors

Principal Partner: Orient Global

Sponsors: AMD 50×15 Initiative, Bezos Family Foundation, Google SketchUp, Graham Foundation, Irvin Stern Family Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts

Education Partners: Curriki, Global Nomads Group

School Building Partners: Orient Global, Building Tomorrow, Blazer Industries, The Modular Building Institute

Challenge Partners: The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS), Do Something, Dwell Magazine, Global Green USA, The Aspen Institute, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), The Council of Educational Facility Planners (CEFPI)

The Shaw Contract Group Design Is… Award is an award program that recognizes inspirational and visionary design. Seven winning projects chosen from entries submitted by firms from around the world were announced last August. As part of program’s benefits, winning firms each receive $2,000 to donate to a school or organization of their choice. Shaw Contract Group is proud to make donations in the names of the winning firms to support design education and the designers of tomorrow.

In its fourth year, the Design Is… Award seeks entrants to explain their definition of design. Entries are asked to describe the challenges, processes, and results from their projects, and will be judged by a panel of design experts. Because carpet is only a part of the project, the overall design of the space is considered. All design projects completed between February 2007 and February 2009 are eligible. 

Entry information is available at www.shawcontractgroup.com/designis. Project entries must be received by February 28, 2009. 

“Since its inception, the Design Is… Award program has elevated projects that deserve to be seen by the design community at large,” says John Stephens, vice president of marketing. “Shaw Contract Group is honored to have its carpet products play an integral role in each of these projects. We are proud that our winners have chosen these fine institutions to further support design education.” 

Last year’s winners and their donation recipients were:

• Envision Design (Washington, D.C.)—Department of Architecture, Virginia Tech;
• Gensler (Houston, TX)—College of Visual Arts and Design, University of North Texas; School of Architecture, University of Texas; 
• MCM Interiors (Vancouver, BC)—The Art Institute of Vancouver;
• Nell Studio & SABArchitects (Seattle, WA)—Department of Interior Design, Washington State University; 
• OWP/P (Chicago, IL)—School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan; 
• Partridge Architects (Philadelphia, PA)—Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Drexel University; 
• VOA Associates (Chicago, IL)—Turning Point, an outpatient mental healthcare center that provides care to all patients.

What do facility managers (fms) for hotels, dormitories, prisons, and hospitals all have in common? Mattresses, of course! And now, fms with an excess of used mattresses can transform this massive burden on the waste stream into something positive, thanks to a design competition sponsored by Architecture for Humanity and Rubicon National Social Innovations.

Discarded Dreams: Used Mattress Design Competition answers the question: What can you do with a million mattresses? Every year in the U.S. 40 million mattresses end up in landfills because they cannot be broken down and their component parts are hard to utilize. Until now.

In this competition, entrants are invited to create innovative ways of converting used mattresses into useful consumer products that can be manufactured on a larger scale. Entrants must create designs that take into account the volume of mattress waste generated each year. Prizes are $1,000 for first place, $500 for second place. Third place winners will receive Rubicon Bakery baked goods delivered to their door.

The winner/winners will also be invited to collaborate with Rubicon to design and execute a method of collecting and converting the mattresses into their value-added product, and potentially distributed for commercial use. This would be a unique opportunity to help an emerging social enterprise develop a product line with 100% reclaimed materials, create green-collar jobs, and support individuals in moving out of poverty.

The competition is open from now until December 5, 2008, which is the deadline for registration and submission. Winners will be announced in February 2009.