At LB's request see here I am creating a thread about the Curry Stone Prize.
A brief intro via Steven Ward "had a wonderful time last evening at a reception for the finalists for the curry stone prize which will be conferred today. the three i got to meet (shawn and research partner, marjetica, and antonio) were excited but also tired from their travels from hong kong, slovenia, and italy respectively. the duo from south africa were not able to get visas and janz wasn't there. it's very fun to talk to passionate people about their work and what THEY think they're doing and how they're going about it.
this prize is also a great story. both mr curry and ms stone were there last night. mr curry is a graduate of the arch school at kentucky who has had his practice in oregon for many years and, at some point, had opted to take equity in some of his projects rather than payment. this turned out well for him (a lesson for us?), and he and ms stone were determined to make a meaningful gift - something that they could see make a difference.
david mohney, former dean at kentucky, offered his help. mr curry and ms stone didn't want their names on a building: 'anyone can do that.' but they had admired afh's 'design like you give a damn' and they told dean mohney 'this is what we want to do'. so the award is meant to honor work toward a 'specific design solution that has the potential to create beneficial change and vital community'.
an exciting award to be coming out of kentucky! it's great that they've attached it to the annual ideafestival that has been so successful here and that afh is involved as well. a really nice pulling together of several threads. i'll let you guys know who wins this afternoon..."
From the Prize's official website
"Our goal is to make the talents of leading designers available to broader segments of society and to inspire the next generation of designers to harness their ingenuity and craft for social good."
This years Winners and Finalists will be announced/discussed at the Louisville Idea Festival Sept-25th-27th
the winners of the 1st annual curry stone prize were mma architects of south africa, accepted via video by luyanda mphahlwa, principal.
but i'll get back to that.
rushing from work, i got there just as things were starting. neither got a particularly good seat, nor got to visit with anyone before the event began. my vantage point was better for the big screens than the speakers themselves, so some of the pix here are from the screen. sorry.
i'll also forego descriptions of the work, because you can find that elsewhere. the blurbs above from the almost-real-time blogging the festival is doing are pretty good, too. i'll just give the rundown to give context for my (not-so-good-but-serviceable) pictures.
dean mohney introduced the prize and what it was about but quickly passed the baton to cliff curry who described the creation of the award to the audience.
dean michael speaks then gave the formal description of the award mission and announced the winner.
emiliano gandolfi began a discussion, describing the importance of this prize in the context of a 21stC world demographic condition and the growing concentration of urban peoples in informal settlements rather than the 20thC formal urban condition, then inviting each finalist to describe the recognized work as precursor to a panel discussion.
shawn frayne was first, introducing his invention, the windbelt, and the company, humdinger, that he has built around it.
next up, wes janz, describing his work taking students to places in distress, engaging with the communities, and helping start their road to making good, livable shelter.
moderator gandolfi gave a presentation of the work of the winners, mma: again, community-built and community-building housing construction using local available materials.
marjetica potrc described projects both in venezuela and detroit, both about finding out what needs communities had and bringing those local agendas to fruition. example projects: a community dry toilet in caracas and wind power for an urban high-school/farm run by single mothers in detroit.
favorite quote: 'freedom, instead of the opportunity to choose a product or an object, in the 21st century, should mean freedom to choose a responsibility.'
last was antonio scarponi exhibiting his 'information design' projects, some of which are based on what wired mag might call crowd-harvesting. he presented mapping that had been manipulated to illustrate relative populations relative to different phenomena, rather than the typical relationship of information mapped on a land-mass that has no relation to how many people it affects. example: a map of internet connection, in which a pixel is 1000 people - usa looms large, africa almost disappears. his 'dreaming wall' is a real-time, uncensored urban message board for global messaging.
in the ensuing discussion many topics related to infrastructure, housing, the power of people when given access to communication media, etc, were discussed.
great comment from wes janz: 'designers like to talk about changing things, change - in some cases MASSIVE CHANGE - in how we might live our lives. but i challenge my students to think about what dramatic change would actually mean in their own lives. how might they feel about that?'
finally, the gracious video acceptance from mr mphahlwa.
aaaaaand - at this point i had to leave to meet my girls. a great event, not much new information for designers who have tended to talk about a lot of these issues for a while (especially those of us familiar with cameron/afh) but a good exhibition of people who are not just talking but doing - committing their lives and their talents to ideas for meaningful improvements in the lives of people, not just change for the sake of change.
Great wrap-up, Steven! Guess I better bring my camera so I can do similar for Bjarke Engels (sp?). Wish I had been there for the award, but yeah - see you tomorrow!
Curry Stone Prize-Idea Festival Lousiville
At LB's request see here I am creating a thread about the Curry Stone Prize.
A brief intro via Steven Ward
"had a wonderful time last evening at a reception for the finalists for the curry stone prize which will be conferred today. the three i got to meet (shawn and research partner, marjetica, and antonio) were excited but also tired from their travels from hong kong, slovenia, and italy respectively. the duo from south africa were not able to get visas and janz wasn't there. it's very fun to talk to passionate people about their work and what THEY think they're doing and how they're going about it.
this prize is also a great story. both mr curry and ms stone were there last night. mr curry is a graduate of the arch school at kentucky who has had his practice in oregon for many years and, at some point, had opted to take equity in some of his projects rather than payment. this turned out well for him (a lesson for us?), and he and ms stone were determined to make a meaningful gift - something that they could see make a difference.
david mohney, former dean at kentucky, offered his help. mr curry and ms stone didn't want their names on a building: 'anyone can do that.' but they had admired afh's 'design like you give a damn' and they told dean mohney 'this is what we want to do'. so the award is meant to honor work toward a 'specific design solution that has the potential to create beneficial change and vital community'.
an exciting award to be coming out of kentucky! it's great that they've attached it to the annual ideafestival that has been so successful here and that afh is involved as well. a really nice pulling together of several threads. i'll let you guys know who wins this afternoon..."
From the Prize's official website
"Our goal is to make the talents of leading designers available to broader segments of society and to inspire the next generation of designers to harness their ingenuity and craft for social good."
This years Winners and Finalists will be announced/discussed at the Louisville Idea Festival Sept-25th-27th
Archinect has covered some of the finalists before
See;
Wes Janz
Shawn Frayne
from the ideafestival instant blog: http://ideafestival.typepad.com/my_weblog/
the winners of the 1st annual curry stone prize were mma architects of south africa, accepted via video by luyanda mphahlwa, principal.
but i'll get back to that.
rushing from work, i got there just as things were starting. neither got a particularly good seat, nor got to visit with anyone before the event began. my vantage point was better for the big screens than the speakers themselves, so some of the pix here are from the screen. sorry.
i'll also forego descriptions of the work, because you can find that elsewhere. the blurbs above from the almost-real-time blogging the festival is doing are pretty good, too. i'll just give the rundown to give context for my (not-so-good-but-serviceable) pictures.
dean mohney introduced the prize and what it was about but quickly passed the baton to cliff curry who described the creation of the award to the audience.
dean michael speaks then gave the formal description of the award mission and announced the winner.
emiliano gandolfi began a discussion, describing the importance of this prize in the context of a 21stC world demographic condition and the growing concentration of urban peoples in informal settlements rather than the 20thC formal urban condition, then inviting each finalist to describe the recognized work as precursor to a panel discussion.
shawn frayne was first, introducing his invention, the windbelt, and the company, humdinger, that he has built around it.
next up, wes janz, describing his work taking students to places in distress, engaging with the communities, and helping start their road to making good, livable shelter.
moderator gandolfi gave a presentation of the work of the winners, mma: again, community-built and community-building housing construction using local available materials.
marjetica potrc described projects both in venezuela and detroit, both about finding out what needs communities had and bringing those local agendas to fruition. example projects: a community dry toilet in caracas and wind power for an urban high-school/farm run by single mothers in detroit.
favorite quote: 'freedom, instead of the opportunity to choose a product or an object, in the 21st century, should mean freedom to choose a responsibility.'
last was antonio scarponi exhibiting his 'information design' projects, some of which are based on what wired mag might call crowd-harvesting. he presented mapping that had been manipulated to illustrate relative populations relative to different phenomena, rather than the typical relationship of information mapped on a land-mass that has no relation to how many people it affects. example: a map of internet connection, in which a pixel is 1000 people - usa looms large, africa almost disappears. his 'dreaming wall' is a real-time, uncensored urban message board for global messaging.
in the ensuing discussion many topics related to infrastructure, housing, the power of people when given access to communication media, etc, were discussed.
great comment from wes janz: 'designers like to talk about changing things, change - in some cases MASSIVE CHANGE - in how we might live our lives. but i challenge my students to think about what dramatic change would actually mean in their own lives. how might they feel about that?'
finally, the gracious video acceptance from mr mphahlwa.
aaaaaand - at this point i had to leave to meet my girls. a great event, not much new information for designers who have tended to talk about a lot of these issues for a while (especially those of us familiar with cameron/afh) but a good exhibition of people who are not just talking but doing - committing their lives and their talents to ideas for meaningful improvements in the lives of people, not just change for the sake of change.
thanks sw. see you tomorrow! i m comin down with the queen of archinect. i will be windblown!!!
Great wrap-up, Steven! Guess I better bring my camera so I can do similar for Bjarke Engels (sp?). Wish I had been there for the award, but yeah - see you tomorrow!
"his 'dreaming wall' is a real-time, uncensored urban message board for global messaging. "
I love a good dreaming wall.
participate in it: http://www.dreamingwall.net/
read about it: http://www.conceptualdevices.com/ENG/dreamingwall/index.html
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