The Mobile Activation Station by Holobiont

The Mobile Activation Station designed by Holobiont (Haruka Horiuchi & Frank Hebbert) has been selected as the winner by our three esteemed judges – Raul Smith Correa of ‘Faiscas‘, Soo-in Yang of ‘The Living’ and Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai. They win a grand or $1000 to make their idea come to life. The Mobile Activation Station is a portable reconfigurable table with built-in power distribution, lighting and storage. It turns empty stores into communal spaces. Once built, the Station will be available for short-term use in vacant storefronts along Rogers Avenue in Crown heights, Brooklyn.

The Bus Roots Project by Marco Antonio Castro Cosio

The second favorite project for the judges especially Soo-in is the Bus Roots Project by Marco Antonio. Bus Roots is a living garden on the roots of city buses. It brings life to a forgotten space and provides humans with a reminder to pause and let naturte help lead a healthier life.

Traffic Cones into Flower Receptacles by Daniel Ebuehi

The third favorite project for the judges, especially for Raul Smith Correa is the project by Daniel Ebuehi from Philadelphia. In an attempt to bring vitality as well as sustainability directly into the streets of Philadelphia – literally in the middle of the street – this scheme transforms the ubiquitous traffic cone into a flower receptacle that can be assembled to form a garden retreat.

Our special thanks to the third and final judge who helped us make the final decision – Bijoy Jain from Studio Mumbai.

This competition would not have been possible without the generous contributions from these amazing people and friends :
Ravisharon Kaur
Ramakrishnan Subramanian
Rahul Pande
Kiran Kannacheri
Saravanakumar Velayudham
Sameer Kumar
Keerthik Sasidharan
Saad Tabani
Ritwik Dey
Giana Gonzalez
Sonali Sridhar
Jairam Ranganathan
Amit Desai
Priyanka Gupta
Shweta Mudgal

A Grand Idea -Inhabit Section competition culminated on June 17th. A lot of  interesting entries came pouring in from all round the world. The ones published are a few that stood out. Our judges Raul Smith Correa from FAISCAS and Soo-in Yang from The Living are going over the entries and plan to pick a winner soon. The winner gets to develop a prototype of their design using $1000.

Vid de Gleria & Ziga Kresevic – Urban Rebagers

Robin Liu – Popup Bookstore

Haruka Horiuchi & Frank Hebbert – Mobile Activation Station

Jirawit Yamkleeb – Double Take

Marco Antonio Castro – Bus Roots

Hiroyuki Ichihara – The benches of Tsuchibokasi

Robyne Kassen – Monkey Bar Bike Racks

Jurriaan de Brujin – Metro

Yusuke Sakuma & Akihito Matsushita – Forest Bath

Dominik Chung – Park Hill, Sheffield

Daniel Ebuehi – Construction Cones

If you would like to see more than one design to come to life, please make a donation. The donations are tax deductible.

If you would like to see more than one design to come to life, please make a donation. The donations are tax deductible.

What is this competition about?
This competition is focused on design solutions that can change our immediate urban environment into places that we can truly inhabit. The first series of ‘The Grand Idea Initiative’ is called ‘INHABIT‘. The ultimate challenge of which is to create solutions that introduce fun, sustainable, and innovative ways people use public space. The intervention can be components that are spatial, graphical, digital or purely strategic. These ideas have to be US $1000 in budget and need to maximize the return in the shape of a built design solution.

Who should apply?
Anyone – You could be an architect, designer, a mad scientist, a housewife, a student or anyone else interested in making cool stuff for public spaces.

What kind of projects can be submitted?
Projects could be aimed at designing street furniture, environmental graphics, services, online communities, anything that changes peoples behavior to how a public space gets utilized.

Submission requirements
A photograph of the Site – The place of your intervention, preferably in your neighborhood
The Proposal – A 100 word design brief describing your project.
The Design – Your proposal in a visual format, e.g. sketches, drawings, photo collages, anything that clearly outlines what you propose to do.
The Budget & Timeline – Breakdown of the usage of the US $1000. A tentative installation/implementation timeline.

Please send all these requirements in a letter size PDF format. The number of pages in the PDF document should not exceed more that 4 pages.

What is the budget?
US $1000

Selection process
The selection of the final project will be based on creativity, innovative thinking, maximum impact and practical plan for implementation.

Our judges are -

Raul Correa Smith
Co-founder, FAISCAS
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture, Columbia University GSAPP

Raul Corrêa-Smith is a co-founder of Faiscas, a two-way cultural exchange channel geared towards boosting the architectural imagination between New York and Rio de Janeiro. Established in 2009 through Columbia University’s Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Faiscas is an evolving hub for the facilitation of such exchanges. Raul earned his BA from the Taubman School of Architecture at the University of Michigan in 1998 and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University’s GSAPP in 2002 with Honors for Excellence in Design. Born in New York City and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Raul currently resides in NYC where he works at Studio Daniel Libeskind and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia’s GSAPP.

Soo-in Yang
Co-Founder of The Living

Soo-in Yang created The Living with David Benjamin in 2004. Using an open-source, collaborative approach, the architecture firm designs both handheld interfaces and urban-sized buildings. Work by The Living has received multiple international awards and has been exhibited and published widely. Their current projects include a 50,000 square meter mixed-use development in New Jersey, and a floating network of pods in New York’s rivers that sense water quality and presence of fish, then display a cloud of light that changes colors according to environmental conditions. Yang graduated from Yonsei University with a BE in Architectural Engineering and received Master of Architecture degrees from Columbia University. Yang teaches at Pratt Institute and at Columbia University, where he is the co-director of the Living Architecture Lab.

Where should the entries be sent?
Send your PDF attachments to agrandidea@designwala.org. Please include your name and contact information in the body of the email as well as on the PDF document. The subject line should be “Inhabit Competition Submission”.

Important Dates
Inhabit Competition kicks off – May 17th 2010
Deadline for Submissions – June 17th 2010
Winners Announced – July 17th 2010

For more information
Contact us at info@designwala.org

This competition would not have been possible without the generous contributions from these amazing people and friends :
Ravisharon Kaur
Ramakrishnan Subramanian
Rahul Pande
Kiran Kannacheri
Saravanakumar Velayudham
Sameer Kumar
Keerthik Sasidharan
Saad Tabani
Ritwik Dey
Giana Gonzalez
Sonali Sridhar
Jairam Ranganathan
Amit Desai
Priyanka Gupta
Shweta Mudgal

Other things to keep in mind
* This competition is open to people from all countries
* Since public intervention laws are different in different countries, please choose sites that have the potential to grow without   upsetting any stringent legality.
* The project money is NOT prize money but money to build something small and useful

About the Grand Idea Initiative
A Grand Idea Initiative is a 5 part series competition – INHABIT, LEARN, ORGANIZE, HEAL & SUSTAIN. The rest of the competitions will take place as soon as we raise the prize money for them.

Watch the trailer for ‘The Grand Idea Initiative’.

We have raised close to $913 dollars for the Inhabit section but still need to raise money for LEARN, ORGANIZE, HEAL and SUSTAIN. Make them happen. Donate!

What is ‘A Grand Idea’ Initiative ?
A Grand Idea’ initiative is a competition series that is geared towards creating design solutions for social change that cost upto a grand or a thousand dollars. The competition is a five part series that involves designing for the following topics – INHABIT, LEARN, ORGANIZE, HEAL & SUSTAIN. The first series for this call for ideas is INHABIT that involves designing a product, program or service to create friendly, safe and community oriented urban spaces. See competition details here.

What kind of design solutions are you talking about ? Can you give examples ?
The design solutions could be a product, a service, a campaign, a kiosk, or anything that helps solve any of the problems that address the above stated categories. Here are some good examples for the kind of ideas we are looking for -

1. LEARN – Learning Landscapes – Playground system for elementary math education
2. HEAL – Antivirus – A cap to protect against infectious needles
3. INHABIT – Phone Booth turned into world’s smallest lending library
4. ORGANIZE – The Pink Chaddi Campaign
5. SUSTAIN – Street Swags – Bed and a bag designed to provide more comfort, warmth and protection from weather for people living on the street.

How do we support this campaign ?
Designwala.org needs your help raising $5000 to make this competition happen. Please click the donate button to donate an amount. You do not need a paypal account, a credit card will suffice. Also, pass this along to anyone you think would be interested in the cause and would want to support us. For more information write to us at info@designwala.org

Are the donations tax deductible?
Designwala is not a registered 501c3 organization but is being supported by SEVA which is a registered non profit so the donations are tax deductible. I want to take this opportunity to thank Sharon and Gurpal, the devoted community organizers who run SEVA, which is a immigrant advocacy project.

How will the donations be put to use?
The winner for each category will be given a grand or a thousand dollars to create a prototype of their design to kickstart the process of design for social good. These prototypes would be sent to organizations working in related sectors in India to initiate collaboration and further development of the idea.