Google has teamed up with the Guggenheim Museum to create a design competition to design a “simple shelter for a specific geographic location anywhere in the world.” Contestants will use Google’s SketchUp, Google earth, and Google 3D Warehouse to design, geo-locate, and upload their projects.
Today is the birthday of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and the competition is inspired by Wright’s assignment for his own apprentices. Sketchup Product Evangelist Aidan Chopra explains, “If you wanted to study to be an architect with Wright, you had to design and build a shelter in the desert outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Then you had to live and study in it.”
Luckily for contestants, the shelters in the competition are only in the virtual world. You can learn a little more about it by watching the following two-minute clip:
Contestants have until August 23rd to enter their designs. The official competition page can be found here. To enter, you have to share the following information:
– info about yourself (name, email, country, etc.)
– description of your shelter
– link to your SketchUp model on Google 3D Warehouse
– 1-4 JPEG images of your shelter
– link to a video of your shelter on YouTube (optional but encouraged)
Entries should provide a place where someone could study and sleep. They can be anywhere on Earth, and should be no more than 100 square feet, no taller than 12 feet, and should not include water, gas, or electricity.
Judging is based on relationship of shelter to the environment around it, innovative design, thoughtful use of materials, adherence to project specs, and quality of SketchUp model.
There are two prizes that will be awarded. The first one is the “People’s Prize.” For this, students from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture will choose 10 shelters, and from those, the public will select one. The second one is the “Juried Prize,” which is chosen by a panel of architecture and design experts.
Both prizes include airfare and two nights’ accommodation for two in New York City, a behind the scenes tour of the Guggenheim Museum (as well as Google’s NYC office), a complimentary admission to selected NYC museums, and a Google SketchUp Pro 7 license. The winner of the Juried Prize will also get a thousand bucks.
