On Thursday evening, May 1st, the architecture and design community will gather in San Francisco to celebrate this year's winner of the prestigious Metropolis Next Generation Design Prize.
The unique design competition, now in its fifth year, recognizes outstanding ideas from young architects and designers that make our built environment better, safer and more sustainable. The individual or team submitting the winning entry for the year is awarded $10,000. This year, entrants were asked to submit proposals relating to the timely issue of water.
"It's gratifying to see that the Next Generation competition, brings together viable ideas for making our world better. These designers are realistic, while they're amazingly innovative; they use the prize monies to develop their ideas further," notes the publisher of Metropolis, Horace Havemeyer III.
This year's winning project is from a San Francisco based architect and college professor. Specifics on the winning project, as well as other ten outstanding submissions chosen for runner-up recognition, will be revealed at the May 1st event.
"There is so much positive, creative energy out there and the Next Generation competition provides an unprecedented outlet for the next generation of ideas that will, literally, change our ideas of design," says Metropolis editor in chief Susan S. Szenasy. "Here is a generation genuinely concerned about sustainability--both environmental and social--and willing to do something positive about it. We applaud their courage and talent."
The judges for this year's Next Generation Design Competition were Lance Hosey, Director with William McDonough + Partners; Eric Chan, President of ECCO Design Inc.; Fiona Cousins, Principal and Mechanical Engineer at Arup; Pam Light, Senior Vice President with HOK. Szenasy moderated the deliberations.