From Competition Headquarters:

Dear Challenge Entrants,

Thank you so much for participating in the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom of the future. Your participation has been instrumental in making this challenge a success so far. This being our last update before the submission deadline on June 1st, 2009 (12.00 AM PST), we thought we could list out all the awards that we are giving (as we announced so many during the course of the challenge), a small incentive for taking on the challenge of changing the learning environment in schools around the world, from the rural areas of Uganda to the suburbs in Colorado and to the urban areas in India.

Before we list out all the awards, here are a few pointers for the submission. Please test out your project entry page by uploading files before the submission deadline, doing this does not mean that your project has been submitted. So please test out some uploads. Do keep in mind the Internet connection quality that you are using, it may take longer to upload files depending on the speed of the connection. In case you have any problems do email challenge@architectureforhumanity and we will guide you. Please do so before May 30th, 2009. Do note that after the submission deadline you will not be able to upload any files. And there are no alternative ways to submit your entries.

A reminder for those of you who have not updated your profile page and emailed Maria Toner with your school location details (if you are choosing the 'Partner with a school of your choice' category), please do so as soon as possible. We are asking you to do this because there are chances that more classroom designs may be funded. To give you a better sense of this opportunity, currently we have a possible funder who is interested in design entries from Vancouver, Canada. We are unable to take this forward as we cannot identify the design entries from Vancouver and we know that there are a few entries from there. So the Canadian entrants, who still have not responded, please do so and for those of you, who are not from Canada, please update your profile page, chances are your classroom design may be built even if it is not the winning entry.

Chapter members entering the challenge, write to challenge@architectureforhumanity with your chapter name and entrant id to be considered for the Chapter Award. Please put in ‘Chapter Award' as the email subject.

Finally here is the list of awards,

Design Prizes and Awards

Award: Winner for Best Classroom Design
Prize: Selected school is awarded $50,000 and design team $5,000

Award: Runner-ups for Best Classroom Design
Prize: Selected school is awarded $10,000 and design team $1,000
Note: Number of runners-up based on jury process

Design prize funding furnished by Orient Global

Technical Prizes and Awards

Award: Best design on the Open Architecture Network Freewheel Workspace
Prize: AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite 2009 (worth $6,720)

Award: Best Three Dimensional (3D) Sketch Model
Prize: Google SketchUp Pro 7. (worth $495)

Award: Best Three Dimensional (3D) Animation
Prize: AutoDesk 3DS Max 9 (worth $3,495)
Embed your animation using youtube. Prize-winner must send hi-res version to collect prize

Award: Best Photo-Realistic Rendering
Prize: Autodesk Maya Complete 10th Anniversary Edition (worth $2,590)

Award: Most Ecologically Designed Classroom
Prize: AutoCAD Revit 2009 with Autodesk Ecotect Analysis 2010 (worth $6,190)

Technical prizes furnished by AutoDesk and Google SketchUp

More awards

Best adaptation of design curriculum, Curriki
Prize: Two $500 awards

Ten copies of the Third Teacher to finalists

Best chapter entry: $1000 grant

Total Prizes = over $100,000 in funding and software.
Please note that design winners may also be winners of technical awards.

We know that many of you are interested in finding out who is on the jury for the challenge. For a comprehensive list of jury members and their bio, go to the jury page

As you prepare for the submissions, do to contact us (challenge@architectureforhumanity.org) with any questions that you may have. The challenge team is more than happy to help in making this process as smooth as possible.

The team at Architecture for Humanity (www.architectureforhumanity.org) is having a great time organizing the Classroom Challenge. We hope you all are having fun participating. It has been a fantastic journey so far and the challenge team thoroughly enjoyed interacting with all of you. Thank you for being wonderful participants. We look forward to fabulous design entries.

Good luck!
Sandhya + Challenge Team