Sportables
Enter by June 30, 2008
Sponsored by: Google SketchUp
Around the world nothing connects kids like the power of play. In areas of great need there is an opportunity to us sports as a catalyst for social change. Where these resources are scarce, we can create community access points to deliver vital services.
The Challenge: Create highly transportable and deployable play spaces that are sustainable infrastructure nodes
Project Location: Capao Redondo, Sao Paolo, Brazil
Submission Period: June 15 to June 30, 2008
Entry Fee: $0
Award: $1000 (1st Place), $500 (2nd Place), $250 (3rd Place)
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The Open Architecture Challenge
Next challenge: January 2009
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AMD Open Architecture Challenge

View Competition Video:
The Challenge by Turk Pipkin
Submission Period: September 2007 to February 2008
Registered Entries: 566
Qualified Entries: 263
Design Team Members: 849 representing 57 nations (38 developing nations)
Jury Members: 51
Community Jury Members: 80+
Community Partner Applications: 115 from 35 countries
Application Review Members: 40
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Media Inquiries:
Please visit our Press Room. |
2007 AMD Open Architecture Challenge: Digital Inclusion
Imagining a world without the Internet is nearly impossible. Despite the Internet’s global significance, less than 20 percent of the world’s 6 billion people currently have access to the educational, social and economic opportunities it can create.
The 2007 AMD Open Architecture Challenge invited the global community to help address this digital divide. It challenged design professionals and others to develop not one but many solutions for building sustainable, multi-purpose, low-cost technology facilities for those who need them most. As the winner of the 2007 AMD Open Architecture Challenge, The Global Studio will see their ideas come to life for SIDAREC in the heart of the Mukuru Kwa Njenga settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.
Challenge Clients:
Africa Challenge Site (selected site):
SIDAREC: A media lab and library will serve a staff of 7 and 250 youth
Top Ten Finalists | All Entries
Asia Challenge Site:
Nyaya Health: A clinic to serve a staff of 10 health care workers and 7,700 beneficiaries.
Top Ten Finalists | All Entries
South America Challenge Site:
Kallari Association: A chocolate factory and satellite technology hubs to serve 16 staff members and 800 families (5000+ individuals) living in 22 remote villages in the Amazon.
Top Ten Finalists | All Entries
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AMD Open Architecture Challenge Winners
Overall Competition Winner |

The Global Studio (Stephanie Ingram, Geoff Piper, Matthew Sullivan, Ashley Waldron)
Location: Seattle, WA, USA |
Regional Site Winners |
Africa Challenge
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Asia Challenge |
South America Challenge |

First Place Winner:
The Global Studio (Stephanie Ingram, Geoff Piper, Matthew Sullivan, Ashley Waldron)
Location: Seattle, WA, USA |

First Place Winner:
Max Fordham, LLP (Gwilym Still, David Hawkins, Bertie Dixon and Thomas Bailess) + Nick Lawrence
Location: London, UK |

First Place Winner:
Igor Taskov, Fernando Pagan, ChunSheh Teo, Heather Worrell
Locations: Nis, Serbia, San Juan, Puerto Rico and Indianapolis, IN, USA |
Finalists
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Africa Challenge
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Asia Challenge
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South America Challenge
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Second Place: Duvivier Architects
Venice, CA, USA |
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Third Place: KBAS Philadelphia, PA, USA |
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Second Place: Emre Can Yilmaz Istanbul, Turkey |
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Third Place/ Founders Award Studio Wikitecture Second Life |
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Second Place: zerOgroup [Laurent Troost] Manaos, Brazil |
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Third Place: HdlT Collaborative Seattle, WA, USA |
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Founders Award
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Studio Wikitecture
Location: Second Life |
About the Open Architecture Challenge:
Each year the Open Architecture Challenge harnesses the creativity and energy of the design community to address a different systemic issue facing those living in under served communities. The Open Architecture Challenge is an open, international design competition that reaches beyond the traditional bounds of architecture by challenging architects, designers and others to solve inequities in the built environment affecting the health, prosperity and well-being of under-served communities.
About the 2007 AMD Open Architecture Challenge:
The 2007 AMD Open Architecture Challenge focused on the issue of digital inclusion and tasked design teams to address the issues of facility design that prevent technology labs from succeeding. Three community partners were selected, one in each of three regions. Each site posed a unique set of design constraints and opportunities. While the needs of each client were unique, the hurdles they face in embracing technology to offer access to education, health care and the global marketplace are shared by millions of people in communities all over the world.
One overall winner of the competition has the opportunity to realize their design in partnership with the community partner. Additionally, each of the three winning teams receives a US$5,000 travel stipend to travel on site and work with the respective community organizations to further develop and refine the design. Architecture for Humanity is currently seeking additional funds to construct the solutions for the sites in Ecuador and Nepal.
The three site challenges for the 2007 AMD Open Architecture Challenge were:



South America
Community Partner: Kallari Association, Napo Province, Ecuador
Challenge: Connect a cooperative of indigenous chocolate producers and artisans in the Ecuadorian Amazon with the global marketplace by building a fair trade exchange, chocolate production center and satellite rural technology points. Learn more
Africa
Community Partner: SIDAREC, Nairobi, Kenya
Challenge: Empower the youth of Mukuru Kwa Njenga, an informal slum settlement of 250,000, to connect with other youth and create positive change in their community by building a technology media center and recording studio. Learn more
Asia
Community Partner: Nyaya Health, Sanfe Bagar, Nepal
Challenge: Enable families in a remote rural area of Nepal where there is only one doctor for a population of 250,000 to access to health care from top physicians and medical professionals all over the world by building a tele-medicine center. Learn more
Competition Links:
Community Review Process | Full list of Community Partner proposals | Jury Members |
Timeline |
FAQs | The Challenge (video)
Other Competitions
Currently we are adding a number of completed competitions and will be hosting a series of competitions to improve living standards. Additionally the Open Architecture Network will include a number of previously run competitions including:
Transitional Housing for Returning Refugees in Kosovo (1999)
Outreach: Mobile Health Facility to Combat HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa (2002)
Siyathemba Youth Sports Facility and HIV/AIDS Outreach Center (2004)
Shelter in a Cart: designboom social awareness award (2006)