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October 05, 2012
Metropolis Magazine Announces Annual Next Generation® Design Competition Call for Entries
Winning Design to be Awarded $10,000. Entry Deadline is February 18, 2013

July 25, 2012
Opening Games: Next Generation winner designs for London’s East End
London Mayor’s office has commissioned an urban installation called BLOOM Games, by Bartlett architecture professor and Next Generation winner Alisa Andrasek, for Victoria Park in the East End.

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The Architect's Newspaper
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Building Blocks

December 01, 2004

By Kristi Cameron

When, as a student of industrial design at Rhode Island School of Design, Roberta Wright was asked to conceive a profitable industry using waste from the local landfill, she uncovered a pattern in the messy heap. Plastics account for almost ten percent of the waste stream and construction debris nearly 50 percent, the vast majority of the latter coming from deconstruction and remodeling. Recycling plastics into reusable building components, she estimated, could potentially reduce construction debris by 75 percent. “It creates a cycle of reuse,” Wright says.

Her design, a kit of parts featuring a Lego-like brick, would be made of an immiscible polymer developed at Rutgers University, a combination of high-density polyethylene—a strong plastic used for motor oil and milk bottles—and polystyrene, the brittle stuff of CD covers and disposable cups. The superstrong polymer is rigid and sturdy enough for structural applications.

“Now that there are compostable bioplastics that can be used to make detergent bottles, something needs to be done with the plastics we already have,” Wright says. “When you deconstruct a house, a lot of the bricks still have mortar stuck to them and can’t be reused. These polymer bricks could be since they are connected by a joint, not mortar. The material lasts basically forever.”



January 21, 2009
The Freer Masons
Michael Silver’s new audio software liberates bricklayers from their paper plans.

January 12, 2009
A CASE in Point
2004 Next Generation Runner-up launches an original academic program

June 04, 2008
Growing Full Steam Ahead

November 01, 2007
Shelter from Taliesin to Manila

June 06, 2007
More on Molo
See what’s unfolding for a past runner-up

February 16, 2005
Updates: Forsythe + MacAllen, Lira Luis, Jeanine Centuori
Updates on 2004 Metropolis Next Generation® Design Competition runners-up Forsythe + MacAllen, Lira Luis, and UrbanRock Design/Jeanine Centuori.

December 22, 2004
Seattle Waterfront Plan Dealt Setback
Next Generation Design Competition runner-up Cary Moon and her People’s Waterfront Coalition were dealt a blow this week when Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced the city’s plan to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct with a six-lane tunnel.

December 01, 2004
A Place to Dock
Architect Lira Luis’s temporary shelter would give Manila seafarers someplace to come home to.

December 01, 2004
Flower Power
Landscape-architecture studio StoSS proposes a plan that uses phytoremediation to make brownfields into public gardens.

December 01, 2004
Reclaiming the River
Pete Seeger and friends promote a permeable swimming structure for the newly cleaned-up Hudson River.

November 22, 2004
A Backup Plan
When his study of leading task chairs revealed that most of them force the sitter into unhealthy postures, industrial designer Jeff Jenkins decided to start with healthy postures and work backward.

November 22, 2004
Improv Theater
Architects often espouse the idea of adaptability, but they rarely give it center stage.

November 10, 2004
Software Aims to Revamp Masonry Practice
Michael Silver, a 2004 Next Generation® Design Prize runner-up, and the International Masonry Institute are developing Automason, a software program that delivers precise instructions to on-site masons.

October 01, 2004
Do the Strand
Seattle activists suggest that the best plan for a troubled waterfront freeway may be to eliminate it.

August 01, 2004
Radiant Living
Emergent turns infrastructure into ornamentation with a concept house based on systems of circulation.

July 01, 2004
Mapping the Competition ‘04
Where did all these ideas for the Metropolis Next Generation Design competition come from?

July 01, 2004
Accordion Architecture
A Canadian firm’s material experiments produce flexible living spaces.

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