The city’s AIA chapter just opened registration for its third New Practices New York competition, which recognizes “new, innovative and emerging architecture firms within New York City that have utilized unique and commendable strategies—both in the projects they undertake and the practices they have established.”

To qualify, firms must have been founded after January 1, 2004, and must be located in New York City. The registration deadline is April 23, with submissions due on May 7. (There will be an information session for entrants next Tuesday, March 30, at the Center for Architecture.) View the call for entries [PDF] for more details.

The 2008 NPNY winners were Baumann Architecture, Common Room, David Wallance Architect, Matter Architecture Practice, Openshop Studio, and Urban A&O.

For a full list of design contests now accepting entries, visit our Competitions page.

Nice poster! Also, nice event! If you’re in New York April 2-3, be sure to check out Parsons’s annual Aftertaste symposium, “dedicated to critically reviewing the field of interior design; identifying pressing contemporary issues challenging practitioners today; meditating on the make-up of the interior environment and its constituents; and creating a dialogue between academic research and interior design practice.”

This year’s theme, “Moving In,” examines the current environmental, economic, and social pressures on interior design—and asks what ideas, skills, and areas of specialist knowledge are “moving in” to expand practice in response to those influences. The speakers include Claudy Jongstra, Kitty Hawks, Susan Yelavich, and Metropolis’s own Paul Makovsky and Susan Szenasy. The event is free and open to the public; click here for the full schedule.
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Related: We put Claudy Jongstra on our cover back in August 2005. In 2007, Susan Yelavich talked to Paul Makovsky about the state of interior design. Kitty Hawks has answered our Text Message questionnaire and reflected on the 50th anniversary of the Four Seasons.

Hard to believe but true: It’s already time to start making plans for this year’s ICFF, the nation’s premier trade show for contemporary furniture, which takes place each May in New York’s lovely Javits Center. This year, the four-day fair begins Saturday, May 15; and, as in years past, ICFF Monday will feature a day-long conference organized by your humble servants here at Metropolis.

The 2010 theme is Design Entrepreneurs: What’s Next, with leaders from a range of design disciplines talking about how they’re reinventing their businesses and remaining creative (and socially-conscious) in the new economy. The speakers will include Valerie Fletcher on universal design; Foster + Partners’ Jürgen Häpp on the Abu Dhabi zero-carbon ecotopia Masdar City; WORKac’s Dan Wood on his firm’s Edible Schoolyard in Brooklyn; Yves Béhar on a line of student-designed solar-cell products; this year’s Next Generation honorees on their brilliantly simple fixes for the design environment; and several others. Click here for the full conference schedule.

This year’s conference is sponsored by the American Society of Interior Designers, Dornbracht, and Interiors from Spain. For video of last’s year’s Metropolis Conference at ICFF, click on over to our Multimedia site—or check out the one-minute teaser below. Read more…

With snow blanketing the Northeast, and Presidents Day just around the corner, many of us can expect to have a little extra time on our hands this weekend. Maybe too much extra time—after all, you can only spend so many hours wrapped in your Snuggie sipping hot cocoa before cabin fever sets in. Which is why we wanted to take a moment to remind our readers of the numerous design competitions that are now accepting entries—including a few with deadlines coming up in the next week. If you need a project to work on this weekend, here are a dozen particularly worthy-sounding contests. (For a more complete, and frequently updated, roster of design competitions, be sure to check out our online Events section.)

Competition Competition 2010
Architizer.com is running a new kind of architectural award: one that chooses its winner from the losing competition entries of 2009. Every year architects submit thousands of projects to competitions without receiving recognition or compensation for their work; this award is a do-over. Entrants are only required to upload three images, a text description, and credit information for the entire team. Submissions will be evaluated solely on their architectural merit, not on the criteria of the original competition for which they were created.
Submission deadline: February 15

IDEA: International Design Excellence Awards
The IDEA program is a premier international competition honoring design excellence in products, eco-design, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research, and concepts. Entries are invited from designers, students, and companies worldwide.
Submission deadline: February 15

Your Great Green Places
The National Building Museum is calling on architects, planners, landscape architects, students, and the general public to grab a video camera, or even a cell phone, and document great green places in their communities. Films should be no longer than six minutes and should investigate what works as the local neighborhood’s “Great Green Place.” Selected videos will be screened during the D.C. Environmental Film Festival, in March.
Submission deadline: February 15

City of Dreams Pavilion Competition
This is an international competition to design and build a pavilion as a central gathering place on Governors Island, in New York. Entrants are asked to consider how they will construct this temporary structure in the most efficient and sustainable way possible. The goal is to create a pavilion that has net-zero impact and that serves as a prototype for a new, truly sustainable way of thinking about design and construction.
Registration deadline: February 16; submission deadline: February 23

Read more…

Recently, our editor in chief wrote about a free e-waste pickup program put into effect in New York this month by The 4th Bin. Considering that the city threw out some 250,000 tons of electronic waste in 2005, it’s an important and much-needed service. There was only one hitch with the initial plan: the pickups were limited to Manhattan. This morning, however, the 4th Bin announced that it will begin servicing  NYC’s most populous borough later this month. Brooklynites and Manhattanites looking to safely dispose of any unwanted or outdated electronic equipment can schedule a pick-up online using this form. But don’t procrastinate: the deadline for signing up is January 15.

Previously: Recycle Your E-Waste in Manhattan—For Free

Did you know that you can earn continuing-education credits just by reading Metropolis stories? It’s true! Simply visit our CE page, pick a course—there are AIA registered ones for architects and IDCEC approved choices for interior designers—and complete an online participant exercise. Just this afternoon we added a new course that is AIS/CES registered for one learning-unit hour: “Radical Green,” by Suzanne LaBarre, from the October 2009 issue of the magazine. Questions? Send us an e-mail at ce@metropolismag.com.

If you live on Manhattan island and you’re feeling as guilty as I am for throwing out your old laptop and other electronic devices—or hoarding them in your small apartment because you don’t want to add toxic chemicals to landfills here or in China—relief is coming soon. Starting January 4 and continuing all month, you can opt in to free e-waste pickups either at your home or at your place of business. The program is being instituted by The 4th Bin, the folks who sponsored the successful 4th Bin competition last fall (check out my note on the winners). All you need to do is fill out the forms posted on their site, and you’ll learn what happens next.

In addition, the group is working with City Harvest, the organization that feeds 1.4 million New Yorkers from high-quality foods donated by restaurants, farms, and manufacturers. To that end, The 4th Bin will take your old cell phones and PDAs and direct any proceedings from these collected devices to the well-regarded food bank; click here for details.

In 2005, New York City alone threw out some 250,000 tons of electronic trash. That’s a frightening number when you think about e-waste’s potential for poisoning our groundwater, as well as for squandering some highly-sought-after industrial materials like copper. Behind the new bin design and the upcoming collection program is Valiant Technology, a young tech-support firm founded seven years ago by four socially conscious friends. Their initiative was originally propelled by the city’s announcement that, come July 1, 2010, our e-waste will need to be recycled (the sanitation department will no longer pick up your old TVs, computers, cell phones, other electronic gadgets.) This program will surely have resonance in other cities just as rich in e-waste as we are here in New York. What’s your solution?

Update: NYC E-Waste Pickups Expand to Brooklyn

Designers who expect to have some extra time on their hands this holiday season should be sure to check out our regularly updated online competitions listings. Several major contests have deadlines coming up in the New Year, including:
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ICFF Studio
Selected designers win a spot to display their prototypes at next May’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair, where they’ll get help connecting with potential manufacturers, retailers, and the press.
Submission deadline: January 15

Red Dot Design Awards
The prestigious international awards are now soliciting entries from product designers.
Registration deadline: January 22; “early bird” registration: December 4

Next Generation Design Competition
Our annual design ideas competition. This year we’re asking entrants to provide one small (but brilliant and elegant) fix for the designed environment.
Submission deadline: January 29

View more competitions

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And if you’re a New York–area architect who’s been putting off those pesky continuing-education courses until the last minute, fear not: the Center for Architecture is putting on its annual Procrastinators’ Days next week, where you can earn up to  22 HSW AIA/CES credits over three days. Register at aiany.org/procrastinators.

Don’t forget that architects and interior designers can also earn continuing-education credits just by reading Metropolis stories. (Well, okay, you have to fill out a multipe-choice quiz too.) Check out Metropolismag.com/ce for the latest courses.