[Fanfare – dun dundun dunnnn!]

I am proud to announce that the first annual Life of an Architect ‘Playhouse Design Competition’ was an amazing and certifiable success!!

The playhouse design competition is coming to a close – we had the first round of judging last week, making this initial round of cuts was not easy. With registrations coming in from over 250 people from around the world – 14 different countries to be exact – I am overwhelmed and very happy with the response. I spent some time to make a graphic map that would indicate which countries had registrants (shown green) and the approximate location of each entrant (indicated with a red dot). I know everyone would like me to just cut to the end and announce who has advanced to this weeks final live jury round … but I need just another moment of your time.

When I started Life of an Architect back in January 2010, I had no idea what to expect or where this little experiment of mine would go. I wanted to connect with like minded individuals and see if I could communicate in a meaningful way using some new technology. I’d say it has been a smashing success but if nothing else, I have made connections and friends all over the world, some of you might even receive requests to play tour guide and host when I come to your city. Using this new platform, I thought it would be interesting to harness the charitable goodness that most people seem to have and host a design competition that would benefit children by designing, building, and raffling off playhouses.

.

To keep things fair, I was not a part of this first round go judging since I knew some of the people how had submitted entries. There were a lot of entries that were worthy of advancing but based on the 250+ registrants, we capped the number of playhouses advancing to twenty. And remember, of these twenty, two will be built!

In no particular order, here are the twenty entries that have been advance to the live jury round:

.

The Modern Lemon Playhouse – entry by Matthew Kimball

.

3 Part Playhouse – entry by Josh Ward

.

Peel.a.boo Playhouse – entry by Travis Durant

.

The Board Game Playhouse – entry by Doug Burke and Steve Johnson

.

Playhouse Broadway – entry by Eugene Alforque

.

The Treeless Treehouse – entry by Katie Friesen, Kevin Brown, and Ed Gorleski

.

Summer Fun House – entry by Douglas Gliedt

.

Alice’s Card Shop Playhouse – entry by Paraskevi Papasotiriou

.

Beacon Playhouse – entry by Peter Christensen

.

Light Stripes Playhouse – entry by Henrique Barros-Gomez

.

Collector House – entry by Leslie Robinson

.

Creativi TeePee Playhouse – entry by Lexie Lowers

.

TunnelHouse Playhouse – entry by Scott McPherson

.

The Garden Cube – entry by Preston Croxford

.

lil’ Man Cave Playhouse – entry by Luke Archer and Marvin Moss

.

Screen. Play – entry by Dylan Fuller

.

The Shape Sorter Playhouse – entry by Dylan Fuller

.

Tower House – Loren Johnson

.

Nooks and Crannies Playhouse – entry by Bogdan Tomalevski and Tarek Abdel Ghaffar

.

Under the Big Top – entry by Allison Moore

So there you have it – congratulations to the folks advancing on to the live jury round where 2 of these entries will be selected to be built and donated to Dallas CASA where they will be raffled off. My deepest thanks to all those who participated, the excellent showing from this years competition gives me a good feeling for what to expect and hopefully that will translate into building more playhouses next year.

(in case you are new to Life of an Architect – here is a little information on Dallas CASA, and the volunteers that donate their time to abused and neglected children)

..

Information on Dallas CASA

Dallas CASA (which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates) is a nonprofit organization of community volunteers trained and supervised to serve as voices in court for abused and neglected children. On any day in Dallas County, there are nearly 2,000 children waiting for a safe place to live. Many times the CASA volunteer is the only constant in the child’s life during this very difficult process. Parade of Playhouses raises funds for Dallas CASA to continue serving more children who need safe, permanent homes where they can thrive.

.

Special Thanks to:

This is the second year in a row that AUI Contractors has stepped up and funded the construction of several of these playhouses. I became familiar with AUI thanks to Tim Guedry, a friend of mine dating back to high school who is now the Director of Commercial Construction Services for AUI. Considering that I am primarily a residential architect, their financial commitment speaks to how much they care about the work Dallas CASA is doing in the community.

.

.

.