A team of global designers and international thinkers participated in the selection for the inaugural Curry Stone Design Prize:

David Adjaye is a Ghanaian-born architect and the principal of Adjaye Associates based in London. In 2008, he was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his service to architecture. His most notable projects include his Idea Stores in Great Britain, the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado. His exhibit “Making Public Buildings” recently toured the United States. He has received the RIBA First Prize Bronze Medal. He is the author of David Adjaye Houses: Recycling, Reconfiguring, Rebuilding. He is currently working on a project to document each of Africa’s capital cities which will become a book and an exhibition in 2009.

John Hockenberry is a renowned news correspondent, author, and international journalist. His innovative storytelling in print and broadcast media has earned him four Emmys, four Peabodys, and two Columbia DuPont Awards for Journalism. He is the author of Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence (a memoir of his life as a foreign correspondent) and the novel, A River out of Eden. He is currently co-host with Adaora Udoji of a new morning news program, " The Takeaway," on National Public Radio.

Renny Ramakers is co-founder and owner of Droog Design, an internationally renowned Dutch design collective which designs and manufactures furniture and architectural features. Droog Design is a worldwide operation with a collection of more than 120 products and locations around the globe. Ms. Ramakers was educated as an art historian and has worked professionally as a design critic, curator, art director and cultural entrepreneur. She is the former editor in chief of items designmagazine. She won the Dedalus Prize for European Design, the George Nelson Design Award, Kho Liang Ie prize, and the Benno Premsela prize. She was named by CNBC as one of the Top 50 Innovators in Europe.

Michael Speaks is the Dean of the University of Kentucky College of Design. An educator, researcher, critic, and editor, Speaks has served numerous institutions here in the U.S. and abroad, including the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the Technological University at Delft, The Berlage Institute, Yale University, Harvard University, and the University of Michigan. He was the founding editor of the cultural journal Polygraph, a former editor at Architecture New York, former editor of a+u (Tokyo), and contributing editor for Architectural Record. Outside the classroom, Speaks has published and lectured internationally on art, architecture, urban design and scenario planning.

Clifford Curry is an Oregon-based architect who worked with developer William Colson to pioneer modern-day retirement facilities as affordable and livable communities. Curry is a 1970 alumnus of the University of Kentucky’s College of Architecture (now the UK College of Design). He is a co-founder of the Curry Stone Foundation, which makes grants to innovators working for public vitality.

David Mohney is the Curry Stone Chair in Design and Secretary to the Curry Stone Design Prize. He serves the jury in an ex-officio capacity. Mohney is the former Dean of the College of Design, serving from January 1994 to July 2007. He is a professor of Architecture at the University of Kentucky and teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs. He is the author of The Houses of Philip Johnson, Seaside: Making a Town in America, and The Louisville Guide, which he co-authored with other University of Kentucky faculty.

Chee Pearlman, Curry Stone Design Prize Advisor and Principal of Chee Company, presided over the deliberations.
http://www.cheecompany.com/

The Curry Stone Design Prize was assisted by the University of Kentucky undergraduate student research assistants for 2008: Louis Koehl, James F. Marcotte, Shylo Sheppard, Rebekah Schaberg, Tyler Zembrodt.

What the Jurors had to say about the 2008 Curry Stone Design Prize Finalists:

Shawn Frayne

“Guy gives me goose bumps to read about … exactly the kind of winner you want to recognize …”

“Exquisite, simple solution to the energy problem of a lot of people …”

“Everyone looks at energy in terms of massive wattage, massive capacity, centralized mini power plants in neighborhoods … he’s completely deconstructed that notion and provided a fabulous technological solution that he’s dying to put into social context … that’s the kind of project that an award like this enables”

“Innovation, market potential, clear impact on everyday lives of people …”

“Brilliant idea, undoubtedly transformative, absolutely enabled by this award …”

Wesley Janz

“Very compelling idea … an aesthetic statement of the ultimate aim of pro bono work … “

“Loved the clarity and simplicity of the idea of One Small Project … having a single architect engaged with a single person to solve a tangible problem … a beautiful restatement of an aesthetic that may feels like it’s second nature but in fact it’s not … A beautiful idea …”

“Elegant … scalable … simple … tangible …”

“A most compelling idea … beautiful, massively scalable, transformative …”

MMA Architects

“Ingenious … completely retools the problem … links the idea of prototyping with a very specific local context … the designers understand that the process facilitates people making these projects …”

“Absolutely brilliant! The idea is the tooling … A 21st century low-cost housing methodology: To wait for a disaster [for this type of housing] is stupid. The fact that we’re not waiting for a disaster is the brilliant key … ”

“It’s superintelligent!”

“Undoubtedly will have an impact, clearly enabled by award, question of low-cost housing methodology is something that’s scalable all over the world, not just in Africa ….”

Marjetica Potrc

“The power of her work is her ability to make you think and rethink about things and the way we do them … uses architecture to do that … something incredibly moving about her …”

“Some people are just a force in themselves, and it’s important to acknowledge that … “

“Embodies a personality that’s unique and inspirational to others … she has a bravery that is pure: ‘I do what I want to do, and I know I am going to solve this problem at the end of the day’ …”

“The poetry of her work combined with her humanitarian approach is so functional and so beautiful … so well done …”

“A practitioner to reward, the inspirer to reward … an artist and an architect … Certainly puts the prize in a different category …”

Antonio Scarponi

“We all liked Scarponi …”

“He’s like a sitemaster … creating a language, creating a mode of ornamentation and signification that is fundamentally new … just the kind of thing that will have an impact if supported …. You can suddenly not imagine a city not having some of this …”

“Important for the world to have Scarponi in it … “