We are proud to share the video of the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom winner announcement at the Teton Valley Community School in Victor, Idaho. The design team and Challenge winner,
Section Eight [design], partnered with Teton Valley Community School to develop a holistic design that can be adapted and replicated in other schools.

IDEO, San Francisco, winners of the Urban Classroom Upgrade category in the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom will present a lunchtime lecture at SPUR, focused on their design for a school in a low income neighborhood in Hyderabad, India. The lecture will highlight the tremendous potential for design and the challenges faced in school design in the developing world. This session will be part of a larger Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom exhibition at SPUR, San Franciscio from January 12 - February 26, 2010. Stay tuned for more details.

Work for Design Like You Give a Damn 2 is underway. Please lend a hand by submitting nominations for projects that highlight breakthrough design solutions with the power and potential to improve our lives and the world. These designs may improve the human spirit, increase awareness of the environment, or respond to areas of need in the world, whether to provide shelter and clean water or address climate change and humanitarian crises. Click here to see the nomination entries to date.

Rain has graced the lands of Central Province in Kenya, transforming the landscape, and the Mahiga Hope Net-Positive Rainwater Court is feeding off the growth. The project is moving swiftly towards approvals in the coming weeks and construction by the first of the year.

Design Fellow, Greg Elsner, worked with the the inaugural class of Mahiga High School to lay out the court design as a preview for a recent site visit by the team from Architecture For Humanity and Mahiga Hope School partners, the Nobelity Project and 50x15.

Thank you to all who submitted the Challenge school survey. We are in the process of researching sustainable solutions for charter schools and working to expand that effort to more innovative ideas in education design. Starting with the charter school model, Architecture for Humanity is exploring sustainable design solutions (as well as financing models) which can translate to private and public schools.

Architecture For Humanity spent the week attending the Sports For Social Change Network Brazil conference in Sao Paulo. While in Brazil, Cameron Sinclair and Michael Jones from Architecture For Humanity joined Mel Young from Homeless World Cup and the team from Nike to meet with potential Community Partners and Architects for the GameChangers 2010 Homeless World Cup Legacy project.