Out of over 100 entries from 25 Countries our jury has narrowed the field down to these top 12 semi-finalists.

Now it's your turn. Click here to view the entries and vote for your favorite.

Safe Trestles is a global design contest, organized by the non-profit Architecture for Humanity, to develop a safe and low-impact solution to access Trestles, one of North America’s most prized waves and home to the 6.0 Lowers Pro surf event. Currently, over 100,000 people each year follow informal trails through marshlands and over active train tracks to gain access to the surf breaks at Trestles. These impromptu manmade paths present a safety hazard with passing trains and threaten the marine habitat that is home to a number of endangered animal species and important flora.

You've by now seen a few reports from Architecture for Humanity. These come from a small team of folks on the ground helping coordinate school construction and long-term recovery of Haiti. Most of the images–and stories–come from this man: Eric Cesal (pronounced "say-sall"). Despite his Miami-Vice demeanor at the office (okay okay–you can blame the west-facing window bank, the mosquitoes, or the sweltering heat), our Regional Program Manager comes to Port-au-Prince with a wealth of practical and leadership experience:

Eric is a designer, builder, analyst and writer. A native of Washington, D.C., Eric did his undergraduate studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and achieved a Masters in Architecture, a Masters in Construction Management and an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) from Washington University in St. Louis. In between he did his professional practice in Washington, D.C., working primarily on educational and institutional projects.

Architecture for Humanity and The Salvation Army join the U.S. Green Building Council this year in hosting USGBC's 2010 Natural Talent Design Competition. We're excited to partner with USGBC to develop sustainability standards Entrants will design an affordable, 800 square foot green home for an elderly client in the Broadmoor, New Orleans neighborhood. Winners will be announced after the top four entries have been constructed, inhabited and evaluated. The deadline is quickly approaching. Enter soon.

Entries for Safe Trestles are now under jury review leading to next week's exhibit of semifinalists at the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro surf competition at Trestles May 04 - May 08.

The exhibit, designed by Gerard Minakawa of Bamboo DNA will explore the history and significance of Trestles and highlight the top 10 entries from Phase One of the competition.

Safe Trestles, a 2-phase design competition hosted by Architecture for Humanity and partners the San Onofre Foundation and Surfrider, explored ways to create a safe and low-impact access to Trestles, a surf and environmental world treasure in southern California.

The deadline for entries was April 17 and over 100 teams from 25 countries participated, with the largest block from the SoCal community.

Despite early rains, construction is moving along swiftly for the SIDAREC-Mukuru Kwa Njenga Center in Nairobi, Kenya.

The foundation walls are nearing completion - a major effort considering that the majority of the site will be raised nearly one meter to accommodate the new road elevation and drainage conditions. But before the walls could be situated, nearly one meter of black cotton soil had to be removed to achieve stable footings - resulting in the new geographical landmark in Mukuru - "Mt. SIDAREC."

Design Fellow Isaac Mugumbule captured this bird's eye view looking down towards the foundations of the SIDAREC Early Childhood Development center and Internet Cafe.

Read the latest from the SIDAREC and support Raise the Radio here.

It has been well over a year that Architecture for Humanity has been posting to twitter as @archforhumanity. Thanks to word of mouth, flattering RTing, generous #FFing, and some random celebrity attention, our follower list has grown to over 16,000 users. And we are fairly certain that at least half of them are not spambots.

It has been a wonderful experience forging personal relationships with many of our individual supporters. We've enjoyed not only telling you about the work of our many designers and partners, but also learning from our followers in turn. Twitter remains the best medium around for connecting smart people and spreading innovative new ideas.

Our Haiti team visited one of the interim camps being set up for displaced Haitians. Corail Cesselesse, opened two weeks ago, rests on a wide gravel flat 1.5 hours north of Port-au-Prince. Services are scarce and the cost of commuting to Port-au-Prince is sizable. At 30 Haitian dollars per round trip ticket, other options need to be found for setting up work, education and community activities closer to camp. Corail is currently home to 6000 Haitians and is growing by 500-1000 residents each day.

The standard unit of money in Haiti is the gourde (G). There are 5 gourdes to the Haitian dollar, and about 40 gourdes to the American dollar. So bus tickets cost around $3.75 US round trip–not a large sum unless you consider Haitian minimum wage is $40 Haitian (or $5 US) per day.

Original article on Students Rebuild