A Google design contest for Guggenheim fans
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has teamed up with Google on an architecture contest celebrating both the museum's 50th anniversary and the search giant's latest 3D-modeling tool.
The two iconic organizations are asking the public to submit plans for a 100-square-foot shelter using Google Sketchup, choosing a location for the shelter via Google Earth, and using Google 3D Warehouse to upload the design and submit to the official Guggenheim contest Web site.
Once a design is submitted, it will be showcased on the Guggenheim's "Design It: Shelter Competition" contest Web site using a Google Earth plug-in for all the public to view.
The submissions period began Monday and will run through August 23.
Students of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture who will narrow the submissions down to 10 finalists. Once the finalists are announced, the public will be able to vote between October 10 and 21 on a favorite design.
The winner of that popular vote will be awarded the "People's Prize," while a winner chosen by a panel of experts that includes Victor Sidy, Dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, and David van der Leer, assistant curator of architecture and design at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will be awarded the "Juried Prize."
Besides providing an opportunity to remind people of the Guggenheim's roots, the contest also presents a chance for Google to show what can be done with Google Sketchup, its 3D-modeling tool.
The winners, whose prize includes a VIP trip for two to New York, will be announced on October 21--the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum, which was, of course, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright himself.
The Juried Prize winner will also receive a $1,000 cash award. But that seems to be as far as the winner will be rewarded. While the contest rules allow submissions to include photos of a built shelter, in addition to the Sketchup piece, it makes no mention of building or giving resources for the winners to make their model a reality.
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
