The Minneapolis Convention Center (MCC), The Arts, Culture and Creative Economy Program of the City of Minneapolis and Meet Minneapolis, Convention & Visitors Association recently announced the voting period for the 2014 Creative City Challenge, beginning Mon. Feb. 3.
“The Creative City Challenge presents a unique opportunity to experience the vibrant community of design and innovation that defines Minneapolis,” said Eric Quint, chief design officer at 3M Company. “As chairman of the jury, I’m inspired by the creativity demonstrated through the submissions to date.”
The three finalists and their corresponding projects include:
Balancing Ground by Amanda Lovelee, Christopher Field, Kyle Waites, and Sarah West: In efforts to combine play and peacefulness together, these finalists established a large wood structure with a canopy of prisms and reflective fragments strung between rafters, which surrounds long rows of wood benchesand a series of teeter-totters.
Chrysalis by Wil Natzel and Jerry Natzel: From a series of entry archways where the lighting reacts to people’s movements, to a communal seating court, to a tower pavilion, the public will be guided through the collections. When reaching the pavilion, the public will experience an overhead explosion of elaborate pattern, light and decoration, which will transform each month to display different exotic designs and formation.
SPark by Will Peterson, Bill Ferenc, Melissa Gagner and Trygve Nordberg: SPark features human-sized “flowers,” which respond to visitors through movements and light all linked to the other flowers by a wireless network. From moving to pulsing to even breathing, the visitors will make SPark come to life through the different reactions.
The winning project will be announced in late March and will receive the $75,000 commission to create the project and debut it at the MCC Place on June 14 as part of the Northern Spark, an annual dusk-to-dawn festival with tens of thousands of participants, taking place in Minneapolis this year.
“The three finalist projects exemplify how technology can be designed around people to engage local communities,” said Quint. “Each summer, thousands of visitors have the dynamic opportunity to participate in the design experience created by local architects, designers and artists at the Minneapolis Convention Center Plaza.”
A public presentation of the final project proposals on Monday, Feb. 10, will be held at at 6 p.m. in Rapson Hall, School of Architecture and Design on the East Bank campus of the University of Minnesota.
A public vote will determine the winner of the Creative City Challenge. Voters can visit the MCC website to cast their vote beginning Monday, Feb. 3. Online voting runs through Feb. 28.
