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Press Release: March 14, 2005

Winners are announced for "The Green Dollhouse Competition"

Exhibition Of Winning Designs To Take Place At Various US Venues Through 2006

Organized in partnership by Architects / Designers / Planners for Social Responsibility, American Institute of Architects, San Francisco and San Mateo County chapters; Coyote Point Museum; Northern California Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council; San Francisco Design Center; San Mateo County RecycleWorks; Sustainable San Mateo County; and media partners – Interiors & Sources and Sunset.

San Mateo, Calif., March 14, 2005—The Green Dollhouse Project announced the winners today for "The Green Dollhouse Project Competition." Open to both design professionals and design students, the competition called for designers to build dollhouses that would inspire children and adults to make their homes a little greener. Twenty-six unique dollhouses, each depicting a doll's eye view of a healthier world were entered in the Competition. The houses came from Maine, New York, Michigan, Oregon, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia and Japan, and were judged by two criteria: Are they "dishy doll dwellings" that hold up to active play and delight both children and adults? And do they offer "great green guidance" about one or more aspects of sustainable home design? An exhibit of the winning dollhouses will take place September 24 through December 3, 2005 at Coyote Point Museum in San Mateo, California and then travel on to other locations around the country in 2006.

Honor awards in the design professional category went to "Monopoly Manor" by Laura Schwartz & Associates and Murdock Young Architects: Brenna Smith, Kiyomi Troemner (New York City, NY) and "Pre-fab Mod Dollhouse" by Andrea Traber Architecture + Sustainability: Andrea Traber, Alexandra Vondeling, Monica Grau, Piper Kujac (Berkeley, CA); merit awards in the design professional category went to "Animal House" by Anderson Brule Architects: Monique Wood, Brad Cox, Brad McCurdy, Crystal Melin, Heather Chung, Kate Masleid, Michele Buchholtz, Patty Phan, Emily Cox (San Jose, CA) and "Hay Bale & Half-Timber Bamboo Cottage" by Hermannsson Architects: John Hermannsson, Lotte Hermannsson, Sean McMahon, Shannon White, Ed Huber (Redwood City, CA).

The Honor award in the design student category went to "Mobile Dollhouse" by Matt Russell, Loni Sullivan, Peter Zychowski; University of Colorado at Boulder (Boulder, CO). And the merit awards in this category went to "the bamboo loft" by Rosie Hanna, Joanna Manders, Christine Miller, California College of the Arts (San Francisco, CA) and "Shoebox Dollhouse" by University of California Berkeley Extension class – Current Issues in Design, taught by Heather Ferguson. Students: Emily Geren, Mina Millet, Vantrung Nguyen, Kristen Nippa, Kathleen Roche Hubert, Renee Urbanowicz, Greg Walsh, Debbie Wong.

Additional categories in the professional category included "Kids' Choice Award," for "Rosaceae Sustainus" (nicknamed "The Elevator House" by the kids) by WGS: Roberta Pennington, Leslie Cooper, Paul Gibbons, Natalie Hutley, Liza Meek, Josh Orona, Stephen Price, Tanya Schneider, Debora Souza, Jeff Tathwell, Margaret Ward (Portland, OR) and "Least Environmental Impact Award," for "Tree Fort" by Erlynne Kitagawa, Stahnke Kitagawa Architects (Harborside, ME). Two additional awards were also given in the student category, "Green Urban Award," for "Skyscraper Dollhouse" by Alfred Twu, University of Berkeley (Berkeley, CA) and "Renewable Energy Award," for "The Patchwork Home" by Anuradha Lingappa, Usha Lingappa, Krista Farey, Synergy School (San Francisco, CA).

"Pre-fab Mod Dollhouse," one of the two winners of the Professional Honor Award, is a modular house constructed of soft woods and other green materials, featuring natural lighting and ventilation. Interchangeable roofs, walls, floors and landscaping give kids flexibility in home and garden design as they play with the dollhouse. Green architect and juror, Sharon Refvem stated, "It is cleverly designed and well executed." The jury was also impressed with the solar orientation on the base, the passive solar and daylighting features in the house, as well as the packaging created for the house.

The second winning dollhouse in the professional category, "Monopoly Manor," is a colorful, creative and playful dollhouse built on the lid of a recycling bin, allowing the bin itself to serve as a "cover" for the dollhouse. The house is made completely of found objects including Monopoly money siding, a Scrabble board floor, gum wrapper "metal" roofing, and a Wonder Bread shower curtain. Juror Topher Delaney, an environmental artist and builder, said, "This is a delightful and imaginative use of recycling and the use of technology." Green architect and juror, David Arkin added, "Kids can relate to every material they used – game pieces, popsicle sticks, every aspect is recycled. It makes me smile."

"The Animal House," one of the two merit winners in the professional design category is a three level dwelling built in a tree stump, featuring a squirrel home, a basement mole apartment and a bird penthouse. The entire house is built from found objects disguised as furniture, including a matchbox dresser, a loaf pan bathtub, a moccasin bed, a compost toilet made from an egg slicer, window frames made from buckles, and a tree canopy made from a snorkel and umbrella. The dollhouse includes a delightful "can you find ...?" list that will be expanded and incorporated into the exhibit. The jury said, "Very Rich! Anyone from 5 to 100 would love this one."

"Hay Bale & Half-Timber Bamboo Cottage," the other merit winner in the professional design category, features straw bale walls, a floor made of structural insulated panels and a standing seam metal roof made from soda cans. This dollhouse was especially popular with the more traditional dollhouse collectors as it incorporated green building techniques into a more traditional dollhouse layout. Shellie Kazan, owner of Shellie's Miniature Mania in San Carlos and our official "dollhouse expert" juror said, "the English Tudor house, made from clay and Bamboo was my favorite! It was so charming, perfectly scaled, and just called to me to fill it up with wonderful English furniture, teapots, baskets and quilts. This very warm and cozy little house just begs to be inhabited with tiny English people busy gardening or cooking. I would be thrilled to own this darling dwelling! And to think, all this charm and green too!"

"Mobile Dollhouse" the winner of the Student Design Honor Award is built on skateboard wheels out of gridcore, a recycled paper product. The house has a collection "tub" on top to distribute rainwater to the greenhouse. "The Bamboo Loft," one of the two Merit Award winners in the student design category features a tree growing up through the rooms. One of the jurors described it as "well built and aesthetically pleasing with room for imagination." "Shoebox Dollhouse," the other student Merit Award winning house, is built in a bookcase with rooms made in from shoeboxes and other found materials.

Jurors for the competition included David Arkin, AIA, Arkin Tilt Architects; Topher Delaney, SEAM Studio; Shellie Kazan, Owner of Shellie's Miniature Mania, San Carlos; Sharon Refvem, AIA, Hawley Peterson & Snyder Architects; Jennifer Roberts, author of Good Green Homes; Martina Scanlan, Interiors & Sources; and Abigail Peterson, Senior Editor, Sunset Magazine. Each juror had a young assistant to help keep them focused on the delightful, playful features of the dollhouses.

For pictures and more information on the winning designs, please visit our press room.