Finalists announced for $100,000 UK design prize

Herald-Leader Staff Report

The University of Kentucky announced Thursday the five finalists for the Curry Stone Design Prize, awarded to breakthrough projects that have the "power and potential to improve our lives and the world we live in."

The finalists include an architectural firm that builds homes from sandbags in Cape Town, South Africa; the inventor of the world's first non-turbine, wind-powered generator; and an Indiana-based university professor who builds shelters using scavenged materials, UK officials said.

The prize winner receives $100,000; up to four finalists receive $10,000 each.

The winner will be announced at the IdeaFestival in Louisville on Sept. 25. UK administers the contest and plans to give the award annually.

The finalists will officially be announced Sept. 13 at the 11th International Venice Architecture Biennale.

The finalists are:

■ Shawn Frayne, 27, inventor of the first non-turbine, wind-powered generator.

■ Wes Janz, 56, architect and associate professor of architecture at Ball State University in Indiana, who has constructed shelters from materials such as mud and rubble from demolished buildings.

■ MMA Architects, which has designed low-cost homes in a shantytown outside Cape Town.

■ Marjetica Potrc, 55, an artist and architect who designed a "dry toilet" that collects human waste and converts it to fertilizer.

■ Antonio Scarponi, 34, an architect based in Venice whose interactive project, "Dreaming Wall," was a digitally generated billboard. Installed in the Milanese square, it displayed real-time text messages from around the world.

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