Metro (Portland, Oregon) is accepting grant applications for projects that connect citizens to their watershed through hands-on restoration activities and environmental education. Metro’s restoration and enhancement grants support individual, non-profit and government sponsored restoration, enhancement and education and efforts in regional watersheds. These grassroots, community-minded projects create new connections and improvements to neighborhoods, natural areas, backyards and beyond.

To date, Metro has awarded $1.23 million to support 42 nonprofit community groups, schools, businesses and local government agencies responsible for 64 projects in the region. Because some recipients were required to have matching funds, the total value of the grants awarded thus far is $4.6 million and counting. This program engages citizens of all ages and backgrounds in the restoration and enhancement of their natural surroundings and helps keep nature in all our communities for this generation and those to come.

Deadline for pre-application is 7 January, 2009. Visit the site to learn more.

The annual Skyscraper Competition, organized by eVolo, has become an important architectural prize with high media attention. The 2009 edition invites architects, engineers and designers to continue exploring on new dieas and concepts for vertical density.

Skyscrapers have been springing up in fast-developing countries without careful consideration of the urban fabric, environmental effects and quality of life. The 2009 competition calls for innovative designs for the historical and social context, the existing urban fabric, the human scale and the environment.

All students, architects, engineers and designers are invited to participate. Multidisciplinary teams are encouraged. Participants must register by 12 January 2009. Visit the site to learn more.

In this conceptual design competition, The Design Institution welcome all designers around the world to create products that reflect new ideas for the beach, sea, terrace or swimming pool spaces, involving aspects such as comfort, pleasure, recreation, cleaning, environment protection, etc. The focus is on furniture, accessory or any other item to be used within a beach, sea, swimming pool or terrace spaces.

The competition participant may create a generic design, that is, applicable almost to every context, or, if desired, consider a more specific context, such as: type of beach (sand, stones, among others), whether (warm, hot, rainy, snowy, among others), type of sea (with or without waves, transparent water, cold or hot water, among others), location of pool or terrace (natural environment, indoors or outdoors, etc.) type of pool (indoors or outdoors, covered/heated swimming pool, etc.).

This competition is for design students and for professionals from all design branches, and the contest can be entered as an individual or as a group. First prize is $3,000 USD. Deadline is 2 March 2009. Visit the site to register and to learn more.

The Earth Awards is a global search for future-crucial design solutions that will improve our collective social, cultural, economic and ecological quality of life. Submissions will be accepted in multiple categories; product design, architecture, fashion, food, alternative energy, and more.

Submissions must be achievable, scalable, practical, collaborative, inclusive, original and energy-reducing. All finalists will be flown to New York City for an Awards Ceremony Gala on December 8, 2008, where the first prize winner will be announced. The winner will receive a monetary prize, and all finalists will receive the opportunity to pitch their ideas to industry leaders including venture capitalists, industrialists, and Fortune 500 business leaders.

Deadline is 14 November 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

Each year a distinguished jury will award a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.

Winning the Buckminster Fuller Challenge will require more than a great stand-alone innovation. If for example, your solution emphasizes a new design, material, process, service, tool, technology, or any combination, it is essential that it be part of an integrated strategy dealing with key social, economic, environmental, and cultural issues.

Entries must present a bold, visionary, tangible initiative that is focused on a well-defined need of critical importance. They should be regionally specific yet globally applicable, and backed up by a solid plan and the capability to move the solution forward. They want the winning solution to be what Fuller called a ‘trimtab’ – a catalyst inserted into a failing system at the right time and place that accelerates the transition to an equitable and sustainable future.

You must be over age 18, able to submit the entry in English, have a current and valid ID, and be available to be contacted by phone or email at any point in the evaluation process. A discounted entry fee of $50 is available for students, academics (employees at a university or research institution), people entering on behalf of a registered non-profit, and financially contributing members of the Buckminster Fuller Institute. Deadline is 7 November 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

The City of Helsinki organises, in co-operation with the Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA), an open international ideas competition on the planning of Koivusaari Island.

The competition is open to all. The competition languages are Finnish and English. The entrants are encouraged to form multidisciplinary planning groups with a wide range of expertise on land use, landscape planning, traffic technology, municipal engineering, and construction and energy engineering.

The competition is organised in order to prepare the component master plan for Koivusaari Island. The objective of the competition is to produce innovative plan alternatives which can serve as a basis for further planning and drafting of the component master plan and to identify the essential features of this new district which will have a maritime atmosphere and an underground railway connection.

Before the jury panel makes its decision the entries will be publicly displayed. If necessary, a second stage will be arranged. There is no entry fee for the competition. Registration is not required. Deadline is 10 Novemer 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

Oregon Metro’s restoration and enhancement grants support individual, non-profit and government sponsored restoration, enhancement and education and efforts in regional watersheds. These grassroots, community-minded projects create new connections and improvements to neighborhoods, natural areas, backyards and beyond.

In May 2008, the Metro Council awarded $250,000 to successful applicants whose projects restore and enhance regional watersheds, educate citizens about watershed health, and/or inspire environmental awareness and action.

Metro is now accepting grant applications for projects that connect citizens to their watershed through hands-on restoration activities and environmental education. Pre-applications are due 7 January 2009. Visit the site to learn more.

The Design Green Project is the first of its kind to honor and reward designers’ creativity from around the world for their excellence in designing ‘Green’ for a better planet – in the disciplines of art, branding, environments, fashion, packaging, photography, print, design green, and now interactive.

All designers who participate in this unique competition will be part of the solution to the Global Warming Crisis by replacing one of their old light bulbs with a compact fluorescent light bulb provided by The Design Green Project. Additionally, there will be a tree planted in their name and 50% of all proceeds will be donated to the StopGlobalWarming.org fund, just for entering.

This is an international competition with various caveats to entries, so be sure to visit the site to learn more about the guidelines and the creative categories. Deadline is 15 December 2008.

At Right: 2001 Gold Medal Winner, Village of Arts and Humanities.

Applications for the Rudy Bruner Award now are available. The Rudy Bruner Award considers form only one aspect of urban excellence. An excellent urban place involves the interplay of process, place and values. Processes may be inclusive, innovative, or participatory. Places may be grandiose or modest, new or historic, but must be well designed. Values guide the inevitable tradeoffs involved in bringing a project to life. The Award recognizes that these relationships are not simple. It seeks to illuminate the complex process of urban placemaking, so that it may be strengthened to better reflect the balance between form and use; opportunity and cost; preservation and change. The Gold Medal is a $50,000 award, and the Silver medals are $10,000 each.

Deadline for applications is 15 December 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

Turning the spotlight on environmentally responsible forestry, DESIGN 21: Social Design Network, an online platform founded by Felissimo and UNESCO to inspire and promote design for the greater good, is proud to announce a new set of environmentally conscious initiatives in the form of a competition and a challenge. Developed by DESIGN 21 to benefit The Nature Conversancy and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Wood, Paper, Checkmark is a competition for its international base of 13,000 members to formulate an awareness campaign for sustainable forestry. As a companion initiative, DESIGN 21 members FSC-US and The Nature Conservancy, are hosting Going with the Grain–a challenge to conceptualize an object using only one sheet of sustainable wood.

By running these two initiatives simultaneously, DESIGN 21 is hoping to utilize the creativity of both established and emerging designers to combat the large-scale eco-challenges of illegal logging and deforestation. As director of DESIGN 21, Haruko Smith, states, “DESIGN 21 is pleased to be able to offer this complementary package of a visual communications design and product design that will promote the use of sustainable wood, especially because the process itself will help to educate many people about the need to protect our valuable natural resources.”

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