Ten Finalists Selected

One of the entries for Wednesday's final round of judging.

On Monday, October 5 our team of judges narrowed down the field in the home design contest to ten candidates. In a meeting conducted through Telepresence technology installed in our local Courthouse, folks in Greensburg were able to meet with people in Kansas City, Boston, and Dallas for the next leg of the competition GreenTown is sponsoring with FreeGreen.com. Kansas judges were: GreenTown board members Dea Corns and Jerry Diemart, City Planner Mike Gurnee, City Councilwoman Erica Goodman, Lawrence architect J. Stephen Lane, and GreenTown staff Daniel Wallach, Joah Bussert, and Stephanie Peterson. They were joined by our partners, FreeGreen.com staff David Wax and Ben Uyeda from Massachusetts. Representatives from AT&T were on hand from Texas to ensure the technololgy worked smoothly (it did!) and observe the competition in action.

The 3 finalists will be selected on Wednesday, with the grand prize winner to be awarded $10,000 for his/her creativity and vision. The two runners-up will take home $1,000 each. Contestants were directed to use one of three wall systems in their designs, and the winning entries will include one each of an ICF, HIB, and EMU home. ICF stands for Insulating Concrete Form, which readers can learn more about from the ICF Association's website. HIB is a sustainable timber-based product from Germany; information about this technology is available here. EMU stands for Enviro-Ment Masonry Unit, which is showcased in this video from Virginia Limeworks.

Our national panel of judges will meet via Telepresence on Wednesday, after which we'll announce the winning entries. Stay tuned!