It has been almost 2 years since the First Step Design boards started arriving in NYC. Since then, we have selected 5 winners, worked with them on their design and started construction on the Andrews (spring 2005). After some struggles, we have now finished building two of the prototypes for the Andrews House. These prototypes are being installed at the Urban Center and this exhibition will open on the 10th of August There will be three events during this exhibition at the Urban Center that deal with the various issues presently confronting us at the Bowery and in NYC. see www.mas.org . They will be both interesting and free, so please come by to visit the prototypes or these events.

We are also in the process of documenting the competition, the construction processes of both the Andrews and the First Step units. The goal of this all, is to create a publication on the entire process, the competition, the exhibition, the realization etc etc. For this purpose, we are gathering all teh design so they can be included in this publication. To do so, a digital image of your board is needed. I have email all the competitors, but some email adresses are old/wrong. If you have entered the competition and not received an email, please send us a digital file of your 30”x40” board, but reduce its size by flattening the image, reduce its size to max. 150 DPI (as we will be printing a smaller format) and save it as a JPG (medium compression 6) or PDF. This so the file will not be bigger than 2MB. Please email me the file : firststep (at) commonground (dot) org . Because of the number of entries that will arrive, we are asking that the file be saved as the Primary Contact in the group name (LASTNAME-FIRSTNAME) to help us order the files. Thank you very much for your initial submission for our competition and hope to receive you digital board soon,

Floris Keverling Buisman
First Step Housing/Common Ground Community