The Alcantara® Every Day competition has arisen from the Alcantara® LAB project, a container of events and initiatives that have the common denominator of experimentation and research, and the objective of dialogue with all Alcantara® users.

Alcantara® Every Day has the purpose of realising the potential of Alcantara® by enhancing it with new forms and languages. Alcantara® is seeking to experience a new dimension thanks to unique project-design, the synthesis of personal experiences and perceptions.

Alcantara® Every Day invites designers to suggest new forms and solutions for daily life, also confronting the material’s unending potential, creating new juxtapositions, decorations and textures capable of exalting the tactile and visual sensations of a material synonymous with refinement, functionality and practicality. To release the potential of Alcantara® and observe it from new angles is an exercise in creative and technical skill.

Competition purpose
The purpose of the competition is to come up with items of real daily-life usefulness.The guiding criteria are:
- to devise and design an object that would be touched or experienced at least once a day;
- to devise and design an object that considers the use of Alcantara® materials in its manufacture
- to devise and design an object that could accompany our everyday lives at home, in the office, while travelling or during leisure periods
- to devise and design an object that corresponds exactly to the following values through which Alcantara® manifests
its uniqueness:
1. Sensorial: as manifested through softness, wrap-around and warmth to the point of aiding physical well-being.
2. Aesthetical: as manifested through beauty and elegance, to the point of becoming a style.
3. Functional: as recognised in resistance, breathe-ability and ease of maintenance, to the point of being freely usable.

Competition type
For participants, Alcantara® Every Day is looking to architects, designers and creative types generally, of any nationality
and age.

Entry to the competition is anonymous, therefore the package, envelope and prepared papers (Art. 5) should not bear any mark, symbol or writing that might render them identifiable; only the identification code should be applied where indicated (see Art. 5). Further marks or writing on project lists or plates that could lead to the entrant’s name being known will constitute a reason for exclusion from the competition.

The participation of work groups is permitted. In this case the group would have to nominate one of its members as being in charge of the project. For all of this competition’s provisions, a group of entrants will collectively have the same rights as an individual entrant.

Jury
Jury chairman: Giulio Cappellini - Designer, architect and art director
Patrizia Beltrami – Director of Corporate Communication, Alcantara S.p.A.
Manuela Cifarelli – Director, Material Connexion, Milan
Melanie Damjanic - Style Development Manager, Alcantara S.p.A.
Angelo Jelmini – Set Designer
Paola Lenti - Entrepreneur
Maurizio Modica/Pierfrancesco Gigliotti – Stylists, Frankie Morello
Paola Navone - Designer
Paolo Pininfarina – Vice-President, Gruppo Pininfarina, CEO at Pininfarina Extra
Stefano Pirovano - Designer
Jean Louise Pizzinato - Marketing Manager, Poltrona Frau
Corinne Poux – Innovation Manager, Hermes
Cristiano Seganfreddo– Director, Fuoribiennale
Francisco Zurlo – Director, POLI.design Consortium at the Politecnico di Milano

Prizes
The jury will award three prizes based on the final classification list.The prize-money amount is € 15,000 divided thus:
1st prize: 10.000 Euro with prototype production reservation
2nd prize: 4.000 Euro with prototype production reservation
3rd prize: 1.000 Euro with prototype production reservation

The prizes are gross of any taxes or levy. Alcantara S.p.A. will not be responsible for any other expense for the use of the material for the anticipated institutional purposes.In the event of no suitable proposal being found, the prizes will be assigned according to a classification list of merit without proclamation of a winner.

Competition timetable
Launch publication 8 November 2006
Clarification and information available until 16:00, 02 February 2007
Registration and delivery of project entries ends at 12 noon, 05 February 2007 Gathering of the jury, 08 February 2007 Communication of results to participants by 12 February 2007
Prize - giving 15 February 2007
Exhibition of the 15 projects selected 18 - 23 April 2007