Levi Strauss Announces Finalists for Cool Clothesline Competition

A few months ago on TriplePundit, I discussed Levi Strauss’s competition for a new clothesline idea.  As a child of the 1970s, clotheslines were commonplace in yes, our Silicon Valley neighborhood.  But over time, these have faded away, and many home owner associations (HOAs) have banned the practice—though many condo owners are fighting back.

Now such attitudes are changing, and not just because of the crash in the housing market.  The average household uses 6% of its energy from operating clothes dryers—rising energy costs and concern over dryers’ environmental effects are spurring more homeowners to dry their clothes the old fashioned way.  To that end, several states are evaluating laws to consider clotheslines as the choice of the homeowner, not a lowly nuisance that a tyrannical HOA can ban. 

To that end, Levi’s started a Care to Air competition where designers create a new air drying contraption, countering the claim that clotheslines are unsightly—while offering the winner a $10,000 prize.

Well, the contest is over and each of the finalists will present their design idea on Monday, August 16 in San Francisco at the Levi’s® Workshop in the Mission District via video to a panel of judges (including Zem Joaquin, Founder and CEO of Ecofabulous; Max Burton, Executive Creative Director at Frog Design; and Eric Ryan, Co-Founder and Chief Brand Architect at Method Products, and more!)

Here are the finalists:  check out the designs – they are all impressive:

• Inertion Power – Andrey Kotsyuba, Ukraine
• Levi Tower – Godzilla Team: Gediminas Kirdeikis, Aiste Dzikaraite, Petras Vestartas, Lithuania
• Strauss Spin ‘n Dry – Jay Zapata & Jamie Evans United States
• Hang Anywhere X Aria – The Way We See the World: Chelsea Briganti, Ingrid Zweifel, Monica Bhatia, Leigh Ann Tucker & Gregory Davis, Brooklyn, NY
• The Evaporation Station – Jeff Munie and Marlowe Baca, Chicago, IL
• Nothing Is What It Seems – Caleb Hill, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Which one is your choice?  I’m partial to Caleb’s “Nothing What It Seems” myself . . . great if you have an apartment!