THE MAYO NEWS MONDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2012 19:52

Portwest agrees to support Town of Tomorrow competition

Anton McNulty

The Westport Town of Tomorrow competition received a significant boost ahead of the competition in April when Westport clothing company, Portwest, agreed to become a major sponsor.

The annual competition gives second level students the chances to redesign different parts of Westport town, and local outdoor clothing manufacturer, Portwest have agreed to be a sponsor of the 2012 Westport Town of Tomorrow Urban Design Competition.

The competition involves the re-design of the centre of the Heritage Town of Westport using the popular architectural software Google SketchUp, and Portwest’s Owen Hughes said that he ‘would love to support this project’.

The competition, which was first launched in 2007 by Daniela Brica, the European 3D Captain from Google, involves the re-design of the centre of ‘Virtual’ Westport using the popular architectural software, Google SketchUp.

The competition is supported by Westport Town Council and Mayo County Council and County Manager, Peter Hynes said they were expecting some fabulous entries.

“Each student or team can choose a section of the town to work with. Their design brief is purposely rather loose so they can take full advantage of the Google design software, whilst enabling them to make the maximum use of their imagination. If previous year’s entries are anything to go by we are expecting some fabulous new ideas on how our Heritage Town could be developed in the years to come,” he said.

Details of this Google supported competition can be found on the website: https://sites.google.com/site/townoftomorrow2011/. Students can register via this web site and the deadline is February 29 with the final models being submitted by March 31.The Judges will once again be from Google in Colorado and the Presentation evening is scheduled for the end of April. 

Brendan Hafferty of the Town of Tomorrow competition said this year’s competition has attracted students from all over Mayo and encouraged other Mayo businesses to join Portwest in supporting the competition. They can do so by contacting Brendan at bphafferty@anu.ie or via             086 858 4873       or             098 66674      . 

When the competition was first held some several years ago it was confined to Westport’s three post-primary schools, but as its popularity grew it was decided to extend it to the whole county of Mayo.