Core77

That's not a sexy blog post title, but the competition is great: Tricycle, Bentley Prince Street and Floor Focus magazine have teamed up to produce the Ample Sample 2007 design competition, and it's worth a shot for sure. Here's the pitch, in its entirety:

Down the hall in your resource library, a shelf is overflowing with carpet samples. Rethink these beautiful, fashion-forward textiles...they aren't trash, destined for the dumpster. They're design materials.

700,000+ carpet samples will ship this year, helping designers move closer to choosing the perfect carpet for their projects. Our SIM from Tricycle sustainable sampling is a fast, accurate, eco-savvy way to narrow pattern and color options before requesting a physical sample, (and so reduce oil use & landfill waste), but SIM is not meant to replace all samples. Physical strike-offs are still important for final decisions and client presentations.

So what to do with these samples? After they've served their purpose for your design project, we say re-use them to make a design product. Recycled materials became design elements because designers chose to see them as such. Why not carpet samples, which are high style, high performance, and wonderfully 'reuseful'?

Create a design that will transform these textiles into a beautiful and/or functional fixture, piece of furniture...or any interior product you dream up. The winners will be promoted at NeoCon and in Floor Focus, and have blueprints of their design posted for free download, to forward-thinking designers around the world.

All info here.