Cornell Graduate Students Prepare for ULI Gerald D. Hines Competition
Once again this year, the Departments of City and Regional Planning, Architecture, Landscape Architecture and the Program in Real Estate have combined forces to assist in preparing teams for the sixth annual Urban Land Institute/Gerald D. Hines Design Competition. The competition was created in 2002 to honor the legacy of urban development pioneer Gerald D. Hines, chairman of the Hines real estate organization. This event provides graduate-level students an opportunity to create an urban design and a financial feasibility analysis for a large-scale real life site that ULI has identified somewhere in the United States. The competition is part of ULI’s initiative to generate interest among young professionals in creating better communities, improving development trends, and improving awareness of the need for multidisciplinary solutions to development and design challenges.
Per the competition website, “this year’s site, to be announced on January 21, 2008, will be large scale and present complex challenges, needing practicable, innovative solutions that reflect responsible land use.” The prizes for the event total $80,000, with the top four finishers receiving cash prizes. The first place team will earn $50,000, with $5,000 of this award going to the sponsoring department or college as an unrestricted grant, while the second, third and fourth place teams will receive $10,000.
Teams must be composed of five students, with a minimum of three disciplines represented. Each team will have to select one student member, the team leader, who will act as a contact person with ULI. In addition, each team will have a faculty advisor to guide them through the process. This year’s advisors include Professor Peter Trowbridge of City and Regional Planning, Professors Deni Ruggieri and Marc Miller of the Department of Landscape Architecture, as well as Professor Brad Olson, Senior Lecturer, Program in Real Estate. Professors Ruggieri and Miller will hold weekly classes to prepare students for this year’s competition.
"Cornell has entered several teams in this competition each year since its inception, and while we have yet to win a prize, past participants universally recall this effort as one of the most valuable they encounter at Cornell. The Hines competition provides the opportunity for students from a wide range of disciplines to work together in a very ‘real-world’ effort to address a significant, current problem in urban development,” said Professor Olson.
Professor Olson added, “The challenge of working together in a short, concentrated period of time to think through, understand and agree on how to reconcile their team's solution to the problem is daunting, memorable and rewarding. In all aspects, the competition is fulfilling the vision Gerald Hines had when he established and endowed the prize: students need the experience of working together is multi-disciplinary teams to understand what their jobs will be like when they re-enter the world of real estate.”
James Spanelli (PRE ’09) had this to say about his experience thus far: “Cities are complex, multi-dimensional organisms. Humans conceive, design, and construct these environments. The ULI design competition is an opportunity for students from several professions to struggle with and learn from each others’ biases and expertise. Hopefully, the team effort will make us appreciate the degree of collective knowledge it takes to resolve and improve the issues of our built environment.”
For more information visit the Web site: http://udcompetition.uli.org