Cornell Student Team Receives Honorable Mention in ULI/Hines Student Urban Design Competition
Team Members (From Left to Right): Chris Koenig, Dan Kelleher, Maureen Bolton, Chris Haine, Zachary Boggs at the Hartell Gallery Exhibit on March 2nd
This February, one of the five Cornell graduate student teams received an Honorable Mention in the Seventh Annual Urban Land Institute / Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. The team, composed of Dan Kellher (Master of Regional Planning, 2010), Chris Koenig (Master of Regional Planning, 2010), Maureen Bolton (Master of Landscape Architecture, 2010), Zachary Boggs (Master of Landscape Architecture, 2010), and Chris Haine ( Master of Professional Studies in Real Estate, 2010) was recognized for their urban design project named “Urban Succession.”
The ULI/Gerald D. Hines competition is an annual graduate-level student competition focused on interdisciplinary learning and team-work for real estate and design students. This year’s competition received submittals from over 90 teams representing 40 universities in the United States and Canada. Each team is composed of five students and must have representatives from three disciplines. The five students of the “Urban Succession” team came from landscape architecture, city and regional planning, and real estate.
My teammates and I were thrilled to learn we received an Honorable Mention,” stated team leader Dan Kellher. “We are honored to have received such an important recognition from the ULI competition judges for our project. We also are grateful for the support of our faculty advisors: Professors Olson, Ruggeri, Vanucchi, Oliver, and Trowbridge”
Program in Real Estate Senior Lecturer Brad Olson, lead faculty adviser to the team, described the competition as “a great multi-disciplinary learning experience for students within a competitive environment. From my many years in the development industry, I know how valuable this experience is for students who choose to participate. Cornell has fielded teams in this competition every year since its inception and we are grateful to Gerald Hines and ULI for making this valuable experience possible.” Olson added, “I am proud of all five Cornell student teams who each put forth a tremendous effort this year, and am delighted that a Cornell team received this well deserved and distinctive recognition”.
Peter Trowbridge, Chair of Cornell’s Department of Landscape Architecture, commented, “The ULI/ Hines Student Competition presents a unique opportunity for students to work on a complex project which requires the talents of students from many different academic disciplines, including architecture, real estate, planning and landscape architecture. This type of collaboration represents a “real world” working relationship so important to our professions. Congratulations to the ‘Urban Succession’ Team.”
Assistant Professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture, Deni Ruggeri added, “I am very proud of the Cornell students who participated in this year’s ULI/Hines competition and the preparatory workshop and charrette that led to it. It was wonderful to watch students from so many different fields come together to work on this competition and see the energy and commitment they poured into it. The honorable mention for the ‘Urban Succession’ team represents a milestone for Cornell University faculty and students interested in Urban Design. It will hopefully inspire more opportunities on this campus for the type of interdisciplinary, collaborative work needed to solve complex urban design problems.”
During the first week of March, a special gallery exhibition of all five Cornell student-team projects was held in the John Hartell Gallery in Sibley Hall. At the opening-night reception Dr. David Funk, Program in Real Estate’s Program Director , stated “The Hartell Gallery exhibit is a great event where students, faculty and friends from all over Cornell gather to view all the Cornell team projects side-by-side for the first time. While the Gallery exhibition marked the conclusion of the 2009 ULI/Hines Student Urban Design Competition for Cornell, students were inspired for next year’s competition.”