Six Teams Compete in Student Design Competition
Urban Land Institute Competition in Sixth Year
The Urban Land Institute kicked off the sixth annual Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition on January 28th. The competition is open to graduate student composed of interdisciplinary teams of five from associated professions such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, engineering, real estate, and business.
This year’s competition site was a 464-acre parcel south of downtown Dallas. The competition asked students to develop a master plan for the entire site, define a catalyst development of 20 acres to initiate the master plan accompanied with the financial projections for the first phase. The submissions were required to address the following components of sustainable communities: 1) mixed-income housing; 2) adequate infrastructure to support growth; 3) ample public space; 4) places of commerce; 5) environmental preservation, including mitigating climate change; and 6) financial feasibility. In order to derive their development schemes, the institute distributed briefing materials to the teams describing the problem, the neighborhood background, market information, relevant existing develop proposals, and a required list of submission products.
This year, applications were submitted from 103 teams representing 34 universities in the United States and Canada. Cornell registered four teams. Cornell has not yet placed in the past five years of competition, but increased interest in the competition has led to the creation of a short preparatory course designed to replicate the pace and tenor of the actual competition. During the course, spearheaded by faculty from the department of landscape architecture, the teams were able to develop working relationships and gauge teammates strengths. The actual competition lasted two weeks, extended from 10 days in the past.
At the end of February, four finalist teams will be named who will be given an extra month to revise and enhance their initial schemes, present in person their reworked projects, and compete for the grand prize of $50,000. Each of the three remaining finalist teams will receive $10,000.
The competition is named in honor of Gerald D. Hines, the renowned founder of the Hines development company. In its materials for the competition, he is described as “a legend in the land use industry…widely known as a leader who pioneered the use of high-quality planning and architecture as a marketable feature of development in office, residential and mixed-use projects. ‘Real estate development is a very exciting, imaginative field. It involves many disciplines and interaction with so many parts of our world—finance, politics, science, psychology—it affects the lives of so many people,’ Hines said. ‘Through this competition, we are raising awareness among the students of the key role high-quality urban design plays in creating sustainable living environments.’ “