PRE Students Compete in 9th Annual ULI/Gerald Hines Design Competition

Cornell University is participating in this year’s 9th Annual ULI/Gerald Hines Design Competition and will be vying for the $50,000 cash prize. The Competition is sponsored by Hines, a privately owned real estate company with operations in real estate investment, development and property management.

Participating students are given two weeks to conceptualize and devise a development plan for a challenging, large-scale site which is undisclosed until a predetermined date. Materials that must be manifested include, but are not limited to: drawings, site plans, tables, and market-feasible financial data. Disheng Lin, PRE ’12 and participating student described his experience as, “Challenging, but rewarding. The whole project should take somewhere between 60-100 hours depending on the assignment of tasks. It is an all-around challenge from a development standpoint with heavy emphasis on market analysis, urban economics, concept design, master planning, architecture and financial analysis.” Competition will be fierce but we wish the 2011 participating teams success with this year’s ULI/Hines Urban Design Competition.

The competition’s guidelines require teams to have 5 members representing a minimum of three disciplines, one of which must be non-design-related. This year’s teams have members in the following disciplines: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Regional Planning and Real Estate. Additionally, teams must nominate a faculty member to serve in the Faculty Adviser function which is designed to provide students with professional guidance during the competition. This year’s teams will be advised by the following leading faculty from their respective programs:

  • Brad Olson – Real Estate
  • H. Pike Oliver – Real Estate
  • Isabel Fernandez – Real Estate
  • Marc Miller – Landscape Architecture
  • Peter Trowbridge – Landscape Architecture
  • Jamie Vanucchi – Landscape Architecture

According the ULI/Hines Urban Design Competition administration, Cornell’s participation in 2010 with 8 teams was the most from a single university or college. This year, a total of 50 students – 10 teams - from Cornell University will be competing for a position among the finalists which will be announced the week of February 21, 2011. Faculty Adviser Pike Oliver commented on the unique attributes of the competition, “This is an opportunity to work in a cross disciplinary fashion on what is very much like a real-world response to a Request for Proposal under tight time constraints. The unique thing about this competition is that it combines design and financial feasibility analysis. It is very real-world and a great experience for students to work with designers to come up with something that catches the eye of the judges and also pencils out.“ Professor Oliver is a senior lecturer in the Program in Real Estate and Executive Director for Industry Outreach and has extensive professional expertise in land acquisition, planning and development.

The contest has historically attracted applicants from top university programs and continually proves to be a major event. Last year the ULI/Gerald Hines Jury received an impressive 117 submissions. The winner was a joint team from North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while finalists included teams from Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and University of Maryland, College Park. Cornell University received an honorable mention with the “East Village Squares” submission, which can be viewed at: http://commerce.uli.org/misc/udcomp/team5296board_all.pdf