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Georgia Tech team named finalists in prestigious Urban Land Institute Hines Student Urban Design competition, will compete for $50K first prize

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For the first time, a team of graduate students from Georgia Tech has made it to the finals of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Hines Student Urban Design competition. The team is made up of Audrey Plummer, Dawn Riley and Logan Tuura, who are all pursuing dual master degrees in architecture and in city and regional planning; Blair Revercomb, a master’s in city and regional planning student; and Yigong Zhang, a master’s in urban design student while an exchange student from Tongji University in Shanghai.

The competition, which is in its 12th year, offers graduate students the opportunity to form multidisciplinary teams and engage in a challenging exercise in responsible land use. From over 150 entries, only four finalist teams are chosen. This year, those teams will compete in Nashville, Tennessee, presenting their proposals for redevelopment of the city’s historic Sulphur Dell neighborhood.

“This is a fantastic honor and opportunity for our team,” said Ellen Dunham-Jones, professor, coordinator of the masters in urban design program, and faculty advisor to the team. “This competition is the premier urban design competition of its kind. It’s a terrific learning experience – forcing the designers to think more like developers and vice versa, but it is also extraordinarily competitive. It will push them to be at the top of their game, but will make a lasting impact on their professional lives. It’s great to see the interdisciplinary collaboration – amongst the students as well as all of the faculty, alumni, and local professionals who assisted during the initial two-week phase. We are all 100% behind them.”

Audrey Plummer, team leader on the project, said, “The ULI competition is an intense experience, because we have to produce high-quality work in a very short time frame. Working effectively in an interdisciplinary team is essential to producing a great project. Being a finalist is very exciting and our team is proud to represent Georgia Tech and the College of Architecture.”

The teams will send a representative to do a site visit in March, then will have two weeks to finalize their proposals. The final presentations are slated for April 3 in Nashville. 

The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition is part of the Institute’s ongoing effort to raise interest among young people in creating better communities, improving development patterns, and increasing awareness of the need for multidisciplinary solutions to development and design challenges. Teams must be comprised of students from at least three disciplines, working to devise a comprehensive design and development program for a real, large-scale site full of challenges and opportunities. Submissions must include drawings, site plans, tables, and market-feasible financial data for the designated site.

For more information about the competition and to see the team’s proposal, visit http://uli.org/programs/awards-competitions/hines-student-design-competition/.

Status

  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Lisa Herrmann
  • Created:02/27/2014
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016