THE ULI GERALD D. HINES STUDENT URBAN DESIGN COMPETITION
About the ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition
The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition is a graduate-level annual competition that is intended to provide an interdisciplinary learning experience for real estate and design students in the United States and Canada. Self-formed student teams are asked to provide an urban design and a financial feasibility strategy for a large-scale real life site that ULI has identified somewhere in the United States. Through the formation of multidisciplinary teams, the program encourages cooperation and teamwork among future real estate professionals and the many allied professions, such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, engineering, real estate development, finance, psychology, law, and others.
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 solutions incorporate design, planning, market potential and feasibility, and development strategies. The submission to the competition will be presentation drawings, tables, schedules, and text.
The sixth annual 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. This competition is an ideas competition; there is no guarantee or expectation that any of the submitted schemes will be applied to the site. The winning team receives $50,000 and the finalist teams $10,000 each.
New in 2008
The Competition Web Site
This Web site is dedicated to the urban design competition. It will be continually updated and supplemented as the competition progresses. Changes to the Web site will be indicated on the Update History page. Competitors and the public should direct all questions in writing to udcompetition@uli.org.
To our European visitors, please go to udeurocompetition.uli.org to find out more about the ULI European Student Urban Design Competition.
Acknowledgements
ULI acknowledges the contributions of the organizations and individuals who have assisted and consulted in the preparation of materials for this competition. (Competitors may not contact these sources for information or materials related to this competition.)
ULI North Texas District Council Young Leader (Pam Veshia)
City of Dallas, Office of Economic Development (Karl Stundins; Timothy Glass; Marilyn Avinger)
Matthews Southwest (Jack Matthews; Kristian Teleki; Jeff West, consultant)
Change Chamber Development (Zad Roumaya)
For more information, call Trisha Riggs at 202/624-7086 or E-mail: priggs@uli.org
WASHINGTON (January 28, 2008) — A 464-acre site south of downtown Dallas has been chosen as the study area for the sixth annual ULI (Urban Land Institute) Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, an ideas competition for university students created to honor the legacy of urban development pioneer Gerald D. Hines, chairman of the Hines real estate organization and a laureate of the Urban Land Institute J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development.
The competition, now underway, is open to graduate students who are pursuing real estate-related studies at a North American university, including programs in real estate development, urban planning, urban design, architecture and landscape architecture. Through the competition, interdisciplinary teams of students have been challenged to offer a practical, workable scheme for the design and development of a portion of the study area, all of which is located in the undervalued Cedars neighborhood in Dallas.
Each team is required to design a master plan for the site and supply financial projections to support the master development plan.
A $50,000 prize will be awarded to the winning team; and an additional $30,000 will be split among the remaining finalist teams. This year, applications were submitted from 103 teams representing 34 universities in the United States and Canada.
The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition strives to encourage cooperation and teamwork—necessary talents in the planning, design and development of sustainable communities—among future land use professionals and allied professions, such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, engineering, real estate development, finance, psychology and law.
“This competition aims to give the next generation a better understanding of the challenges involved in urban design, and how the different elements—such as various land uses, public areas, and traffic patterns—all interact to influence how urban areas evolve over time,” said competition jury chairman James J. Curtis III, principal, Bristol Group, in San Francisco. “It’s a major part of ULI’s ongoing effort to draw the best and brightest young minds to our industry.”
The 464-acre competition study area is bordered by the northern edge of the Interstate 30 right-of-way; the South Central Expressway; the railroad right-of-way between and paralleling Corinth Street and Grand Avenue; and South Austin Street. The teams will assume that three major infrastructure initiatives that promise to transform downtown Dallas in the next decades will have been adopted: 1) the Trinity River Corridor (recreational amenities, water management and environmental reclamation); Trinity River Parkway (a 10-mile express toll road to divert through traffic from downtown); and Project Pegasus (the redesign of downtown interstates and interchanges). Teams may either choose a 12-block site within the Cedars, or a site on 57 acres that could be reclaimed by decking over the “Canyon,” which is a 1.5-mile below-grade stretch of Interstate 30 between the Convention Center and Farmers Market.
The ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition has been funded in perpetuity through a $3 million endowment from Gerald Hines. A legend in the land use industry, he is 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.”
The teams will be expected to submit proposals that illustrate innovative ways to incorporate six aspects of urban design that have been identified by ULI as necessary components of sustainable communities. These are: 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.
Participants have received project briefing materials, including a comprehensive problem statement; background information on the site; market information; relevant existing design proposals; and other details, along with a list of materials required for team presentations. The competition is designed as an exercise; there is no guarantee that the students’ plans will be implemented as part of any revitalization of the site.
Four finalist teams and up to four honorable mentions will be named next month. In the final phase of the competition, the student finalist teams will have the opportunity to expand their original schemes and respond in more detail. During this time, a member of each team will be brought to Dallas to tour the site and revise their presentations. On April 3, 2008, finalist team members will present their schemes to the competition jury members during a public forum in Dallas. The event will culminate with the announcement of the winning team.
Led by Curtis as jury chairman, the competition jury consists of renowned experts in urban planning, design and development: Chad Barron, principal, Pioneer Property Group, Seattle; Ray Brown, architect and designer, Self Tucker Architecture, Inc., Memphis; Donald K. Carter, president, Urban Design Associates, Pittsburgh; William D. Chilton, managing principal, Pickard Chilton, New Haven; Todd Johnson, principal, Design Workshop, Denver; Signe Nielsen, principal, Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects PC, New York City; and Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia. Financial advisers to the competition are: Kenneth H. Hughes, president, Hughes Development, L.P., Dallas; and John M. Walsh, III, president, TIG Real Estate Services, Inc., Dallas.
For more information on the ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, visit www.udcompetition.uli.org.
The Urban Land Institute (www.uli.org) is a nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the Institute has more than 40,000 members representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.