A redevelopment plan for a Miami site presented by a team comprisingstudents from Columbia University and Pratt Institute has taken top honors inthe 2020 ULI/Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. The ideascontest provides graduate students with the opportunity to devise acomprehensive design and development scheme for a large-scale site in an urbanarea. Members of the winning team were awarded a prize of $50,000 at theconclusion of the competition on April 7. The remaining three finalist teams,with representatives from the University of Cincinnati, Cornell University,Columbia University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, each willreceive $10,000.
While the competition normally takes place on site, thisyear the competition pivoted to a two-day virtual experience and the studentsrose to the challenge. On the first day, the students rehearsed their plans infront of seven experts and ULI members in Southeast Florida, and the followingday they presented their plans virtually to a 12-person jury of ULI membersfrom around the United States.
This year’s competition involved an area in midtown Miami, split between the Wynwood and Edgewater neighborhoods. The Florida East Coast Railway bisects the study area, where students evaluated the potential to create a thriving, mixed-use neighborhood around a commuter train station, while considering issues of housing affordability, sustainability, and resilience in their proposals.
The four teams that advanced to the final round of the competitionwere chosen from 113 teams with students from 42 sponsoring universities and 56campuses, including 21 multicampus teams, in North America and beyond.
“On behalf of ULI, I want to congratulate the winners andfinalists of the 2020 ULI Hines Competition,” said ULI Global CEO W. EdwardWalter. “I commend them for the creativity and hard work that got them to thefinal stage of this competition. I also want to thank our jury members, whohave devoted countless hours of their own time to reviewing and debating theproposals put before them. We welcome all of the competitors to ULI’s networkof problem solvers and thought leaders, and I can’t wait to see their impact onthe built environment of the future.”
The winning plan from Columbia University and PrattInstitute, “La Mezcla,” is designed around three pillars: ecology, community,and economy. This mixed-use development proposal creates an environmentallysustainable community that remains relevant through ensuing climate change. Thedevelopment seeks to bring together the socioeconomic diversity that existsbetween Wynwood and Edgewater despite the physical and perceived barrier on thesite.
The La Mezcla team was composed of Duane Martinez, master of city and regional planning, Pratt Institute; Jonathan Hong, master of real estate development candidate, Columbia University; Matea Kulusic, master of real estate development candidate, Columbia University; Matthew Mitchell, master of architecture candidate, Pratt Institute; and Pavel Petrov, master of real estate development candidate, Columbia University.
“Our team agrees that the ULI Hines Competition was one ofthe single most challenging endeavors of our graduate experience, both from adevelopment and design perspective,” said Hong. “We embodied the spirit of LaMezcla as we were able to leverage our diverse backgrounds, prior professionalexperience, and unique perspectives in pursuit of a common goal. We wereexcited to present a strong united vision that was centered around the threepillars of community, ecology, and economy. This helped us to set the frameworkthat we could all stand behind and be proud of, and we look forward to buildingon our competition experience in our careers to come.”
“The 2020 finalists raised the level of creative thinkingand technical execution delivered in the competition,” said ULI Hines JuryChair, ULI Trustee, and ULI Foundation Governor Richard M. Gollis. “This wasone of the most complicated study areas that Hines competitors have ever had towork with. It required a solution that covered millions of square feet ofpotential development, realities of South Florida resiliency, social equity forstakeholder communities, and significant regional transit connectivity.However, each of the finalists rose to the challenge and delivered compellingvisions of the site’s redesign. La Mezcla stood out because it embraced thespirit of the Wynwood/Edgewater neighborhood. They created a plan with a strongurban design vision, sound technical strategies, and a compelling financialplan,” said Gollis, who is also cofounder and principal of the Concord Group,based in Newport Beach, California.
The ULI Hines Student Competition was created with agenerous endowment from longtime ULI leader Gerald D. Hines, founder of theHines real estate organization. “We look forward to this competition every yearand seeing these bright young people come forth with outstanding ideas andprojects to improve our cities,” Hines said. “The interdisciplinary approachand the tight deadlines give aspiring students a glimpse into what the realestate business is actually like. They are the future of the built environment.”
The finalist teams and development plans were:
• Cubikkofrom Cornell University and Columbia University (contestants Jing Cheng, LijiaZhu, Oscar Portillo, and Yu Wu from Cornell University with Guangwei Ren fromColumbia University);
• theLIFELINE from the University of Cincinnati (contestants Caroline Errico,Christian Umbach, Robert Peebles, Stacy Felchner, and Todd Funkhouser); and
• Rock Ridgefrom the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (contestants Carl Hedman, DrewMorrison, Kecheng Huang, Kristopher Steele, and Stephanie Peña).
The competition jury consisted of renowned experts representing a strategic mix of land use professionals, including developers, architects, urban designers, urban planners, investment bankers, and financial analysts. In addition to jury chairman Gollis, members of the jury are: Kim Abreu, senior vice president, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Coral Gables, Florida; Jorge Garcia, chief executive officer, Garcia Stromberg (GS4 Studios), West Palm Beach, Florida; Suzette Goldstein, director of planning, HOK, Washington, D.C.; Jose Gonzalez, executive vice president, business development, Florida East Coast Industries Inc., Miami; Dave Howerton, chairman, Hart Howerton, San Francisco, California; Manisha Kaul, associate, Design Workshop, Chicago; Ellen Lou, director of urban design and planning, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, San Francisco; Jenni Morejon, president and chief executive officer, Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Stephen P. Navarro, president and chief executive officer, the Furman Co. Inc., Greenville, South Carolina; Brad Power, community development director, City of Englewood, Colorado; and Diana Reid, real estate banking executive, Pittsburgh. The rehearsal jury, which helped the finalists flesh out their presentation the day before the finale, can be found here.
The program is part of an ongoing ULI effort to raiseinterest among young people in creating better communities and improving urbandevelopment patterns, as well as increase awareness among students of the needfor interdisciplinary solutions to development and design challenges. Thecompetition is strategically structured to encourage cooperation andteamwork—necessary talents in the planning, design, and development ofsustainable communities—among future land use professionals and alliedprofessions, such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning,historic preservation, engineering, real estate development, finance,psychology, and law. It is open to graduate students who are pursuing realestate–related studies, including programs in real estate development, urbanplanning, urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture.
Since its creation in 2002, the ULI Hines Student Competition has been offered in North America. Now with Hines sponsorship, ULI has launched a related program in Europe. Students from universities across Europe were tested on their understanding of the core components of real estate; finance, investment, and development; as well as social and environmental issues that affect decisions regarding land use and sustainable retail. The nine finalists feature students from the University of Cambridge, Technical University Dublin, London Business School, Polytechnic University of Milan, INSEAD graduate business school, and the Technical University of Madrid.
