A student team from the University of Texas at Austin won the 20th annual ULI/Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, and did so by focusing on an area in another part of the United States.
The UT Austin team of grad students came up with the winning plan to create a vibrant mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood for a four-block site in downtown Oakland, California.
In the contest, student teams across the country were asked to devise a redevelopment plan that would create a positive economic impact while addressing housing affordability, sustainability, connectivity to proximate neighborhoods and access to local services.
In their winning submissions, UT Austin team members proposed to develop "The Stack," a transit-oriented development that could become a thriving, diverse and integrated community that highlighted Oakland’s culture. It also would be built to attain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, Platinum status.
“The University of Texas at Austin student team elevated their knowledge and understanding of the importance of collaboration in urban development,” Steven Spears , principal of Momark Development and one of the team's advisers, said in a statement.
The ULI Hines Student Competition was created with an endowment from the late Gerald Hines, founder of Hines and a longtime ULI leader.
Members of UT Austin's winning team are Sanket Kamdar, Sophia Aitken, Margaret Gallagher, Alay Thakrar and Kent Carlson. The team edged out finalist student teams from Georgia Tech and Harvard University and a group made up of students from both Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.