So far as I can tell, there's been no mention elsewhere of the Urban Land Institute's Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, now in its sixth year -- and, for the first time, involving Dallas. The completion is part of the D.C.-based 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," and this year it has chosen 464 acres in the Cedars neighborhood just south of downtown as the site of the contest. In previous years, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Salt Lake Valley, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. were locations used in the competition.
According to today's just-updated and highly detailed "competition brief," students will have to propose a master land use plan for the area, as well as: "[adopt] the role of a private master developer, identify a development site ... within this study area for phased development beginning in 2010; propose an urban design for the study area; and propose a development plan and financial proforma for the first ten years of a development on your chosen development site."
Submissions are due by next Monday, and says today's media release, applications have been submitted from "103 teams [with five members per team] representing 34 universities in the United States and Canada." And up for grabs is some $80,000 in prize money -- though, seems like Dallas will be the big winner, what with a free master land use plan for the Cedars also up for grabs. --Robert Wilonsky
