TIMBER IN THE CITY: Students Awarded Prizes for Innovative Designs Using Wood for NYC

NEW YORK —Today, the winning entrants were announced of a student design competition exploring wood as an innovative building material. Timber in the City: Urban Habitats Competition, organized by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), the Binational Softwood Lumber Council (BSLC) and Parsons School of Design, attracted more than 920 architectural students and faculty. Entrants designed proposals to imagine the transformation of our cities through sustainable buildings from renewable resources, offering efficient affordable construction, innovating with new and traditional timber materials, and designing healthy living and working environments. The winning entrants, with prizes totaling $40,000, were chosen by a panel of leading architects and professors based on the design’s ability to integrate wood as the primary structural material while meeting the needs of the local community.

The competition focused on a vacant waterfront site in Queens, New York, as a vibrant and vanguard model of healthy, biophilic living for the future of the city. Students were asked to design a mid-rise, mixed-use complex that includes affordable housing, a large community wellness facility, and an early childhood education center, all interlaced with a new exterior public waterfront space. Entrants were challenged to propose construction systems in scenarios that draw optimally on the performance characteristics of not one but a variety of wood technologies.
The projects will be on view at the 2020 ACSA Annual Meeting in San Diego (March) and the American Institute of Architects 2020 Convention in Los Angeles (May). Awards, totaling $40,000, were presented to teams of students and faculty for their unique celebrations of wood products.
• First Place: “Aperture” – the University of Maryland’s winning submission attracted the jurors with its intelligent use of timber construction techniques. The orientation of the buildings creates a protective plaza linking the buildings to the community with a clear understanding of the urban context.
o Students: Eric Bos & Trevor Wood, University of Maryland
o Faculty Sponsor: Peter Noonan, University of Maryland
• Second Place: “Re-Gen Growth” – the City College of New York’s winning submission stands out for its innovative use of wood, which connects spaces, structure and the user experience all together. The density of the project represents a three-dimensional occupiable city.
o Students: Danny Medina, Cesar Soto, and Daniel Olayiwola Akinsulire, City College of New York
o Faculty Sponsor: Suzan Wines, City College of New York
• Third Place: “Timber Living” – the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s submission has a strong grasp of timber construction and how to assemble it in a clever way. The project shows an advanced integration of sustainable measures.
o Students: Cyrus Amani, Osiel Guzman, Himangshu Kedia, and Wei-Che Chang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
o Faculty Sponsor: Tait Johnson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Additionally, five student teams were selected as honorable mention winners:
• Honorable Mention Project: “Against the Grain” Students: Richard Cottrell, Arturo Lujan, Danielle Scaccia and Austin Vogelsang, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Faculty Sponsors: Peter Wong and Chris Jarrett, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Honorable Mention Project: “Queensboro Canopy” Student: Laura Wiedenhöver, University of Florida Faculty Sponsor: Bradley Walters, University of Florida
• Honorable Mention Project: “Woven Timber City” Student: Joey Fleming, University of New Mexico Faculty Sponsor: Karen King, University of New Mexico
• Honorable Mention Project: “Parcelas Verticales” Student: Tobias Jimenez, Washington State University Faculty: Omar Al-Hassawi, Washington State University
• Honorable Mention Project: “Integration” Students: Linghao Wu, Weijun Kong, Hanxu Fan and Pinyao Liu, Tongji University, UPro Design Faculty: Yuhui Jin, Tongji University, UPro Design

The winning projects were chosen by a panel of distinguished jury members in the architecture community, including the following:

• Michelle Roelofs, Arup
• Anthony Guerrero, Natural Resources Defense Council / International Living Future Institute
• Karen McEvoy, Bucholz McEvoy Architects
• Andrea Simitch, Cornell University
• David Linehan, Lotus Equity Group LLC.
The competition ran from July 2018 through May 2019 and included over 920 participants. The design jury met in July to select the winning projects and honorable mentions. For full details on the competition and the winning submissions visit www.timberinthecity.com.

Binational Softwood Lumber Council
The Binational Softwood Lumber Council (BSLC), a nonprofit organization, was established in 2006 by the Canadian and U.S. governments. The BSLC champions the use of softwood lumber products as part of the shift to a more environmentally responsible and economically viable building sector. Sustainably harvested wood products from North America create jobs in rural communities, reduce costs and can help reduce the overall environmental footprint of a home or building. For more information, visit www.softwoodlumber.org.

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) represents all accredited programs and their faculty across the United States and Canada, as well as nonaccredited and international affiliate members around the world. ACSA, unique in its representative role for schools of architecture, provides a forum for ideas on the leading edge of architectural thought. Issues that will affect the architectural profession in the future are being examined today in ACSA member schools. The association maintains a variety of activities that influence, communicate, and record important issues. Such endeavors include scholarly meetings, workshops, publications, awards and competition programs, support for architectural research, policy development, and liaison with allied organizations. For more information, please visit www.acsa-arch.org.

Parsons School of Design
Parsons School of Design is a global leader in design education, with programs that span the disciplines of design and the fine arts. Parsons prepares students to creatively and critically address the complex conditions of contemporary global society. Its curriculum is geared toward synthesizing rigorous craft with cutting-edge theory and research methods and encourages collaborative and individual approaches that cut across a wide array of disciplines. The School of Constructed Environments at Parsons is the only integrated school of interior design, lighting design, product design and architecture in the country. For more information, please visit www.newschool.edu/parsons/sce.