A Cornell team comprised of students from four different graduate programs received an Honorable Mention at the 2022 ULI Hines Urban Design Competition last month. With guidance from their advisor, CRP Lecturer Mitch Glass, team members Le Li (MLA), Xiaomeng Cai (MLA), Jun Li (MRP), Jinyu Zhang (MEng), and Ziqi Xie (MPS) competed against over 450 students from 50 universities spanning across the United States, Canada, China, Netherlands, and Egypt.
ULI – the Urban Land Institute – is an independent, non-profit, research and education organization based in Washington, DC. Originally incorporated in 1936, it’s now the largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts in the world. The yearly competition offers graduate students the opportunity to form their own multidisciplinary teams and engage in a challenging exercise in responsible land use. Teams of five students pursuing degrees in at least three different disciplines have two weeks to devise a development program for a real, large-scale site. Teams provide graphic boards and narratives of their proposals including designs and market-feasible financial data.
This year, the project site was located in Oakland, California along I-880 between Downtown and The Jack London District and waterfront. Bay area development pressures in Oakland have led to substantive discussions and strategies to re-envision portions of the city to attract investment while building new affordable housing in areas near services to prevent displacement. Students were tasked with creating a plan for a variety of new mixed-use development, adaptive re-use of existing buildings, historic preservation, and new public space.
Cornell’s submission, the CIRCUIT project, “Connects and redevelops Old Oakland with a distinct focus on bringing tourists and entrepreneurs together into Oakland’s downtown area. With the 7th Street “Art Corridor,” central commercial area, and a new BART station, visitors and investors, who have been attracted to Old Oakland, will bring development and employment opportunities into this area. Combined with climate alleviation, sustainability, and adaptation, the CIRCUIT transforms Old Oakland into a constantly vibrant and diverse community.”
After the intense two-week competition, MLA student Xiaomeng Cai was grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with a diverse range of students, while learning software design skills and making new memories.
One of Cai’s best memories were her team members sleeping on her sofa in the last four days of the competition. “My sofa has a lot of memories with us, I will remember it forever.” She urges future students to participate and wishes them good luck.
A call for teams is typically distributed in early November of the Fall semester. Teams register with ULI in early December. Students receive 1.5 credits for participating in a one-week prep class taught by Glass, followed by the competition itself which takes place in January over winter break.