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GSD students win first prize in Arizona Challenge

Autonomous City: The Self-Sufficient Community of the Arizona Desert by Drew Adams (MArch ’11),  Fadi Masoud (MLAII ’12), and Daniel Ibañez (MDesS ’12) was awarded First Prize in The Arizona Challenge, an ideas competition for highly efficient, sustainable, livable, and healthy, arid-climate communities. It sought forms that lead first to prototyping and eventually, a whole new reality with the goal of nothing less than to shape our future cities and urban environments—well beyond the limitations of what currently exist. The proposal envisioned compact, self-sufficient enclaves, embedded in the landscape, as new territories beyond current urban reaches.
“The jury gave high praise and appreciation for the thoughtful and artful qualities of your Autonomous City proposal. Replacing the out-modeled downtown core with a great central infrastructural park, celebrating not only the use and pleasure of its citizens but also the metabolic processes and relationships between man and nature. This is an unmistakably clear and radical idea for the future,”  said Vernon D. Swaback, Chairman of the Jury.