From a pool of 120 participating teams, two Harvard University Graduate School of Design teams made to the final four in the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Hines Competition of 2015. With this year’s focus on the Tulane/Gravier and Iberville downtown neighborhoods in New Orleans, Louisiana, each team was challenged to provide comprehensive design and development proposals, including creative formal design solutions and sound financial strategies.
Both teams are multidisciplinary in nature. One of the GSD teams is composed mainly of MDes Real Estate and the Built Environment students: Zach Zongye Lee (MDes ’16), Roma Patel (MDes ’16), Eli Sokol (MDes ’16), with Alexandro Medina (MAUD ’15), and Eddie Coates (MBA). The guiding faculty adviser of this team is Bing Wang, associate professor in practice of real estate and the built environment.
The other team is under the supervision of professor of landscape architecture Anita Berrizbeitia, and includes students from MDes Real Estate and the Built Environment, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design programs: Yuan Fang (MDes ’16), Yinjia Gong (MLA ’15), Xinjun Gu (MLA ’15), Alejandro Lara (MAUD ’15), and Jiaqi Wang (MAUD ’15).
The selected GSD students of the two finalist teams will travel to visit the site and have the opportunity to present their schemes in April to jury members during a public forum in New Orleans.