Architects team with HUD to promote 'Rebuild By Design' competition for Hurricane Sandy recovery effort

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) today announced a communications campaign urging its membership to enter the “Rebuild by Design” multi-stage regional design competition announced by Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan on June 20.

Rebuild by Design, which has an entry deadline of July 19, hopes to promote resiliency in the small coastal towns of New Jersey to lower Manhattan that were hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy late last year. The goal of the competition is to attract world-class talent, promote innovation and develop projects that will actually be built.

According to HUD, proposals will be analyzed in the fall and then developed between November and February. The winning designs and projects will be implemented in March with a combination of private and public funds, including allocations from the $16 billion pot of HUD Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery dollars appropriated earlier this year by Congress.

“We enthusiastically encourage AIA members and the entire architectural profession to participate in this design competition, said AIA President Mickey Jacob, FAIA. “It is a unique opportunity to be considered to play a significant role in the design and implementation of this massive, decades-long redevelopment and planning effort.

“This collaboration of design professionals, community and political leaders has the potential to not only address the livability, reconstruction and resiliency of the region devastated by Hurricane Sandy, but to act as a model for how we must treat the future sustainable development of coastal areas prone to the ever increasing incidents of natural disasters,” Jacob said.

“We appreciate the willingness of the AIA to encourage its members to help shape the future of the Sandy-affected region by participating in the Rebuild By Design competition,” said Secretary Donovan. “We are calling on the brightest minds across various fields to help develop resilient design solutions -- from infrastructure engineers, to landscape designers and, of course, architects. Rebuild By Design will develop projects that will actually be built and can serve as models for communities worldwide.”

Examples of design solutions are expected to range in scope and scale – from large-scale green infrastructure to small-scale residential resiliency retrofits.

The competition will have a region-wide focus to help provide solutions to problems that are larger or more complex than individual towns have the capacity to solve themselves. The regional focus will also help provide a better understanding of the many interconnected systems (infrastructure, ecological, climate, economic and others) in the Sandy-affected region. Design teams will start with regional analyses to understand major vulnerabilities and then, through the collaborative design process begin to focus on local implementation and key projects for improving the region’s resilience.

Rebuild By Design will have four stages:

Stage 1: Call for concept proposals and selection of 5-10 teams

June 2013 – July 2013

Attract and form teams 5-10 with world-class expertise in infrastructure engineering, landscape design, urban design, architecture, land use planning, industrial design, communication, and other fields.

Stage 2: Analysis of the region through collaborative process

August 2013 – October 2013

The teams will interact with a wide-range of stakeholders to develop a comprehensive understanding of the region, its interdependencies, key players, and areas that warrant integrated design thinking and solutions.

Stage 3: Development of design solutions and selection of key projects

November 2013 – February 2014

Teams will submit their designs in the beginning of February. A jury will select the winners.

Stage 4: Implementation of winning designs and projects

Will commence March 2014

Winning design solutions, having been developed in close collaboration with government and stakeholders, will be implemented using public and private funds.

For more information on how to enter, please click here:

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/sandyrebuilding/rebuildbydesign

About the American Institute of Architects

For over 150 years, members of the American Institute of Architects have worked with each other and their communities to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings and cityscapes. Members adhere to a code of ethics and professional conduct to ensure the highest standards in professional practice. Embracing their responsibility to serve society, AIA members engage civic and government leaders and the public in helping find needed solutions to pressing issues facing our communities, institutions, nation and world. Visit www.aia.org.

I recently attended the Bentley User Conference in Vejle, Denmark. I attended the event primarily to get a sense for the challenges our Danish counterparts are experiencing in project delivery and digital communication. One story I heard was from a BIM manager with Henning Larsen Architects in Denmark, who told me about a project she’d recently completed overseas in the Middle East. She outlined two distinct challenges and offered some interesting solutions to those challenges.

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Architects team with HUD to promote 'Rebuild By Design' competition for Hurricane Sandy recovery effort

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