The team of UMD graduate students that won $50,000 for taking first in the Urban Land Institute Hines Student Design Competition reflect on their recent accomplishment.
A sketch of the team's winning design proposal, "Chords."
Image Credit: Rameez Munawar
A team of University of Maryland graduate students took home $50,000 for their first place finish at the Urban Land Institute Hines Student Design Competition held in Nashville, despite the competition being a first for many of its members.
Beating out 163 teams from 72 of the nation’s top universities, Andrew Casavant (Master of Community Planning), David Esnor (Master of Architecture), Amina Mohamed (Master of Landscape Architecture) and Rameez Munawar (Master of Real Estate Development) helped secure UMD’s place within the ranks of their prestigious competitors; Harvard University, University of Texas, Austin and Georgia Tech, to name a few.
“I was very excited and proud of our team,” David Ensor recalled. “We had obviously hoped to would win, [so] when the jury announced “University of Maryland,” we all couldn’t remove the smiles from our faces.”
The team’s project, the “Chords” sought to reconstruct Nashville’s Sulphur Dell neighborhood into a healthy and prosperous community, as was the competition’s challenge this year.
Drawing upon the musical interests of the Nashville community in the project’s name, Munawar said, “The “Chords” came from the idea that different people travel in different ways and those paths of travel are identified as their unique “chord.””
Noticing that downtown buildings are clustered together, the team created “strings,” avenues running north and south, and each string was named according to the characteristics of the downtown area. For example, some strings were called “Regional Connector,” “Fitness,” “Living,” and “Culture.”
“Our strategy places certain buildings on these strings or avenues, and when people move throughout the development area from string to string they create a chord (a path of travel),” Munawar explained.
Along those strings, the team came up with creative names for the avenues’ buildings consistent with Nashville’s character, such as “The Iron-Works Fitness Center” and “The Music City Plaza.”
“Our concept was not a cookie cutter design that could be developed anywhere. We related back to the city and most importantly it was financially feasible,” Munawar said, noting that the economic possibility of the project is what ultimately lead to their success.
Speaking of success, Casavant credited the hard work of the team’s advisors, Matthew Bell, Professor of Architecture, and Tim Phillips of the Buzzoto Group.
“They encouraged us to dig deeper into our analysis of our site and consider elements unfamiliar to our individual studies…[and] challenged us to elaborate and expand upon our entry's strongest elements,” Casavant said.
Mohamed continued, “We worked well together—everyone was receptive to ideas which allowed us to design more cohesively and more holistically. There was a good balance of fun mixed with work.”
While one of Munawar’s favorite memories is the team’s flawless question and answer session, less academic memories were also made, such as riding bikes while touring the city and enjoying each other’s company.
Mohamed said that the experience was amazing, insightful and humbling, while Ensor explained the impact that the competition has had upon him.
“I realized that no building exists in a vacuum and they have a huge impact on the surrounding context,” Ensor said, “I will carry those lessons into my career.”
