Student Design Competition
About the 2023 Competition
Co-sponsored by the American Planning Association Urban Design and Preservation Division, Divisions Council, and Student Representatives Council, APA presents the Annual Student Design Competition as part of the 2023 National Planning Conference in Philadelphia. Now in its sixth year, the competition invites teams of students pursuing graduate degrees in planning to participate. New this year is the competition's focus on a community issue in the NPC host city. The attention to student design in these real-life spaces continues APA's ongoing effort to provide leadership in the development of vital communities. By advocating excellence in planning, promoting education and citizen empowerment, APA hopes to provide the tools and support necessary to meet the challenges of growth and change.
This year's competition challenges students to create planning and design proposals that demonstrate a multidisciplinary and multifaceted approach to promoting public health, equitable access to nature, inclusive design, and high-quality, affordable housing options for the Logan Triangle area, one of Philadelphia's largest concentrations of vacant land located in the city's Upper North District.
2023 Student Design Competition Brief
2023 Student Design Competition Q&A
Previous Winners
2021
First Place
Reimagine, Macon Georgia
Team Reimagine — University of Georgia
Team Reimagine pursues to help regenerate a city that has struggled with many challenges regarding civic engagement, socioeconomic mixing/racial injustice, connectivity between communities, and environmental sustainability. The purpose of honing deep on site context and analysis was to find the true character of the spaces and the people of Macon. Our proposed ideas and designs strove to not only tackle the existing challenges but to also help create a healthy and safe environment for all residents in the community through public access, parks and recreation, and revitalizing the downtown.
Team Members: Adolfo Martinez, Karlie Roper, Margaret Apperson, Duncan Watts, Jeremy Smith, Anneka Pace
Team Reimagine — University of Georgia
2020
First Place
Team RES
Columbia University
"Team RES (resilient, responsive, restorative) seeks to promote healthy communities, support workforce development and community entrepreneurship, increase high-quality housing options, and incorporate strategies that optimize environmental assets and awareness. Through our proposal, we seek to address some of the community's concerns targeting flood mitigation, environmental remediation, gentrification, housing affordability, and the high crime rate. We explore the myriad of solutions around planning for communities that are equitable, resilient, and for residents who need ready access to housing that's affordable."
Second Place
University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign
Third Place
Harvard University
2019
Team Fruitpad
Cornell University
2019 Student Design Competition winners, Team Fruitpad from Cornell University.
2018
NOLA Shares
Cornell University
Team Leader — Anna Callahan; Team Members — Thomas Pera, Hannah Plummer, Kari Spiegelhalter
NOLA Shares features a web and app-based platform that aims to increase and facilitate shared skills, resources and knowledge across the Iberville community in downtown New Orleans. In addition to cloud-based infrastructure, the team proposed physical kiosks installed throughout the neighborhood to guarantee access for all residents.
2017
L.E.A.P. to a Smart Future
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Team Leader — Xiaochen Chen; Team Members — Yuanyi Xiao, Donggyu Lee
The 2017 Student Design Competition invited interdisciplinary student teams to apply place-based Smart City technologies to a specific New York City site. The winning team, L.E.A.P. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, creatively identified a four-part vision — L.E.A.P. to a Smart Future — detailing how Smart City technologies could be used to improve Livability, Empowerment, Accessibility, and Play on site.
Finalists
Four additional teams were selected as finalists and presented their ideas at the National Planning Conference in New York City.
Smart CATS
Kansas State University
Adaptive Strategies
New York University
UCLA MURPs
University of California, Los Angeles
The All-Nighters
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign