Hey Everyone,

After a terrific few days in Denver, I have made it back to Boston and am settling in for a two week stretch of thesis writing.  As noted earlier, we were in Denver to compete against three other graduate teams in round two of the 2009 Urban Land Institute / Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition.  We had a great time throughout the process: meeting the other teams, working on our presentation, eating lunch with Mr. Hines, etc.    Finding out that our proposal for Panorama Station won the competition and the $50,000 team prize was truly icing on the cake.

Appreciate Steve breaking the news on his blog.  As a side note, if you haven’t already, you should check out the videos of Jeff Speck’s presentation he posted – good stuff.

Thanks to Mr. Hines and ULI staff for hosting such a great competition. And thank you to everyone for the congratulations via email, facebook, etc.

ULI has yet to release pictures and press releases from the competition, but in the meantime here are a few new images from our project.

Our proposal for a new transit-oriented development to replace an existing big-box and strip retail center.

Integrating the station plaza platform with an iconic pedestrian bridge creates a memorable destination and strong sense of place.

The competition required that existing tenants – like Sam’s and Kmart – be integrated into the design.  Here this is accomplished by providing generous street-front entrances to sub-grade retail sales floors.  Elevator connections to structured parking in the center of the block continue to provide convenient access for store patrons.