Metals in Construction 2025 Design Challenge - Desirable Urban Living: Design for Affordability

The eleventh annual iteration of this international ideas competition continues a tradition of calling for design strategies that benefit the collective well-being. This year, the challenge seeks innovative and environmentally responsible solutions to overcome New York City’s critical shortage of affordable rental housing. A $15,000 grand prize will be awarded to the most creative submission found by a jury of credentialed practitioners to offer desirable urban living within the means of lower income New Yorkers.

DESIGN BRIEF

New York City is facing its worst housing crisis in decades. To solve it means choosing sites and designs that can bring about the speedy, cost-conscious construction of affordable apartments that meet modern standards for comfort and wellbeing and are indistinguishable from those of their high end neighbors. Given these parameters, the Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge invites students and practitioners to submit their vision for a 30-story residential tower that can be replicated on property zoned for subsidized housing. 

Submissions must use structural steel framing with a curtain wall enclosure to be considered. The site selected for this speculative exercise is a lot numbered 290 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

The waterfront property is bordered by River Street, South 1st Street, Kent Avenue and South 2nd Street. It is to be assumed that site conditions include low soil-bearing capacity and seasonal flooding.

To be eligible for the grand prize, entries at a minimum must:

1. Maximize structural steel’s ability to create a unique and innovative design that would be difficult to achieve with other building materials
2. Detail how structural steel is used for all framing elements, including thin-floor systems if employed. However, any type of floor system may be used.
3. Include architectural concept drawings depicting:
   a. Site plan showing building placement and access (parking not required)
   b. Cross-sectional drawings
   c. Elevations
   d. Floor plans that depict unit size and configuration, the mix of studio, one-bedroom and larger units
   e. Design of project components and measures to control hypothetical flood conditions
   f. A fire-engineering solution to provide fire protection for structural steel framing
4. Consider the ease and efficiency with which the structure can be built
5. Optimize framing for greatest design flexibility to enable uncomplicated modification or expansion to accommodate future requirements
6. Present a resilient, versatile, and environmentally responsible building solution

The submission process is composed of two parts:

• Entrant Information – Contact information of the individual or team submitting. This will not be shared with the jury and is only for contact purposes. Enter additional team names in the “Notes” section of the My Competition Entry page. You may also paste a link to any animated visualizations in the “Notes” field.
• Proposal Visualization – Up to 10 pages may be submitted to represent the proposal. This attachment should be one (1) multi-page PDF file (max. 10 pages) formatted at 11×17″ (ledger) and can include supporting backup data, calculations, and commentary to supplement the images. Do not link or embed objects. Do not include any identifying information. Links to any video or animated components may be pasted into the “Notes” field. Maximum file size is 20MB.

All materials are due by 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, March 20, 2025 (extended!). Once you register via this site, you or your teammates may log in and edit your competition entry as many times as you like until the deadline. This competition is sponsored by the Steel Institute of New York, which reserves the right to suspend or amend the cash award if deemed warranted by circumstances.