Infill Philadelphia: Soak it Up! Call for Entries

The Philadelphia Water Department, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Community Design Collaborative invite design professionals to enter Infill Philadelphia: Soak it Up!—an interdisciplinary design competition that challenges designers to use and adapt green stormwater infrastructure technologies in innovative and creative ways for cities.

A  Competition Packet with the full details is available online: http://infill.cdesignc.org/participate-2/design-competition/

Interdisciplinary teams will be challenged to develop new models for green stormwater infrastructure at one of three actual sites in Philadelphia:

• Warehouse Watershed: A warehouse and a city-owned vacant lot that offer possibilities for public-private partnerships and the revitalization of a high-vacancy, mixed-use residential/industrial district.
• Retail Retrofit: A retail strip center that has the potential to play a more central role in the surrounding neighborhood through improved walkability, pop-up space for community events, and access to river recreation.
• Greening the Grid: An historic neighborhood with an engaged community and a dense network of streets, alleys, roofs, and open space that offers possibilities for an array of small-scale interventions.

The design competition is part of a larger design initiative that explores how green stormwater infrastructure can revitalize urban neighborhoods.

Green stormwater infrastructure is crucial to the implementation of Green City, Clean Waters, the City's innovative, environmentally-sustainable 25-year plan to protect and enhance local waterways primarily through the use of green stormwater infrastructure.

The competition is open to professional designers. Competition teams must include at least one licensed architect, one licensed landscape architect, and one licensed civil engineer. One of the required team members must practice in the Philadelphia region.

Design teams must register by Friday, November 30, 2012 at midnight EST. Submissions are due on January 22, 2013.

Nine finalists will be selected to present at an awards event at the Drexel University Academy of Natural Science on March 7, 2013. A jury will select one winning design for each of the three sites. The three winning competition teams will receive a cash prize of $10,000.

While the competition sites have a Philadelphia focus, the insights gained through the design competition will apply to other cities seeking to retrofit green stormwater infrastructure into an existing urban fabric. We encourage design professionals from around the country to enter!