ONE PRIZE: Water as the 6th Borough - Winners Announced

Terreform ONE has announced the winners of ONE PRIZE: Water as the 6th Borough, the open international design competition to envision the sixth borough of New York City.

ONE PRIZE is an annual design and science award to promote green design in cities. The 2011 edition turned its focus to New York and its waterways, re-imagining recreational space, public transportation, local industry, and native environment in the city. Contestants proposed designs for the NYC BLUE NETWORK and the E3NYC CLEAN TECH WORLD EXPO by expanding waterborne transportation and linking the five boroughs with a series of green transit hubs as well as providing in-water recreation, water-oriented educational, cultural and commercial activities, and demonstrations of clean technology and renewable energy.

The jury panel included Amanda Burden, New York City Planning Commissioner; Charles McKinney, Principal Urban Designer NYC Parks Department; Michael Colgrove of New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA); Helena Durst of the Durst Organization; Matthias Hollwich of Architizer;  Bjarke Ingels of BIG; Roland Lewis of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance; Roberta Weisbrod of Sustainable Ports; Kate Ascher of Buro Happold Consulting; James Corner of Field Operations; David Gouverneur of the University of Pennsylvania; and Victoria Marshall of Parsons School of Design.

Prizes were given to many young architects and designers who submitted the four selected entries. The grand prize winners, Ali Fard and Ghazal Jafari are both recent graduates of the University of Toronto. The three honorable mention teams are the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design led by Kevin Bone, an entrepreneurial design practice RUX Design, New York, and a group of recent graduates from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

WINNER: NY PARALLEL NETWORKS - Board (PDF)
Ali Fard and Ghazal Jafari, Canada

NY Parallel Networks, stood out to the jury with a synthesis of economy, environment, transportation, and recreation in a versatile, attractive proposal. A scaleable, flexible design, Parallel Networks remained compellingly feasible with an exciting public space integrated with energy production, water cleansing, and habitat creation.

Commissioner Burden praised NY Parallel Networks with these words, "The winning entry, NY Parallel Networks, is very rich proposal that takes on all of the major themes of the City's new waterfront plan, Vision 2020. The design includes an exciting public recreational space in the Bronx integrated with energy production, water cleansing, and enhancement of natural habitats. In addition, the proposal referenced the needs of the maritime industry, and included boat tie up and maritime services on an artificial reef."

 

ONE PRIZE's multifaceted design brief brought in a wide variety of proposals, and the jury selected three honorable mentions to represent the three general groups of entries: Developing water-borne culture; Envisioning a comprehensive transportation system; and addressing intensifying environmental challenges.

The three honorable mentions went to: 

W.O.W NYC - Board (PDF)
RUX Design LLC, USA (Russell Greenberg, Christopher Beardsley, and Joseph Corsi)

This proposal brought pieces of the New York City grid into the river, obliterating the disconnect between boroughs and providing vast new territory and incentive for development. RUX Design's short term intent is an economic one, but in the long term "the vibrant water-born culture and infrastructure that develops along the W.O.W. connections will ease the inevitable transition Manhattan faces as the ocean rise and devour terra firma."

The jury picked the proposal for its imagination and clear vision of dissolving boundaries between boroughs by drawing urban life onto the waterways themselves Bjarke Ingels was inspired by the "accumulative additive form of urbanism" which presents a "full on fantasy of what aquatic urbanism could be like".

 

ENHANCEMENT OF ESTUARY AND ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM - Board (PDF)
Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design, USA, led by Kevin Bone along with Arnold Wu, Paul Deppe, Joe Levine, Sunnie Joh, Raye Levine, Al Appleton, and Zulaikha Ayub

The proposal appealed to the judges for its goal to treat the city's water, air, and vulnerability to storm surge and sea level rise with comprehensive plan to soften the length and breadth of the city's shoreline with new habitats and parkways. In strong contrast to W.O.W., Enhancement of Estuary purely approached issues of ecology and strengthening the Hudson River Estuary against environmental harm. 

There was widespread enthusiasm amongst jury members for the focus and dedication to biology and the clear positive impact the project would have on the Hudson River Estuary.  The extensive and invasive nature of the project excited some and deterred others. Charles McKinney enthusiastically remarked that "it does point out the difference between a demonstration project and something that is at the real scale of what needs to happen". 

 

NETWORK URBANISM - Board (PDF)
JDKP, USA (Jeffrey Troutman, Dustin Buck, Kendall Goodman, and Paul McBride)

The proposal caught the eyes of the jury for democratization of planning with a user-driven waterfront network modeled by GIS data collected in mobile phone apps. The proposal creatively suggested a waterfront network, built gradually over time that responded to urbanites' feet, a design framed by critical mass. Part of the additive urbanism imagined in the project extended into the water, creating floating gardens anchored by oyster beds.

Matthias Hollwich admired the translation of digital social ambition into physical space all created by a critical mass of movement and interactions. Certain design details provoked skepticism, but the intricacy, ecological benefits, and bold concept of "voting with your feet" came to the forefront of the review. An exciting connection to the rapidly expanding field of digital social networking also attracted the jury.