Winners of Tap City, a Competition around a Drinking Fountain

One winner and one Finalist have recently been announced at Tap City, a competition around a drinking fountain. The contest asked undergraduate and graduate students to create a structure, installation, or experience around a forgotten fountain, the Duncan Dunbar Memorial Fountain in Greenwich Village, NYC, to devise a radically innovative proposal for the most particular of urban design sites.

The two finalist entries, submitted by students from Spain, Australia, and the United States, were selected from an international field of seventy-nine applicants.

Winner: xSpecies Fountain
Fran Gallardo (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Seville, Spain) and Susie Pratt (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia)

Fran Gallardo was born in Zafra, Spain.  He attended Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura in Seville, Spain and is a Master’s candidate in Urban Planning and Structure Restoration.  He is currently a visiting scholar at the Environmental Health Clinic, a lab that prescribes various art, design and participatory projects in order to understand the intersection of individual and environmental health, at New York University.  His past work includes Zoohaus and Inteligencia Colectiva. 

Susie Pratt was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.  She is an artist and designer investigating the intersection of environmental health, public action and digital storytelling. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She completed her Masters of Fine Arts through Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2007. Her work has been exhibited internationally, most recently at the PaperMill Gallery in Sydney.

See the full proposal for xSpecies Fountain (PDF).

Finalist: Urban Plinko
Shima Miabadi and Kieran Martin (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York)

Shima Miabadi graduated from Ithaca College in 2007 with a BA in Art History and a concentration in Architecture.  She attended the Los Angeles Institute of Architecture and Design, and is currently a M.Arch candidate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  She is a designer and editor in the RPI SoA Publications Department. 

Kieran Martin graduated from Humboldt State University in 2007 with a BS in Business Economics and International Studies.  He worked as a management consultant with Mercer before interning at iCrave.  Currently a M.Arch candidate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he spent a year there as a teaching assistant for a first-year design studio while pursuing his own curriculum.

See the full proposal for Urban Plinko (PDF).