Congratulations to ‘Urban SOS:hOUR City’ Competition joint winner Lisa Anne Garner and Lauren Garner.

CONGRATULATIONS TO RMIT ARCHITECTURE ALUMNA and PETER CORRIGAN MEMORIAL MEDAL RECIPIENT (2017) LAUREN GARNER and LISA ANN GARNER (Universität Der Künste alumna) on being joint winners in the Urban SOS ideas competition, ‘hOUR City’.

Their competition entry titled ‘New Suburban Living’ proposes, “a new development model for Melbourne’s Middle Suburbs to address the region’s severe housing shortage and the need for more varied housing options for diverse households. The team introduces new city planning tools and architectural solutions that increase suburban density while simultaneously creating communal open spaces and essential services.” [text by AECOM]

The competition organized by AECOM and the Van Alen Institute challenged student teams to create more robust connections among those living within expansive urban regions. By expanding the “hour city” radius (how far one can travel from a city’s center, a historic metric of an urban area’s size) the competition aimed to provide fresh solutions and perspectives to regional planning. The student ideas competition seeks to expand how planners traditionally think about cities and hinterlands, finding new fresh solutions and perspectives in the process.

With entries from multidisciplinary student teams from more than 31 countries, four finalists were selected to compete at a live final in Los Angeles on January 23, 2018. The winning team received US$25,000 of in-kind support from AECOM to implement a pilot of their proposal.

Link to view the finalists:
http://www.aecom.com/urban-sos-2017-finalists

Link for more finalist information via AECOM:
https://www.aecom.com/careers/urban-sos/

Link for more competition information:
 https://www.vanalen.org/projects/urban-sos-hour-city/

Link to watch Lauren & Lisa Ann Garner’s presentation via UrbanSOS:
https://www.facebook.com/urbansos/videos/10155445050244842/

Presentation Photo Credit: Brendan Ranson-Walsh
Aecom Finalists Photo Credit: AECOM Urban SOS
Project Image Credits: Lisa Ann Garner and Lauren Garner