MIP Studio Earns Honorable Mention in 2019 Schindler Global Award
A group of students in the College of Architecture and Design’s (CoAD) Master of Infrastructure Planning (MIP) studio took home first honorable mention and a $7,500 prize at the Schindler Global Award (SGA) in Mumbai, India May 10.
The SGA is a student urban design competition that is focused on mobility, understood as a key driver of desirable change in urban areas around the world. Mobility systems move people, goods and ideas over road and rail, sea and air, and through neighborhoods, regions and the world. Mobility is a catalyst and a conduit for globalization and urbanization — and for the creation of better lives and neighborhoods.
The competition was based around designing an urban solution for Mumbai’s eastern waterfront, which will have 725 hectares open for development. The 22.8 million people currently living in Mumbai will assuredly grow, and this year’s competition theme “Leapfrogging Development” asks how to skip over phases of urban development that are demonstrably unsustainable from social, economic, environmental, and structural perspectives.
NJIT’s MIP group’s award-winning submission titled “Hydrohoods of To-morrow” revolves around the idea of a hydrohood — a new net-zero neighborhood unit that will equitably and sustainably shape the future of Mumbai’s eastern waterfront. Through in depth research, the team identified water accessibility and management as a substantial vehicle for equitable change in the post-industrial economy.
The team’s net-zero waterfront learns from existing practices of resource modesty and proposes a model that addresses the current housing crisis by adding to the Mumbai housing stock, increases regional and local accessibility, improves environmental conditions, increases public open space and creates educational and job opportunities to encourage upward mobility.
The hydrohood framework is based off of four strategies. The first strategy establishes new neighborhood boundaries based on the topography of each watershed. The second strategy establishes walkable neighborhoods that incorporate live-work and hydrophilic housing. Each neighborhood has integrated civic centers that feature transit centers, nature spaces and schools that are accessible to all residents. The third strategy proposes east-west connectors as “stitches” that increase local and regional mobility. The fourth strategy proposes north-south “spines” through the site that bundle green infrastructure with transit.
The composite strategies delay, resist, store and reuse stormwater: it delays along the spine, resists with the mangrove islands and buffered soft edge, stores in retention reservoirs and discharges by the stitches.
“I am extremely proud that the work of our MIP students were recognized as among the best by a jury of experts such Nathalie de Vries of MVRDV, Momoyo Kajima of Atelier Bow-Wow, and Rahul Mehrotra of Harvard University,” said Georgeen Theodore, director of the Master of Infrastructure Planning program. “Receiving fourth prize in a significant and highly-competitive competition such as this demonstrates that our students are being prepared to perform internationally at the highest design levels.”
Several members of NJIT’s team consisting of Rehma Asghar, Joseph Giambri, Naymah Hashmi, Christopher Long, Sean Rackowski, Chau Tran, Bo Zhang, Catherine Brito, Kassandra Castillo, Priti Dawadi, Matteo Ferraro, Vishnu Shankar Krishnan, Rebecca Morales and Melissa Nieves had the opportunity to go to Mumbai to present their submission and gain career-oriented skills and contact with internationally renowned practitioners and experts.
“The Schindler Global Award design competition was one of the greatest experiences of my college career,” said Christopher Long (B.Arch. '17, MIP '19). “The studio helped me grow immensely as a designer, and our eventual trip to Mumbai for the competition finals was an opportunity that I will forever be grateful for.”