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HUD Secretary Donovan Announces Kickoff of "Rebuild by Design" Competition

HUD Secretary Donovan Announces Kickoff of "Rebuild by Design" Competition

Resiliency is a word that has become lodged in the vocabulary of nearly every lawmaker since Hurricane Sandy ravaged the east coast last October. And this month, government officials—on a local, state, and federal level—are taking steps to ensure that coastal cities are more resilient and rebuilt to better withstand natural disasters in the future.

Yesterday, at a panel discussion on Innovation & Resilience Design in Sandy Rebuilding at NYU, Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Chair of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, announced the launch of a new regional design competition, “Rebuild by Design” seeking teams—made up of the top engineers, architects, landscape designers, and other experts—to propose projects that tackle issues such as climate, economic, and infrastructure (and as the press release states, “will actually be built”). These proposals can run the gamut from green infrastructure to residential retrofits.

“It is not enough for communities to build back to what they were,” said Secretary Donovan during the panel. “Our solutions will have no boundaries.”

Donovan is collaborating with the Rockefeller Foundation, which will provide $3 million in funding in support of the competition. The competition calls on teams to look at “coastal communities, high-density urban environments, ecological networks, and a fourth category that will include other innovative questions and proposals.”

Donovan explained that the competition will “unfold in four stages” starting with a call for proposals and the selection of up to 10 teams. Teams will then study the region and submit design proposals. From there, Donovan and his partners will choose a winning project, which will then be implemented.

Speaking on the panel today, Seth Pinsky, President of New York City Economic Development Corporation, pointed out that the advantages of this competition are that it endeavors to “pull together inter-disciplinary teams for a common goal” and its savvy “regional approach” that looks at the relationship between each region to provide more thoughtful and effective solutions.

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