Winners chosen in "What if New York City..." competition

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Office of Emergency Management (OEM) commissioner Joseph Bruno recently unveiled the winners of the "What If New York City..." post-disaster housing design competition. The competition began in September 2007 and challenged entrants to create innovative temporary housing solutions for the thousands of New Yorkers who might be displaced in the event of a catastrophe. Because of its population density and concentrated infrastructure, the city is not well suited for traditional post-disaster housing, such as mobile homes. The 117 submissions that OEM received were from architects, industrial designers, engineers, inventors and students from 30 countries. Ten winners and ten honorable mentions were chosen by a jury of experts in and out of government. The ten winners will each further develop their designs with the support of a $10,000 award and the assistance of technical consultants made available by OEM. After the development period, one or more of the winners may be selected for prototype construction. "This competition is just one example of how we're tapping the ingenuity of the private sector to help improve public services," said mayor Bloomberg. "Should a storm hit the city, our recently updated plans will meet the immediate need for shelter, but these contest winners will help us to provide needed longer-term provisional housing that ensures the safety and comfort of those displaced." The design competition complements the city's Coastal Storm Plan (CSP), which outlines the protocol for informing, evacuating, and sheltering New Yorkers in the event of a devastating storm or hurricane. The city intends to incorporate aspects of the competition's winning submissions into the sheltering component of the CSP. The competition jury rated submissions on a series of criteria, including: capacity, the possibility for rapid installation, site and unit flexibility, reusability, livability, accessibility, security, sustainability, and cost efficiency. The jury was chaired by Department of Design and Construction (DDC) commissioner David Burney, and the other jury members were: commissioner Bruno; Paul Freitag of Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC; artist Mary Miss; Guy Nordenson of Guy Nordenson and Associates; Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos; and Richard Plunz of the Columbia Univ. Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. The Rockefeller Foundation provided funding to the mayor's Fund to Advance New York City for the competition's design and management, as well as prize money for submission development. Architecture for Humanity, which has extensive worldwide experience in designing shelter after disasters, advised OEM on the creation of the competition.