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The next generation of architects and designers are already winning awards for projects that address contemporary challenges in their neighborhoods. Meet 2015’s DiscoverDesign.org winners: Teague Bostic, Ahzin Nam and Patricia Evangelista.

Each year, CAC hosts a nationwide competition for high school students through our award-winning platform, DiscoverDesign.org. Students from around the country are charged to use the design process to solve challenges in their own communities. Students are given tools and mentorship throughout the process, allowing them to work through their challenges creatively and with constructive critique from mentors and peers.

The result? An unprecedented opportunity for students to use their creativity and unique perspectives to offer speculative solutions to today’s biggest challenges.

This spring, 141 students participated in and completed the challenge at DiscoverDesign.org. Their challenge: to design a "pocket park"—a small park that transforms a vacant lot or other unused space into a place for play, relaxation or creative expression. In most urban areas, pocket parks can help remedy the imbalance between high property costs and the needs for green spaces open to the public.

We’re thrilled to announce the top three student projects, and we’re so proud of all of the hard work put forth by this year’s participants.

Discover Design Winners

Teague Bostic, Advanced Technologies High School, Las Vegas, NV
Urban Farming Pocket Park

Teague Bostic’s project focused on creating a pocket park in Las Vegas, Nevada, with a special emphasis on reducing suburban sprawl by creating attractive spaces for community cultivation. Bostic’s park would serve as a space for meetings and urban farming, thus attracting people back to cities and enhancing the quality of life for those already living in urban areas.

He based his prospective designs on Detroit’s urban farming movement. He states, “The Detroit Recreation Department created and helped manage urban farms in vacant city lots around Detroit. The Urban Agriculture program helped reduce urban blight, provided educational opportunities, and improved access to fresh produce thus in turn creating happier community members.”

Ultimately, Bostic’s goal is to reduce sprawl with a more holistic mission.

“I want to create a safe environment where people plagued by urban sprawl can realize the beauty of the downtown area and the need to be involved with their surrounding community. Promoting interaction will result in happier people which results in a healthier city.”

–Teague Bostic

 

Ahzin Nam, Cupertino High School, Cupertino, CA
Park of Light

California’s drought was national news in 2015. Conflicts over wasteful resources and products have vastly overshadowed the drought’s effect on the everyday lives of California residents. Ahzin Nam of Cupertino, California, has devised a park that, “provides the maximum amount of relaxation and refreshment and creates the minimum amount of wasted water.” 

Utilizing Google SketchUp—a user-friendly design program—Nam designed a park using the shape of a leaf to form the park’s floor plan. Organic forms punctuate the overall plan, in which fauna-shaped overhangs provide shade to sitting areas made from boulders. The overhangs themselves are dynamic, and use colored glass pieces to mimic “forest lighting,” an important component of the Park of Light. Nam included a park café that recycles its water to maintain the park’s sycamore and olive trees, which need little water to thrive.

In his process, Nam focused on site-specificity.

“Before looking for a site, I thought about what type of park will be suitable for my neighborhood, which is located in the south bay area of California. I first started by finding the purpose of a park and observing other parks in the world and my neighborhood.”

–Ahzin Nam

 

Patricia Evangelista, Advanced Technologies High School, Las Vegas, NV
The Art District Arboretum

Patricia Evangelista of Las Vegas, Nevada, designed a pocket park for her city’s Art District. According to Evangelista, the neighborhood is “rich with potential but suffers from a lack of environmentally-friendly options and kinship.”

As a solution, Evangelista proposed a pocket park that includes a bike storage lot to encourage environmentally friendly modes of transportation, as well as multiple areas to socialize and interact with nature.

Her mission statement outlines the following goals:

  • To encourage and build on a growing bike community in the city by providing safe bike racks.
  • To provide two types of sustainable landscapes within the park, each with unique benefits to the lot.
    • Hardscapes that include unique concrete pavers, seating and activities
    • Softscapes as a place to share knowledge about fruiting and nectaring trees in the desert
  • To provide an ecological support to productive tree landscapes.
  • To encourage locals to enjoy the Arts District for the culture it provides, and to bring the community together.