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urban sos competition

Urban SOS: hOUR City

Submission: July 17, 2017
Registration: June 28, 2017
Language: English
Location: Concept
Prizes: US$15,000 and US$25,000 of in-kind support
Type: Student Competition

 

Presented by AECOM and Van Alen Institute, with 100 Resilient Cities — Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, hOUR City is this year’s Urban SOS™ student ideas competition. We’re asking students to propose new solutions to tackle housing, transportation, or economic development challenges and to re-imagine what a future “hour city” boundary can be.

Historically, the boundaries of a city were defined by how far people could travel in one hour. These boundaries determined the reach of a city’s infrastructure, and its exchanges with surrounding areas. With the forces of globalization and dramatic geographic, social and economic shifts, the time has come to reimagine these boundaries. We’re challenging students to consider new ways for urban, suburban, and rural communities to connect to opportunity.

The three systems represent some of the biggest challenges society faces today: How do we increase the supply of high-quality affordable housing? How can we improve mobility to offer greater access to jobs, homes, markets, and services? Can we develop more equitable economies that reach a wider range of people, including those with limited skills and education, and those living in remote rural areas?

Students are encouraged to propose policy strategies, business models, and other solutions to address their chosen challenge, but these proposals must be accompanied by a physical intervention at a specific site in a city within the 100 Resilient Cities network. Students must form a multidisciplinary team of two to five members to enter, and include students from two disciplines at a minimum. Entrants must be enrolled in a certified program during the 2017-2018 academic year to participate.

Four juries comprised of industry leaders in Hong Kong, London, New York and Sydney will review submissions and select finalists to advance to a final presentation in Los Angeles in January 2018. A total of US$15,000 in prize money will be distributed among the finalist teams, and the winning team will receive up to US$25,000 of in-kind support from AECOM to implement a pilot of their proposal.

Go to the competition’s website

Date: May 5, 2017