News - MIT Design Team One of the Final 4
Teams representing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California were selected as the four finalists for the ULI (Urban Land Institute) Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. The teams have a month to refine their final plans before presenting them at an urban design forum in Washington, DC on April 24 where the winner will be selected.
The MIT team includes Susanne Seitinger, M.C.P. (B.A. Princeton 2001), Carolina Simon, M.C.P. (M.Arch. Savannah College of Art and Design 2001), Michael Marrella, M.C.P. (B.A. Vassar College 1999), Robert Morgan, M.S. in Real Estate Development and M.Arch. (B.S. Clemson University 1997), and Anthony Guaraldo, MIT SAP: M.Arch. (B.S. Georgia Institute of Technology 1996) Their faculty adviser is John De Monchaux, and Daniel Winny of Lyme Properties serves as a professional advisor.
he ULI Competition jury called the MIT submission, "a scheme for “AnaCap,” a new name and a new image for the historic community between the Anacostia River and Capitol Hill. This scheme “reknits the fragmented elements” that have divided and isolated the neighborhoods surrounding the study area. Building on the strengths of its location between the U.S. Capitol and the waterfront, AnaCap would provide a web of public spaces along South Capitol Street, intertwined with diverse neighborhoods."
The designated site in Southeast Washington has a long history of blight in spite of Pierre L'Enfant's vision of South Capitol Street as a grand boulevard. Competition documents describe it as "an undistinguished commuter thoroughfare traversing a blighted neighborhood. It is a neighborhood of low density subsidized and market-rate residential units, light industrial facilities along the Anacostia River, and small-scale commercial uses along the corridor, all cut off from each other by the corridor and cut off from surrounding neighborhoods by the elevated Southeast Freeway." The portion the students are focusing on is a 70-acre area encompassing the South Capitol and M Street intersection and the Navy Yard Metro station.
