Taubman College Students Recognized in United Nations Design Competition

As part of their final class project, students in the graduate urban planning course Urban and Regional Planning in Developing Countries participated in a United Nations urban design competition, the International Design Collaboration for Kenya. Over 700 students from around the world participated in the competition, in which small groups were assigned one of 9 cities in Kenya to propose innovative planning and design in support of sustainable urban development.   

Out of fourteen student teams assigned to the city of Mombasa, three teams’ designs were displayed at the inaugural event at the Kenya UN-Habitat Headquarters in June 2016. These designs will also be featured in a UN publication on Kenya’s urban planning and design context coming out this fall.  One of those three teams is a multi-disciplinary team of six graduate students from the University of Michigan, representing the programs of Master of Urban Design (Shao-Chen Lu, Manasvi Bachhav, and Mengyu Jiang), Master of Urban Planning (Leah Gerber and Gustavo Serratos) and Master of Science in Sustainable Systems (Richa Yadav).

The plan presented by the students included measures to bolster tourism, build sustainable transportation systems and develop affordable housing, along with strong environmental conservation elements. The instructor for the course, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Lesli Hoey remarks “I was especially proud that they were recognized because they pushed the boundaries of the expectations of the competition to improve the living conditions employment access in one of Mombasa’s overlooked informal settlements, integrating clear social equity components into their design.”