Architecture students win national prize

By Amanda MacDonald     10/24/12 7:00pm

A population of 50,000 living on a network of manmade islands, complete with schools and crops, could be more than just a science fiction fantasy, thanks to Rice University architecture students. Their proposal for a safe, sustainable way to access offshore oil reserves scored the team and the university $40,000 total, the top prize of the Odebrecht Award for Sustainable Development. 

McMurtry College fifth-year architecture student Joanna Luo, Brown College fifth-year Alex Yuen, Hanszen College fifth-year Weijia Song and advising professor Neeraj Bhatia beat out 422 students from 173 universities to win this prestigious national award. Johns Hopkins students won second, and North Carolina State University students took third, according to the Odebrecht Award website. 

Entries were required to apply sustainability principles to an innovative engineering, chemical or architectural project, according to the competition guidelines found on the website. 

---

---

Luo, currently working in New York as part of Rice's architecture program, said she was surprised her group won in a competition that seemed to be geared towards engineers. 

 "I didn't know what to expect," Luo said. "I didn't think we stood a chance against the engineers. It was a perfect opportunity to show people that architects can also play a big role in sustainable development."

The concept for the project came from the Fall 2011 "Plural Infrastructure" research seminar and continued into the design phase during the Spring 2012 studio class "The Petropolis of Tomorrow: Floating Frontiers." Both were taught by Neeraj Bhatia, visiting Wortham Fellow and advising professor to the winning project. 

Students in the course were instructed to research and design a financially, environmentally and socially sustainable way for workers to live aboard oil rigs located a great distance from the coast, a real-world challenge detailed in a report by Petrobas, a Brazilian energy corporation, according to Bhatia. 

"The project was neither pro- nor anti-oil," said Bhatia. "Whether we like oil or not, there is going to continue to be drilling off the coast of Brazil for the next 20-25 years, and there are social, economic and sustainability issues that need to be addressed."

The class traveled to Rio de Janeiro with the support of KeppelFELS, the Shell Center of Sustainability and AECOM, where it witnessed firsthand the workings of an oilrig. By the end of the year, the nine students in the class had created a total of three projects in response to the original challenge, but only one group submitted their project for the Odebrecht Award, according to Bhatia. 

Brown College fifth-year student Alex Yuen, also currently working in New York, said he was not sure how feasible their project could actually be. 

"Right now, we're just going for getting the idea out there," Yuen said. "It'd be incredibly complicated technically, economically and politically, but it [would] be a really fascinating, radical development."

Luo said their communication with Odebrecht, the Brazilian multinational that sponsored the competition, and other oil companies has her seeing potential for their project. 

"As an architect in school, you just let your imagination run wild," Luo said. "Suddenly, we have the connections to people who have the power and resources to make [our design] actually happen."

Of the $40,000 total prize, $20,000 went to the students, $10,000 went to the advising professor and $10,000 went to the university, according to the competition guidelines. 

Finalists for the award also received admission to the Odebrecht Young Partner or Braskem Associate trainee and internship programs. Luo said she does not think either she or her teammates will pursue this opportunity due to their current enrollment in Rice's architecture program. 

Yuen said he encourages his architecture colleagues and Rice students to embrace collaboration. 

"As archis, we tend to stay in our studios," Yuen said. "There's a lot of potential for academic collaboration and interaction with the rest of the community."

---