Graduate Student Daniel Mowery Wins Prize in International Design Competition

April 5, 2012 — University of Virginia School of Architecture graduate student Daniel Mowery earned the Student Prize in the international competition, "The Harlem Edge/Cultivating Connections."

Administered by the Emerging New York Architects Committee of the American Institute of Architects' New York Chapter, the program challenged participants to explore the redevelopment of the decommissioned Department of Sanitation marine transfer station located in the Hudson River at 135th Street in New York City.

Mowery's design, "Stairway to Harlem," proposes a new way of thinking about the transfer station and its role in the city. His scheme proposes an expanded experience and incorporates the mission of Nourishing NYC, an outreach for nutritional health.

Rather than a transfer station of waste, the new station becomes a series of productive landscapes through community gardens, vertical greenhouses, educational and cultural programs, markets and a sustainable shipping port, he said. The new territory of Nourishing NYC becomes an innovative and energetic place for the growth, education and dispersal of healthy foods. "The once-isolated waste transfer station is transformed into a productive educational campus that reconnects the citizens of New York City to the river through its expansion of the park system and as an active, sustainable and educational shipping port," he said.

The competition's winning entries will be exhibited at the Center for Architecture in New York in July and published in a competition catalog. In coordination with the exhibition, the Emerging New York Architects Committee will host a symposium to discuss design issues related to the winning entries and possibilities for the future development of the site and its neighboring community.

More information about this year's program and awards can be found here.