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Undergrad team wins international sustainable urban design competition

Oct 23, 2024
Building on corner with brightly colored murals
Vale do Pinhão, Curitiba, Brazil.

A multidisciplinary team of Berkeley undergrads has won the 2024 Students Reinventing Cities Competition for the city of Curitiba, Brazil. Its winning proposal aimed to transform an industrial neighborhood of Curitiba, the capital of the southern state of Paraná, into a green innovation hub. “Our project further enhances Curitiba’s new identity at the nexus of sustainability, urban planning, and innovation,” the team wrote in its competition submission.

The international competition was sponsored by C40, a network of mayors of nearly 100 global cities collaborating to confront the climate crisis. Seventeen cities sought proposals for the 2024 Students Reinventing Cities Competition and more than 1,000 students submitted their ideas. Berkeley’s team, Bear Builders, came in first for the Curitiba site, followed by runners-up Istanbul Technical University, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Sapienza–Università di Roma.   

Zoom screenshot showing faces of student team
Winning Bear Builders Team, 2024. From top left: Amanda Tsang, Anna Wilcox, Dalon Li, Gayle Boyd, Yu Yan Hang, Theint Lei, and Hailey Tsuchiya.

Anna Wilcox (Conservation & Resource Studies 2025) helmed the Berkeley team, which included CED students Theint Lei (Architecture 2026), Dalon Li (Architecture 2026), Amanda Tsang (Landscape Architecture 2024), and Hailey Tsuchiya (Urban Studies, Chemistry 2027), along with Gayle Boyd (Environmental Economics & Policy 2026) and a visiting sociology major from National Taiwan University, Yu Yan Hang (2025). Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning Zachary Lamb served as the team’s faculty advisor.

Plan of street grid showing location of proposed vegetation
Bear Builders, Proposed green infrastructure for Vale do Pinhão.

Their winning proposal, for the 140-acre former industrial zone of Curitiba called Vale do Pinhão, took into account the rich history, diversity, ingenuity, and sustainability ethos of the area. The students engaged local residents by distributing a survey in Portuguese via Brazilian social media, asking them about their experiences visiting and starting businesses in Curitiba.

The team focused on three strategies to foster a greener, more resilient, and inclusive Curitiba. First, enhancing accessibility through multimodal transportation options. Second, bolstering resilience against intensified weather events by reducing reliance on the energy grid and introducing sustainable infrastructure initiatives. Third, establishing an innovation hub to attract residents and empower them with the resources they need to bring their ideas to life.

The project incorporated housing, open spaces, bike lanes, electric vehicle charging stations, sidewalk greenery, stormwater systems, and solar panels.

“This was our first experience with urban design,” reports Bear Builders. “We gained practical insights into implementing sustainable design in urban settings.”

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