Following the initial post over on Streetsblog, the Urbanophile wrote a thoughtful article on the design competition process that produced New York City’s future “Urban Umbrellas.”

Sidewalk sheds

The ubiquitous sidewalk shed is seen most often in larger cities such as New York, Chicago, and Las Vegas whereever construction is taking place and pedestrian access must be maintained. It is, also, often horrifically ugly. Thus, the city of New York held a design competition to address the issue.

Sidewalk sheds, however, are rarely, if ever, erected in St. Louis. Downtown construction typically results in sidewalk closures that last for years. Thus, the “Urban Umbrella” is not the focus of this article; rather, it is the design competition that needs to be highlighted.

The design competition: amateurs encouraged to enter

I’ll just let the Urbanophile take it away:

The design was chosen as part of an international competition that received over 164 entries from 28 countries around the world. The winner was Young-Hwan Choi, a 28-year-old first year student from the University of Pennsylvania.

That’s right, New York’s new standard sidewalk shed was designed by a first year architecture student. Lot’s of cities hold design competitions, but how many select winners from student work? Thinking specifically about our smaller Midwest cities, I’m having trouble imagining it, though maybe there are some examples.

What usually comes to mind is something like the St. Louis arch grounds competition. Admittedly, that’s a significant landscape, not an object, but the cost of just participating in the competition is likely to scare off even many professional firms.

New York has the self-confidence to pick something it likes, regardless of where it came from. Perhaps that’s because New York is where reputations are made, while other places are where they are consumed. Almost paradoxically, a young upstart like Choi has a better chance of getting noticed in a hyper-competitive market like New York than in an ostensibly less crowded talent pool.

Best of luck to each of the 49 talented teams that have entered the Gateway Arch design competition. The citizens of St. Louis look forward to the unveiling of all of your submissions.