The Department of Housing and Urban Development and The Rockefeller Foundation have launched a multistage regional design competition that aims to attract talent and promote housing construction innovation in Hurricane Sandy-affected areas.
Once the best ideas are identified, HUD secretary Shaun Donovan said, HUD will incentivize their implementation using a combination of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program funds and other public and private funds.
The Rockefeller Foundation is the lead funding partner for Rebuild By Design to provide support for the analysis and design process that will be part of the “100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge” of the foundation’s $100 million initiative.
Design solutions are expected to range “from large-scale green infrastructure to small-scale residential resiliency retrofits,” HUD said.
HUD and The Rockefeller Foundation have coordinated their efforts in the past starting with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and especially Sandy. Now they are bringing into that partnership the National Endowment for the Arts.
NEA will serve as a special partner, “providing critical expertise and guidance to shape and launch Rebuild By Design” and experience with the Our Town and Mayor’s Institute on City Design initiatives.
“Natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy do not respect state or local borders and we, too, must know no boundaries—both literally and figuratively—as we think about our plans for the future,” Donovan said, hence the competition process will result in a better understanding of regional interdependencies and foster regional coordination.
