Planning & Analysis Category

Integrating Habitats Competition: Growing Together - SPECIAL MENTION AWARD
AECOM

Project Description:
"Growing Together," an AECOM winning submittal to the Integrating Habitats competition sponsored by Portland Metro, represents a movement to protect and enhance our region's natural resources through green building proposals that blend nature with sustainable development. The AECOM/YGH design solution to the challenge of integrating Oak Savannah habitat into an established single family neighborhood addresses physical design and policy frameworks. The solution relies on the experience of visiting this place and living in this community to inform, educate and guide gradual change. A series of sketches representing the neighborhood inhabitants' experiences challenge viewers to recognize the importance of finding a balance between the built and natural environment through the use of storybook-like presentation graphics, designed to be approachable and easily understood by a diverse group of people.

Jury Comments:
This proposal is well conceived and well illustrated. The graphics are fresh and uncomplicated; they communicate the important ideas to the intended audience in a successful way. "Growing Together" illustrates how a block, a neighborhood, and a community can regenerate an area through the manmade landscape, creating a functional habitat and increasing housing density while requiring less infrastructure and relying on fewer resources.