“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”
Lou Holtz, legendary football coach, author
[2019 Competition Inspiration]
CIRT is very pleased to announce that the three finalist teams to compete for top honors in the 2019 CIRT National Design & Construction Competition have been selected. In its thirteenth year, the competition is a collaborative effort among CIRT, ACE Mentor Program of America, and the Chicago Architecture Center. Each year the competition has grown, with the intensity amplified by the quality of the submissions. To reach their decision, the preliminary round judges poured through a record 64 entries from across the country in an extremely difficult head-to-head knock-out process to identify this year’s FINALISTS as follows:
- ACE Mentor Program of Central Iowa for their Play Ground/Scape entry: “Unboxed” [Congratulations for returning to the national finals two years in a row];
- ACE Mentor Program of Greater NY/Team 30 for their Alleviate Urban Transportation Congestion entry: “crosstown;” and
- ACE Mentor Program of Hawaii for their Community Health Care Clinic entry: “War Natatorium Health Clinic.”
These teams will have an opportunity on May 14, 2019 at the ACE National 25th Anniversary Celebration and All Affiliates Conference at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, MD (just outside of Washington, DC) to make presentations before a panel of distinguished judges composed mostly of CIRT members. Besides bragging rights, the top team will be awarded a prize of $5,000 (with $3K/$2K going to second and third place). In the final round, the judges will analyze the team presenter/spokesperson’s ability to make a coherent, well thought-out, clear presentation on the design/construction approaches within the project’s objectives while being fully responsive to the competition package elements in the challenge/option. In sum: the presentation round will be judged on two major elements: quality of presentation and competence of the overall entry to be fully responsive to the challenge.
In addition to the finalists, six other teams were recognized as either First Runner-Up ($1,000 prize) or Second Runner-Up ($500 prize) in each of the three different design challenges or options:
Play Ground/Scape Challenge (which had 22 entries):
- 1st Runner-Up: ACE Mentor of Chicago/Team 5 for “Tamin’ the Damen/Kara Park;”
- 2nd Runner-Up: ACE Mentor Program of Central Florida for “Park n’ Rec Innovative Playscape;”
Alleviate Urban Transportation Congestion Challenge (which had 14 entries):
- 1st Runner-Up: ACE Mentor of Greater Philadelphia/Team 10-WRT for “Artery Relief;”
- 2nd Runner-Up: ACE Mentor of Greater NYC/Team 8 for “L.I. City Auto-no-mous Rapid Transit;”
Community Health Clinic Challenge (which had 28 entries):
- 1st Runner-Up: ACE Mentor of Chicago/Team 4 for “El Centro;”
- 2nd Runner-Up: ACE Mentor Program of San Diego, CA for “South Bay Community Health Clinic at SWHS”
Congratulations to the finalists, runner-ups, and to all the ACE Mentor Program teams who participated in this year's competition!
