Outstanding Student Project

Winner: Seeds for Downtown Success: Downtown Revitalization Plan for Seymour, MO (MSU)

The project meets the award criteria of contributing to a contemporary issue in planning.  Like much of rural America, many small communities in Missouri are struggling with an out-migration of population, in addition to economic and social opportunities.  Seymour also demonstrates this issue. The community once boasted a vibrant town square full of shops and stores, and a large park at the center of the square, filled with flowers, a canopy of trees, and a pavilion, which was the heart of social activity.  Today, like so many other towns in rural Missouri, the square hosts just a few open storefronts and is a skeleton of its former lively self.  The plan created by MSU students addresses a current concern of many small towns in Missouri; how can these communities once again be centers of economic and social opportunity?  The nominated plan demonstrates that students used both analytical skills and creativity to develop a strategy that will guide Seymour to achieve just this.

The project also meets the award criteria for best applying the planning process. Students were mentored through the various steps necessary to create and complete a plan.  However, the students themselves were fully responsible for plan creation.  Students analyzed current conditions and gathered background data; developed, distributed, and analyzed community survey results; led a community input session which involved several interactive charrettes; formatted, wrote, and edited the plan document; and finally, presented the final plan to the Seymour community.  Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the students’ project was their dedication to community engagement and empowerment, elements critical to the planning process.  

Runner Up: Impossible STL (Washington University)

This project exploits the rich resource interconnectivity of St. Louis and proposes plans to relocate the Impossible Foods headquarters to the City. These plans achieve a multiscalar sustainable urban food production system by reimagining the fast food prototype along with the new headquarters, productions, and distribution facilities. 

IMPOSSIBLE STL was an interdisciplinary, systems-based urban design studio that reimagined St. Louis as a laboratory for creative thinking around sustainable innovation in the food system. Working at the macro scale of the mega-region, students mapped resource interconnectivity that would make the Midwest a compelling home for relocating the Impossible Foods Headquarters, production, and distribution facility. Working at the micro scale of the franchise restaurant, students developed proposals to further catalyze these fast food prototypes into beneficial, local neighborhood amenities. Addressing mutual benefits for the region, the city, and the company, this project makes the case that if Impossible Foods wants to meet its mission of saving the earth, the first step should be to relocate to the midwest, St. Louis in particular. 

Runner Up: 7 Highway Corridor Plan (UMKC)

Completed by UMKC’s Spring 2020 Urban Planning and Design Senior Studio students, the 7 Highway Corridor Plan project aimed to provide plausible development alternatives for Missouri Route 7 from Colbern Road to Liggett Road in Blue Springs, Missouri. The corridor area is the last frontier for the city’s future development and growth. The students’ 7 Highway Corridor Plan presented a much-needed vision for the corridor area to become a welcoming destination that connects communities to nature. Students developed four vision elements (trails and parks, activity nodes, housing, and streetscape) to contribute to the advancement of this vision. 

The students’ passion for the project and their resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as they overcame various obstacles, including no access to the studio facilities, but was able to successfully completed their project as a team helped earn high marks for this Outstanding student project.