THINKING JANU- A Design Journal of The 2023 Barbara G. Laurie NOMA Student Design Competition

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by Hiroki Mishima

NOMAS at the University of Oklahoma has traditionally participated in the Barbara G. Laurie NOMA Student Design Competition, a competition that marks one of the highlights at the annual NOMA conference. The competition encourages students to come together to contemplate and reimagine areas that have been affected by systemic injustice across the country. This year’s challenge, located in Portland, Oregon, called for a proposal for the Williams & Russell Project, a restorative justice project that addresses injustices against Portland’s Black community on land condemned by the City of Portland in the early 1970s for a hospital expansion. This journal records and highlights the development of the competition leading to the conference. 

June 2023

Learning from past years’ experience, a design team was called to begin on the competition early Summer. With many of the team unavailable in person, meetings were conducted digitally on Zoom utilizing Miro as a collaboration platform. Extensive research on history, culture, and site was done to further understand the context of the project and the city. 


July 

While exploring concepts the idea of incorporating the form of a cupola was brought apart, which historically served as a major point of identity of the Hill Block Building that was removed on the site. Together with Portland’s nickname of “the City of Roses”, architectural interpretation included imagining the ground level as strong public spaces deeply rooted in the history and culture of the community while leaving upper levels as housing for inhabitants to flourish.

    



August

The return of the competition team back in school allowed further development of the project. Design was further solidified through the investigation of sketches, diagrams, and physical clay modeling. With the recruitment of new competition members various program such as the centralized public space and petal-like housing were explored in relation to the site context and community needs. Rhino/grasshopper allowed to systemize the organic concept.  

 






September 

Finalizing the project, the team came together to complete the established deliverables set for the final competition. Students worked to their strengths to submit a set of presentation boards including drawings and renderings. The finial name of the project, JANU, was given in the project’s hope to open doors and connect communities together. A short video and physical model were also created for the conference. 

   







October 

During the competition representatives from the team were able to present in front of a jury of architects and representatives. Although the team did not place, the experiences that was brought by cross-year level cooperation and working against systemic injustice through design was educationally inspiring. 

“JANU was a profound and challenging experience of shaping identity and community through thoughtful collective design decision making” – Hishaam Ramoly



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