Old Westbury, N.Y. (December 14, 2011) – A team of three NYIT architecture students from Old Westbury has won a community design competition that envisions fresh food markets, new health clinics, urban farms, and street furniture for a Brooklyn neighborhood.

The students' design, "A Lifeline for East New York," features a network of health facilities, including a gym and community center, as well as a bike path through the neighborhood, a high-poverty area where residents have greater rates of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes than other Brooklyn communities.

Sixty-nine NYIT School of Architecture and Design students from Old Westbury and Manhattan participated in the design studio course, forming 23 teams to study the neighborhood and propose large-scale projects. They also met with local community groups. A jury or architects and urban planners judged their designs last week.

"For many of the students, this was the first time they were confronted with the scale of an entire neighborhood and the question of how architecture can address social, economic, or environmental conditions of an entire community," said Kaja Kuhl, an adjunct professor who helped coordinate the design competition.

"Perhaps the most valuable of lessons we learned from working together was that all ideas are worth considering," said Tania Pinto, one of the members of the winning team. "Bringing in different insights and suggestions only makes a project richer and more dynamic."

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