Six Cornell graduate students received the top prize in a national urban sustainability design competition at a ceremony Dec. 8 in Philadelphia, hosted by the Ed Bacon Foundation and the Center for Architecture.

The fourth annual Ed Bacon Student Design Competition welcomed sustainable urban design ideas for South Philadelphia's Grays Ferry Crescent from students across North America. The winning entry from Cornell was submitted by Maureen Bolton, Zac Boggs and Lee Pouliot (all landscape architecture); Chris Koenig and Dan Kelleher (master's in regional planning program); and Tyler Grooms (real estate).

"I believe our team was successful because of its interdisciplinary composition," Kelleher said. "Our three advisers -- Pike Oliver, Paula Horrigan and Jamie Vanucchi -- all provided different areas of expertise that helped to direct our remediation strategy, programming and design."

This year's "Brown to Green" competition challenged students to create a new vision for the Grays Ferry area and provided an opportunity to explore cutting-edge ideas for transforming former industrial brown fields into sustainable environs for a green future. Grays Ferry is the former site of a Dupont laboratory complex; a riverfront trail is also being developed along the site's edge.

The Ed Bacon Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the vision and legacy of Philadelphia's former city planning director, Edmund N. Bacon, B.Arch. '32.

Winning entries from six schools were placed on public exhibition at the Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch St., Philadelphia. Winners were chosen from a total of 22 designs by a jury of architects, developers, planners and real estate professionals. For information, visit http://www.edbacon.org/browntogreen/.

Last year, a team of Cornell city and regional planning and landscape architecture students placed second in the Ed Bacon competition, "Rebuild/Revive,"