Philadelphia has the highest per capita vacancy rate in the country -- nearly 1,000 city acres rest unused.
But for Penn graduates Jill Desimini and Danilo Martic, untapped potential lies within the empty space.
The two are among five finalists in the international Urban Voids competition, which invited architects and urban planners to submit creative and ecological solutions to this problem.
Desimini and Martic's proposal includes recommendations for six different regions in the city with vacancy issues and suggests installations ranging from pumpkin patches to open-air concert halls.
Their vision for one region, which encompasses University City, focuses on its human capital and proposes venues like markets, murals and botanical gardens which would encourage people to interact with the space, Desimini said.
The submission, entitled Timescapes: Taking Back the Backyard, beat out 215 entries from 25 countries in January. Now that they have been named finalists, the two have to prove the feasibility of their design.
Along with the four other teams, the pair has been given a $5,000 grant and a plot of land -- three blocks on the east side of Fairmount Park -- to explore how their solution can be implemented by making a physical proposal for the site.
"We're elaborating on what we previously did, in terms of making it clear and making it tighter and more intense," Desimini said.
She said that while vacant spaces are often developed on a case-by-case basis, her project presents a more cohesive vision for Philadelphia's empty land.
"The development that's happening in the open spaces is somewhat piecemeal," Desimini said. "If you just fill them up one by one you're not really realizing the potential of them as a whole."
The contest was facilitated by the New York-based Van Alen Institute, which has sponsored numerous design competitions the past.
Institute spokeswoman Susanna Sirefman said this challenge differs from most urban design contests because it deals with a city-wide problem, not just a single location.
"We ask a huge question, and I think that's what's really unusual about it," she said.
As a result, Sirefman said, the proposals need be large-scale too.
"We were looking for big ideas -- the quality of the idea, capacity of design," she said.
Although the winning design will remain hypothetical, Sirefman said "we would love if it would go on to be implemented."
Desimini said the competition caters specifically to her interest in urban architecture, which she studied at Penn before graduating with Martic from the School of Design last year.
"Urban vacancy is something that I've always been a little bit interested in, and I started thinking about at school, so I was excited for the competition," she said.
Because they were classmates, Desimini, who works at a local architecture firm, said she asked Martic to work with her after hearing about the competition last fall.
James Corner, chairman of the Landscape and Architecture Department, served as one of the 13 judges for the preliminary round of the competition.
Empty spaces
- Former School of Design students are finalists in a contest to develop vacant areas in Philadelphia
- They have been given $5,000 and a space to implement their plan
- Their proposal suggests installations ranging from theaters to gardens
