The Urban Land Institute is the world’s top network of land-use professionals. So it was a big deal when an interdisciplinary team of University of Texas architecture and business school students won the grand prize in ULI’s annual Gerald D. Hines Student Competition, beating out finalists from Columbia, Harvard, and MIT. This year’s challenge was a redesign of Austin strip mall Hancock Center (located just a block from Chronicle HQ). That might seem like a home-field advantage for UT’s kids, but considering that the winning team – Anushka Deshpande, Sushmita Gautam, Josh Hu, Meng-Shin Lin, and Michael Alada – hail from India, Nepal, China, Taiwan, and Minneapolis, respectively, it feels more like proof that diversity is a strength.
