USC and L.A. Metro announce winners of the inaugural Shade Zone Design Competition

Surreal floral blooms, sails and delicate lattice work are among the winning student designs for the first annual Shade Zones Design Competition, a new annual program of ShadeLA that challenges teams to envision innovative shade and cooling solutions for Los Angeles.

Created by USC Associate Professor of Architecture Bhavna Sharma and supported by USC Dornsife Public Exchange, the USC School of Architecture and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), the inaugural competition focused on temporary, modular shade — adaptable structures that can be deployed in a variety of urban contexts to protect Angelenos from extreme heat.

• Check out the winning designs

The 2025 competition opened in September 2025, and 50 teams from 12 colleges submitted design proposals. While all submissions showcased diverse strategies to provide shade across Los Angeles through different architectural, material, structural and design approaches, the winning designs distinguished themselves by offering simple, elegant solutions using an easily assembled kit of parts.

“Shade is essential for increasing the climate resilience of our urban communities. I’m so proud of the students who submitted their ideas on how to address these real-world challenges,” Sharma said. “The 50 design solutions reflect the diverse aesthetic, technology, culture, materials and innovative thinking of the future generation of our fields.”

Over 100 teams from 17 institutions across the region registered to participate in the design competition. “While not every student team submitted a design, I am so proud of the Shade Zones Design Competition, which reflects the very best of what higher education can achieve when classroom learning is directly connected to community impact. Our students are not only imagining bold solutions to the challenges facing Los Angeles — they’re helping bring them to life,” Sharma said. “This competition demonstrates the power of interdisciplinary education and collaboration to translate design, research and innovation into tangible benefits for Los Angelenos and the millions of visitors to the city.”

ShadeLA, co-led by USC and UCLA, is a cross-sector coalition of university researchers, government agencies and nonprofit organizations working together to expand shade in Los Angeles, making the region more resilient to rising temperatures.

The coalition was formed in response to a unique and time-bound opportunity: a series of global mega-sporting events, including the FIFA World Cup 2026™, Super Bowl LXI, and 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Per Marianna Babboni, senior project manager for ShadeLA, these events create both urgency and political alignment to address long-standing gaps in shade, heat resilience and urban forestry infrastructure, and ultimately will establish a lasting climate legacy for the region.

Seleta Reynolds, chief innovation officer, LA Metro, and design competition juror, described the winning design, “The (Not so) Primitive Hut,” as “simple and effective, scalable and lightweight but beautiful.” Marc Guberman, senior partner, Foster + Partners, and member of the jury, explained, “The gridwork design is a multilayered response to the competition goals: the Japanese kumiko construction assembly is a highly innovative approach to temporality and at the same time the structure can perform at multiple scales.”

A jury of 11 distinguished members from public agencies, community organizations, and design and architecture firms evaluated the designs submitted for the Shade Zones Design Competition. The jury assessed the designs for their attention to shade strategy, community design, sustainability, accessibility and design innovation. Full biographies are available on the ShadeLA website.

All submissions were anonymized and evaluated blind by the jury and competition organizers throughout the judging process. The submissions were scored evenly across the following categories: architectural design, structural design, shade strategy, buildability, innovation, sustainability, adaptability, scalability, accessibility, community design, communication design, accessibility, execution and reuse. Each submission was evaluated by two jurors. The top-scoring submissions were further discussed by the jury, which deliberated twice to determine which submissions should be awarded in each category. The general public participated in the Fan Favorite vote from Feb. 9-16, with over 1,000 people from around the world casting votes.

Winners

AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

1st Place: “The (Not so) Primitive Hut”
Team: JN Interstice
Students: Neri Landi (BArch ’28), Jaci Hinman (MCM, BArch ’28)
Faculty Mentor: Kyle Konis, associate professor, USC School of Architecture
School(s): USC School of Architecture, USC Viterbi School of Engineering

2nd Place: “Bright Idea”
Team: Bright Idea
Students: Keira Izumi (BS ’28), Jayden Salve (BS ’28), Roda Hassan (BS ’27), Kimberly Maynard (BArch ’27)
Faculty Mentor: Kelly Sanders, associate professor, USC Viterbi, Civil Engineering
School(s): USC School of Architecture, USC Viterbi

3rd Place: “A Kit of Shade”
Team: Chilled Air
Students: Minh Anh Nguyen (MArch ’26), Matthew Mejia (MArch ’26)
Faculty Mentor: Jia Zhou Zhu, lecturer, USC School of Architecture
School(s): USC School of Architecture

AWARD FOR SUSTAINABILITY

“The Giving Tree”
Team: Boolean Union
Students: Sean Flaherty (MArch ’27)
Faculty Mentor: Carla Hashley, program specialist, USC School of Architecture
School(s): USC School of Architecture

AWARD FOR INNOVATION

“core-LA-tions”
Team: S.E.A.S.
Students: Jonathan Diaz (BArch ’26), Tommy Lee (BArch ’26)
Faculty Mentor: Gary Garcia, professor, Industry & Technology
School(s): El Camino College

FAN FAVORITE

1st Place: “Pedestrian Experiences Reimagine Futurism (PERF)”
Team: ALOT
Students: Taryn Pham (BArch ’29), Lillian Pate (BArch ’29), Owen Corpus (BArch ’29), Aidan Abansado (BArch ’29)
Faculty Mentor: Gesa Büttner Dias, lecturer, USC School of Architecture
School(s): USC School of Architecture

2nd Place: “SHADE PICADO”
Team: Sombreando LA
Students: Cecilia Preza (AA ’27), Monique Nogueira (BArch ’26)
Faculty Mentor: Marcela Oliva, professor, Architecture
School(s): Los Angeles Trade-Technical College

3rd Place: “Aerogami Flora”
Team: WEK
Student(s): Wally Eagle Kelly (BFA ’26)
Faculty Mentor: Richard Lundquist, professor, Environmental Design
School(s): Otis College of Art and Design

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Small Scale: “Toppy”
Team: Stop Motion.
Students: Anandini Prasad (MArch ’28), Deborah Kang (MArch ’28), Jiho Kang (MArch ’28), Hsiang-Mo Kung (MArch ’28)
Faculty Mentor: Alvin Huang, associate professor, USC School of Architecture
School(s): USC School of Architecture

Medium Scale: “Pedestrian Experiences Reimagine Futurism (PERF)”
Team: ALOT
Students: Taryn Pham (BArch ’29), Lillian Pate (BArch ’29), Owen Corpus (BArch ’29), Aidan Abansado (BArch ’29)
Faculty Mentor: Gesa Büttner Dias, lecturer, USC School of Architecture School(s): USC School of Architecture
Large Scale: “The Intelligent Envelope”
Students: Jose Alexander Galdamez Nolasco (BArch ’25)
Faculty Mentor: Marcela Oliva, professor, Architecture
School(s): Los Angeles Trade-Technical College

Multi-Scale: “Rotate/Replicate/Tessellate”
Team: KHIM
Students: Klara Gurbuz (MArch ’27), Itzel Najera (MUP ’27), Heather Xu (MUP ’27)
Faculty Mentor: Kate Nelischer, assistant professor, Urban Planning
School(s): USC School of Architecture, USC Price

The students will receive their awards at the Shade Zones Award Ceremony on April 21 at AIA Los Angeles and ACLA headquarters. The top submissions will be showcased in a public exhibition April 21-28, 2026, providing a platform to highlight the winning designs and spark citywide dialogue on heat resilience and shade infrastructure.

The 2026 Shade Zones Design Competition will invite students to submit designs for cantilevered shade. More details on next year’s competition will be announced in June 2026.

About ShadeLA

ShadeLA is a people-powered campaign to cool Los Angeles, co-organized by USC Dornsife Public Exchange and UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and with participation by the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles Chief Sustainability Office, L.A. Metro, the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LA28), and 20+ nonprofit partners. The campaign combines research, planning, design and public engagement to bring shade to the places that need it most, in advance of major sporting events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. ShadeLA aims to reimagine our public spaces — not just for the global spotlight, but for the Angelenos who call this city home.

About the Shade Zones Design Competition

Shade Zones is an annual design competition to keep L.A. cool and moving. Each year, Shade Zones will call for bold, inventive solutions to real-world design challenges that make public spaces cooler, safer and more inviting. The best ideas are built to last, delivering comfort and resilience for years to come.

About Metro

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is building the most ambitious transportation infrastructure program in the United States and is working to greatly improve mobility through its Vision 2028 Plan. Metro is the lead transportation planning and funding agency for L.A. County and carries nearly 1 million boardings daily on four light rail and two subway lines and 119 bus lines utilizing 2,000 low-emission buses. The latest October 2025 customer experience survey showed that customer satisfaction has risen to 87%.

Stay informed by following Metro on The Source and El Pasajero at metro.net, facebook.com/losangelesmetro, x.com/metrolosangeles, x.com/metroLAalerts and instagram.com/metrolosangeles.