01 March 2015
Out of eleven teams from leading schools nationwide, two (2) groups of PLM scholars won in the Minecraft Challenge for the redesign of the Luneta and Rizal park held Thursday at the Hotel Jen in Pasay City.
The contest focused on engendering creativity and resourcefulness in planning and building cities, care for the environment, and plan for the future. In re-imagining the country's foremost institutional public spaces -- Luneta -- designs were modeled through a computer game application known as Minecraft.
Meriting the Safety and Security category out of the three (3) major categories were Electrical Engineering sophomores Elron Ross Flores, Lem Ervel Mabutas and two others. They won a cash prize of Ten thousand Pesos.
Adjudged as the overall winner by a panel of national and international experts is the senior Computer Science group of Blesseda Serrano, Patricia Radovan, Jan Ivan Cruz and Bernardino Silvestre Jr., with a pot prize of Twenty-five thousand Pesos in cash.
Informed Saturday of their victory, just an hour before the public presentation of the winners on the occasion of the New Urban Agenda Conference, the winners were feted in the presence of prominent national leaders and foreign luminaries.
This is a victory for public spaces which are envisioned as "safe and secure, playful for kids and young people, and supportive of social interaction among citizens." The seminar-contest sought to achieve this by pooling in youthful talents in the re-planning of urban public spaces as the melting pot of variegated cultures to consequently become landmarks of prosperous cities.
The Minecraft Challenge is jointly sponsored by the UN Habitat, the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP), and the United Cities of Local Governments of Asia-Pacific (UCLG-ASPAC).
The UN Habitat is the United Nations' agency promoting sustainable towns and cities. It entered into an innovative partnership with local and regional groups to promote its advocacies in the Philippines.
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Related links:
UN Habitat: Public space in spotlight at Manila conference »