A team of undergraduates from Johns Hopkins University earned second place in the first round of the 2025 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Sustainable Solutions Competition (SSC), held at Penn State University as part of ASCE’s Mid-Atlantic Student Symposium this spring.
The SSC challenges college students nationwide to develop a stronger understanding of sustainability by designing sustainable solutions to infrastructure challenges that engineers are likely to encounter.
This year’s prompt—in the form of a Request for Proposal, or RFP—asked students to redesign a commercial area and office building in a fictional post-pandemic city where remote work led to office occupancy rates below 25%. Teams were tasked with redeveloping the fictional ‘City of ASCE’ into a sustainable, mixed-use area using the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision framework.
The team’s interdisciplinary makeup—spanning from civil and systems engineering to psychology and public health—reflected the competition’s demand for comprehensive urban planning solutions. Systems engineering senior Maya Mann led the team, which consisted of civil engineering students Athena Zapantis, Briana Roberts, and Keaton Morrison, as well as Olaf Dietz of mechanical engineering, Joanne Lioe of psychology, Crystal Yang of environmental science, Adeola Ojuade of computer science, and Rachel Oyewo of public health studies, achieving the highest possible Envision sustainability rating: platinum.
“We really focused on human-centered design,” said Zapantis, who served as the team’s project manager. “Even though it was a theoretical project, we didn’t want to just check boxes for sustainability—we wanted to improve the lives of residents.”
The team’s concept centered on revitalizing an underground stream that had been paved over for a parking lot serving a nearby office building. They envisioned the restored stream as the centerpiece of an ecologically rich, walkable green space. By bringing the buried waterway back to the surface and incorporating permeable surfaces and rainwater data to mitigate flooding, the design addressed climate resilience while enhancing the city’s livability.
Overall, the team members’ plan addressed not just physical infrastructure solutions, but also affordability, mobility, and quality of life, they said.
“We asked the question, ‘What would a family be able to afford here?’” said Zapantis. “Our economics subgroup calculated target rent prices for middle- and low-income residents and ensured our design offered comparable amenities in that range.”
The team also expanded transportation options as the initial site was designed primarily for car access. Using research into the specific elements of walkable cities, they integrated pedestrian and bike pathways and optimized transit routes to better connect those pathways with bus and rail stops.
Even details like acoustic comfort were considered. Zapantis, who took a class in acoustics as part of her music double major, applied sound-mitigation strategies to the site plan to reduce chronic noise exposure, which has been linked to negative health outcomes.
The second-place ranking was based on the team’s technical report, group presentation, and application of the Envision framework. Although only first-place winners move on to the ASCE Student Championships in California this June, the Hopkins team is already planning for the 2026 competition with continued interest from students across various majors.
“We have a pipeline of students who can lead different parts of the project—transportation, economics, stormwater—each using their own strengths,” said Zapantis. “That diversity is what really makes our team work.”