On Tuesday, January 23rd, LVHRD welcomed almost 500 members and guests, bringing either cheese or crackers as required for entry, to The Broad Street Ballroom in NYC’s financial district, for the third iteration of LVHRD’s Master-Disaster Architect Duel. Teams of female architects from Balmori Associates (Killian O’ Brien and Sarah Wayland-Smith) and Field Operations (Sierra Bainbridge and Maura Rockcastle) took the stage to compete in a three-round, timed model building competition, with Dewar’s White Label and Sapporo Beer on the sidelines.

At this year’s duel, architects were tasked with the challenge of building a green roof network across a four building span in a model section of Stuyvesant Town, Manhattan. The brief required that their structure provide a food source or viable cash crop for the citizens that tended the space, as well as included two bridges to traverse the roof tops without returning to the ground below. Consistent withthe revolutionary qualities of new building material Reduraflex 768, sponsor of this year’s Architect Duel, the architects were given 25 pounds of cheese to create their designs.

Michelle Collins, blogger for VH1’s Best Week Ever, hosted the competition, sharing the stage with Turntable Lab DJs Snack and C’Mish. Throughout the 3-round event, Reduraflex 768 East Coast representative, Martin Maxwell, discussed the many benefits of his new product, while attendees co-mingled their crackers and cheese.

Upon the completion of each team’s model, Team Balmori (donning matching green dresses) and Team Field Operations (in custom-patterned kimonos) presented their designs to the audience. Aided by eztxtmsg, audience members voted for the winning design by text message. With all the votes tallied, Team Field Operations was declared the winner, gaining 66% of the votes.

LVHRD would like to thanks Dewar’s, Sapporo and Reduraflex 768 for sponsoring this event. Special support was also provided by Orange32, Archinect.com, DiPalo’s Cheese, Turntable Lab and eztxtmsg.

More photos from the event will be made available soon, with video footage featuring Philip Nobel debuting in the LVHRD VDO series.