Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence

The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence is a national urban design award that seeks to promote innovative thinking about the built environment and advance conversation about making cities better. The award discovers and celebrates urban places that are distinguished by quality design along with their social and economic contributions to the nation’s cities. A series of principles and values emerged from the inaugural cycle of the Rudy Bruner Award that continue to resonate as themes through subsequent cycles of the award. They include:

• Urban buildings are better when they are sensitive to their surroundings
• Fanciness and originality are welcome when they serve a purpose but can be inappropriate or harmful when they do not
• Preservation of old buildings enriches a community’s sense of history, but sometimes new buildings are superior
• Buildings are generally not to be esteemed as objects, but rather as places that make it easier for people to conduct their activities and fulfill their needs
• Urban excellence requires effort, vision, and time to develop

Winners are selected by a committee comprised of six urban experts, including a mayor. Each winner is documented with a detailed case study so that the ideas and lessons learned may be shared with others.

Amount: One gold medal of $50,000 and four silver medals of $10,000 are awarded each biennial. The funds awarded may be used in “any way that benefits the site.”

Eligibility: To be eligible, the project must be realized and in the contiguous 48 states. Guidelines are specific to the project (rather than applicant type), as follows:

• The project must be a real place, not just a plan or program.
• Since site visits are integral to the award process, the project must have been in operation for a sufficient amount of time to demonstrate success.
• The project must be located in the contiguous United States. It is not feasible to conduct site visits in Alaska or Hawaii.
• There are no distinct categories. Projects may include any type of place that makes a positive contribution to the urban built environment.
• Urban environment is broadly defined to include cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods, counties and/or regions.
• Previous applicants and Honorable Mention winners may apply up to three times. Previous winners are not eligible.

Link: http://www.rudybruneraward.org/

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