Director, Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence Bruner Foundation Cambridge, MA
Cities across America are wrestling with critical challenges: economic and social changes, climate change, obsolete and underutilized infrastructure, increased demand for outdoor amenities, and growing socioeconomic disparity. The five 2019 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence medalists offer solutions to these issues while challenging assumptions and changing attitudes and perceptions about people, places, and urban development.
This session will focus on how each “changed the narrative”: the rehabilitation of a former Sears distribution center in Memphis into a vertical mixed-use village; a public art and lighting initiative in Lynn, Massachusetts; a resilient new public green space along Buffalo Bayou in Houston; the youth-driven DIY creation of the City of New Orleans’ first public skatepark; and the renewal of a rural small-town civic plaza and adjacent streets in Sulphur Springs, Texas. It will include critical reflection and observations and lessons learned gleaned from extensive research, site visits, and the selection process.
Learning Objectives:
Describe how urban development is challenging assumptions and changing attitudes and perceptions about people and places.
Identify and describe examples of award-winning projects that are addressing critical urban issues.
Demonstrate how urban development can address climate change, social equity and public welfare.
Apply lessons learned from exemplary urban development to cities in the United States and abroad.
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