Congo Street Initiative, Dallas, TX. Courtesy of Congo Street Initiative

As an architect and advocate for better urban environments, I am excited about my new role as director of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence at the Bruner Foundation (Cambridge, MA). The biennial award, founded in 1987 by architect and adaptive reuse pioneer Simeon Bruner, recognizes places distinguished by innovative design and their social, economic, and environmental contributions to the urban environment. To date, the RBA has recognized 67 projects and awarded $1.2 million to support urban initiatives.

In the world of U.S. design competitions, the RBA is unique. We ask our applicants to submit detailed written analyses of their projects—from multiple perspectives—along with descriptive images. And entries must have been in operation long enough to demonstrate their impact on their communities. Our  selection process includes intensive site visits to our finalists’ projects to help us fully understand how their places work.

Inspiration Kitchens, Chicago, IL. Courtesy of Inspiration Kitchens

The RBA selection committee meets twice: first to select five finalists and again to select the Gold Medal winner. Assembled anew for each award cycle, the committee comprises six urban experts including a mayor, design and development professionals, and a past award winner. This year’s group includes mayor Mick Cornett of Oklahoma City, planner Ann Coulter from Chattanooga, landscape architect Walter Hood from Hood Studio in Oakland, architect Cathy Simon from Perkins+Will in San Francisco, Metropolis Editor-in-Chief Susan S. Szenasy, and Jane Werner, executive director of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, the 2007 Gold Medal winner. The committee reviewed 90 applications from 31 states and the District of Columbia to choose the 2013 five finalists. Collectively, the projects they chose represent a diversity of creative, collaborative approaches and scales in tackling significant urban challenges:

• Congo Street Initiative - Dallas, TX - submitted by buildingcommunityWORKSHOP
  The sustainable rehabilitation of five houses and street infrastructure along with construction of a new home that provided transitional housing, in collaboration with resident families
• Inspiration Kitchens – Chicago, IL – submitted by Inspiration Corporation
  An 80-seat restaurant providing free meals to working poor families and market-rate meals to the public as well as workforce training and placement
• Louisville Waterfront Park – Louisville, KY – submitted by Louisville Waterfront Development Corporation
  An 82-acre urban park developed over more than two decades that reconnects the city with the Ohio River
• The Steel Yard - Providence, RI – submitted by Klopfer Martin Design Group
  The redevelopment of an abandoned, historic steel fabrication facility into a campus for arts education, workforce training, and small-scale manufacturing
• Via Verde - Bronx, NY – submitted by Jonathan Rose Companies and Phipps Houses
  A 222-unit, LEED Gold certified, affordable housing development in the Bronx designed as a model for healthy and sustainable urban living

Louisville Waterfront Park, Louisville, KY. Courtesy of Louisville Waterfront Park

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Our last post, The Preservationist Perspective, addressed a key issue we typically face regarding the value of mid-twentieth century modern buildings and their reuse. Here we examine the issue of owners and occupants.

To preserve their sizable real estate investments, to enhance the value of their properties, and to ensure that their occupants/tenants continue to lease their spaces, owners must maintain and operate their buildings to suit all these demands. This is a growing challenge for many owners and operators of mid-century modern structures. As the call for the demolition and replacement of these buildings heats up, the root animosity towards them may go deeper than aesthetics alone.

Henry Moss, Bruner/Cott principal and preservation expert, discusses the exterior of Gund Hall at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design with the client team.

As buildings age, even if maintained properly, they frequently become less acceptable in our culture of “the new.”  Recent history is quick to go out of vogue. Styles change and historic design, even when it’s fairly new, is seen as antiquated in form and function. Often we begin to appreciate a particular style only with the passage of time. The same is not true of function. We expect more comfort in our environments today: consistent heating and cooling, better lighting, and convenient access. As occupancy standards become more stringent, building owners face a growing challenge from their tenants who demand such comforts in return for the rent they pay. And, if those occupants dislike “modern” materials, particularly concrete, they may become even more vocal about creature comforts.

As building owners face the rising costs of such out-of-the-ordinary maintenance as material failures of glass and concrete, they begin to ask, “Do I continue throwing good money after bad? Do I replace this structure?”

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