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Inner-City Arts 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence - Gold Medal
Inner-City Arts (ICA) in Los Angeles provides visual and performing arts education to at-risk inner-city youth to foster creative exploration and self-expression. ICA’s mission is to use arts education to positively affect the lives of largely impoverished Skid Row children, improving their chances to lead healthy and successful lives by developing creativity, improving learning skills, and building self-confidence. ICA is composed of a complex of buildings which have been recently expanded to include specialized studios for music, visual arts, ceramics, dance, drama, media arts, animation, and theater. The addition of 22,000 square feet during the expansion nearly tripled the original 13,000-foot space.
Nearly 8,000 students per year from over 50 nearby schools participate in ICA’s programs, including after-school and weekend workshops in collaboration with 10 local high schools and social agencies. The students are predominately from minority, immigrant, and low-income families, and ICA’s goals go beyond impacting students to transforming the entire Skid Row community. The center also works in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District and offers expanded teacher training opportunities and family events.
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Hunts Point Riverside Park 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence - Silver Medal
Hunts Point Riverside Park cleaned up a polluted section of the Bronx River to create a recreational waterfront park connecting to the Bronx River Greenway. A former illegal dumping ground in a degraded industrial neighborhood, the park is now a riverfront oasis with safe access to the river for the first time in over 60 years. There’s a new pier for fishing and a kayak and canoe launch, and the playground offers a canoe fountain so kids can safely play in water on hot days. The expansive green oval and amphitheater offer space for community gatherings and youth programs. The park is a model for ongoing land recovery efforts and is part of the first stage of development of the Bronx River Greenway, which will connect communities along the river to the water and each other (and eventually the other boroughs).
The park was created through a remarkably community-driven process, involving residents and multiple community organizations from the start. It was the first new public park in Hunts Point in decades, emphasizing the importance of creating recreational opportunities on the river and reversing decades of deterioration in the neighborhood. Once contaminated by industrial runoff, the river is now a visible and vibrant part of community life, with a restored wildlife habitat that serves as a symbol of the Bronx River’s rebirth and growth of the greenway.
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Millennium Park 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence - Silver Medal
Chicago’s Millennium Park is a 24.5-acre lakefront park with performance venues, open space, and public art catalyzing significant economic growth downtown. The park includes 12 art and architecture installations (some permanent, others rotating) and multiple theaters and stages and offers over 500 free cultural programs each year. Together these elements, along with the draw of open green space and access to the waterfront, attract over 15 million visitors to the park annually. Parking is available in two multi-level parking lots beneath the park, which replaced the unsightly old parking lot and rail lines formerly on the site to become the world’s largest “green roof.”
The $475 million project has sparked community and economic growth, marking a significant increase in tourism and boosting real estate values and residential and commercial development. Its public art installations include commissions from world-renowned artists, and an architectural pedestrian bridge over a highway gives visitors easy, safe access to the park. The park has become synonymous with Chicago’s identity and serves as a model for other cities.
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St. Joseph Rebuild Center 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence - Silver Medal
Created by a coalition of nonprofit institutions, the St. Joseph Rebuild Center in New Orleans is a day shelter providing comprehensive services for homeless. Built in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the center is set of custom-built, semi-permanent interconnected structures where clients have access to free meals, showers, laundry facilities, mental and physical health services, and social services in a supportive environment. Costing just over $1 million, the center is an outstanding example of collaborative placemaking to provide temporary shelter and services in response to disaster situations.
A collaboration among four Catholic organizations allowed for the many services they each offered individually to be centrally located in one service center. Six trailers were specially manufactured for the project, several small buildings and rooms were built on site, and a series of walkways, decks, floating roofs and trellises tie the buildings together around small landscaped courtyards. Notable for being both elegant and inexpensive, the design by the Detroit Design Collaborative from University of Detroit Mercy and a local architect preserves and communicates dignity and respect for clients.
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The Community Chalkboard and Podium 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence - Silver Medal
Charlottesville, Virginia’s Community Chalkboard and Podium is an interactive monument to the First Amendment inviting visitors to publicly express their views. The Chalkboard is composed of two sections of double-sided locally mined Buckingham slate 7.5’ tall and 54’ in total length on which the public may share ideas and opinions on any subject they choose in chalk. Nearby is a podium to mimic a contemporary soapbox from which visitors can address any issue. The installation is completely interactive and available for use all hours of the day without restriction. Located in a public plaza at the end of a downtown mall in front of City Hall, the monument has become a site for public meetings, political rallies, and displays of civil disobedience.
The monument’s impact began in the planning process. The city’s Thomas Jefferson Center, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving free speech, proposed a monument and suggested a design competition be held, with local citizens making up the selection committee. The proposed chalkboard design sparked intense debate that demonstrated the importance of the project to the community. The monument is a focal point that enlivens the plaza and promotes self-expression, encourages dialogue, and strengthens community.
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Inner-City Arts case study
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The Community Chalkboard and Podium case study
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Hunts Point Riverside Park case study
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Millennium Park case study
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St. Joseph Rebuild Center case study
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Inner-City Arts application
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Hunts Point Riverside Park application
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Millennium Park application
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St. Joseph Rebuild Center application
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The Community Chalkboard and Podium application
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Urban Transformation: 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence
