CALL FOR ENTRIES
2007 RUDY BRUNER AWARD

About the Rudy Bruner Award:

The Rudy Bruner Award is given to urban places that demonstrate the successful integration of effective process, meaningful values and good design. RBA winners are distinguished by their social, economic and contextual contributions to the urban environment, and often provide innovative solutions to our cities’ most challenging problems.

The RBA awards one Gold Medal of $50,000 and four Silver Medals of $10,000 each.

Case studies of winners are published on line at www.brunerfoundation.org and in a book distributed by the Bruner Foundation.

2007 Selection Committee:

• Mayor Manny Diaz, Miami, FL
• Reese Fayde, CEO, Living Cities: National Community Development Initiative, NY
• Reed Kroloff, Dean of Architecture, Tulane University, New Orleans
• David Perry, CEO, Great Cities Institute, Chicago
• Josephine Ramirez, Director of Planning, The Music Center, Los Angeles
• Robert Kroin, Chief Architect, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston

For more information or to receive an application, contact:

Bruner Foundation
130 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA  02139
Ph. 617-492-8401, Ext. 184
Fax 617-876-4002
Email: application@brunerfoundation.org
Download the application: www.brunerfoundation.org

The application deadline is December 18, 2006.

Please provide your name, title, company or organization, full address and daytime phone and/or fax number on all application requests. Please let us know how you learned about the Award.

Yesterday members of Transportation Alternatives staged a parking squat - a "quasi-legal reclamation of urban street space in which a metered, curbside parking spaces are transformed into urban parkland complete with sod, benches, trees and human beings." 

These events always evoke strong reactions - as evident in the comments posted to StreetsBlog.

By bringing music to public spaces, composers are reaching audiences as diverse as the locales.

"Key stakeholders in the City of Detroit are busy crafting a market-driven redevelopment plan for downtown Detroit. Central to the plan is fostering walkability in Detroit; an element many believe is a cornerstone to the city's revitalization."

"Just five years ago, fruit farmers William Schober Sons Inc. sold all their apples, peaches and nectarines on the wholesale market and dealt with the low prices they often got for the produce.

This season, the Monroeville farm only sold about 40 percent of the farm's crop to wholesalers. Next season, it could be even less.

So where's the farm's fruit going?

"We have a roadside market and we go to farmers' markets in Collingswood, West Cape May and Woodbury," said John Hurff, who heads the fourth-generation family farm astride the Elk-Franklin boundary."

"Bryant Park, which has been home to the massive spring and fall fashion shows, is pulling out the welcome mat." - New York Business.com

Last year, Bryant Park installed an ice skating rink that was free to the public - and much more popular than the exclusive private fashion shows. This February Bryant Park may choose in favor of extending the ice rink, rather than closing the park off for Fashion Week.

After writing about the dangers of privatization of Bryant Park for years, PPS enthusiastically applauds this decision.

After years of grumbling, this much-maligned public space in at the heart of Phoenix is on the verge of a makeover.  But the proposed design has ignited controversy with people who either want the park saved as is or who want it redeveloped, but not in the way that is on the table.

The non-profit Design Trust for Public Space has launched Taxi 07, a program of public events and publications to improve New York City cab design and the entire taxi system. The Taxi 07 Master Plan, to be published April 2007 in partnership with the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC), will outline the next decade of improvement priorities for New York cabs.

Shape the Future of the New York City Taxicab

Make your voice heard: cab riders -- New Yorkers and visitors alike -- are sharing their taxi experiences. Take the Taxi 07 survey at www.taxi07.org and tell:

- When and why you do (or don't) take cabs

- How and where you can (or can't) find one

- Your wishlist of cab improvements, inside and out

- What you think of cabs as a mass transit option in the city

The survey is up for two weeks only, from September 15 to September 30, 2006.

Every respondent also has a chance to win exclusive tickets to a gala cocktail event at Rafael Vinoly Architects.

"There are a few simple steps New York should take. The city has too many cars, and not enough streets and roadways to put them on. There needs to be fewer cars and more cyclists, pedestrians, and mass-transit riders."

"The strategic location of a library at one end of a heritage block, and a smart wine shop at the other, can lead to an empty block becoming home to a coffee shop, a bakery, a cheese shop and a bookstore.

Public institutions like the Post Office, the library, and the liquor store have been gathering places in communities for generations. Strategically used to leverage economic renewal, they not only restore a street but begin to rebuild a community's tax base."

The New York City Council has approved a plan to build one of the largest film and television production centers on the east coast, a 2.7-million-square-foot studio, office, and residential facility in Long Island City, Queens.

 

Congestion and gas prices are creating a boom for light rail and buses across the nation. Cities are using technology and imaginative enticements to counter Americans' reluctance to abandon their cars.

The City of Atlanta and a host of nonprofit groups have begun what urban planners say is a singularly ambitious municipal undertaking, transforming a ring of mostly unused railroad track into a 22-mile loop for hikers and bikers; a mass transit route; and a green corridor that strings together many of the city’s parks and serves as a framework for new ones.

After spurring $1.5 billion in development in Phoenix, the Metro light-rail system is moving eastward. The system is making big progress in Tempe, bringing the first proposed rail-related project to the area and driving a fury of property deals..