The Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design recognizes exemplary urban design projects that demonstrate a humane and worthwhile direction for the design of urban environments.
2023 WINNER
Grand Paris Express
The 14th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design has been awarded to the Grand Paris Express, a large-scale transit project currently being built in and around the Paris metropolitan area.
About the Prize
Awarded biennially, the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design is the foremost award recognizing achievement in this field. Established in 1986 on the occasion of Harvard University’s 350th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the prize recognizes exemplary urban design projects realized anywhere in the world in the past 10 years. Nominations for the prize are received from the GSD’s extensive network of academics and urban design professionals. Projects must be more than one building or an open space, and are evaluated in terms of their contributions to the public realm and to quality of urban life.
“Since its inception in 1986, the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design has become an important aspect of our School’s life. It is in fact one of the few opportunities we have left, institutionally speaking, to pause for a moment and take a good hard look at what’s going on out there in the world, to take stock of how problems of urban design are being formulated and tackled, and what practices seem to be more successful than others. In a corollary fashion, the prize also allows the School to define itself, especially with respect to those essential values it holds dear.”
– Peter G. Rowe,
Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Previous Winners
2017
The High Line
The 13th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design has been awarded to the High Line in New York, designed collaboratively by James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf. The prize committee has elected to allot the monetary prize associated with the award to Friends of the High Line, in recognition of the organization’s originating efforts and continued stewardship behind the project.
2015
Madrid Río
The 12th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design as been awarded to Madrid Río, a new linear park in Madrid designed by a team led by Ginés Garrido of Burgos & Garrido, including Porras & La Casta, Rubio & Álvarez-Sala, and West 8.
2013
Porto & Medellín
The 11th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design honors two projects that demonstrate the potential for the planning and execution of mobility infrastructure to transform a city and its region through carefully articulated design interventions. Established in 1986, the biennial Green Prize recognizes projects that make an exemplary contribution to the public realm of a city, improve the quality of life in that context, and demonstrate a humane and worthwhile direction for the design of urban environments.
2010
Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project
The restoration of the Cheonggyecheon River that runs through Seoul, Korea, merits recognition as a seminal project in contemporary urban design.
2007
Olympic Sculpture Park
Envisioned as a new urban model for sculpture parks, the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park by Weiss/Manfredi not only brings art outside the museum walls but also brings the park into the landscape of the city. This study offers an opportunity to take a fresh look at the city and explore some hypotheses about the wider meaning of an urban design project.
2005
Rehabilitation of the Old City of Aleppo
The Syrian city of Aleppo won the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design for its urban renewal efforts and Busquets offers an innovative take on how these rehabilitation projects are accomplished effectively.
2002
Borneo Sporenburg Residential Waterfront
The 7th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design recognized the residential waterfront in Borneo Sporenburg, Amsterdam by Adriaan Geuze, West 8 urban design & landscape architecture.
2000
Favela-Bairro Project
The Favela-Bairro Project, featuring the work of Jorge Mario Jáuregui Architects, seeks to turn the blighted areas of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas into functioning neighborhoods, or bairros.