The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence (RBA) is a national urban design award that seeks to promote innovative thinking about the built environment and advance conversation about making cities better. The award discovers and celebrates urban places that are distinguished by quality design along with their social and economic contributions to our nation’s cities.
One Gold Medal of $50,000 and four Silver Medals of $10,000 are awarded each biennial. Winners are selected by a committee comprised of six urban experts, including a mayor. Each winner is documented with a detailed case study so that the ideas and lessons learned may be shared with others
The project must be a real place, not just a plan or program.Since site visits are integral to the award process, the project must have been in operation for a sufficient amount of time to demonstrate success. The project must be located in the contiguous United States. It is not feasible to conduct site visits in Alaska or Hawaii.There are no distinct categories. Projects may include any type of place that makes a positive contribution to the urban built environment. Urban environment is broadly defined to include cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods, counties and/or regions. Previous applicants and Honorable Mention winners may apply up to three times. Previous winners are not eligible. Applicants from Oakland, CA are not eligible to submit this year. We look forward to receiving applications from Oakland in the future.
