Award Recipients
Award Recipients
The annual Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Awards honor outstanding national or international figures who, like Bacon, have advocated for excellence in urban development, planning, thought, and design through conviction of vision, effective communication, and a commitment to improving their community.
Carter is a real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacArthur Fellow, and Peabody Award winning broadcaster. She is responsible for the creation and successful implementation of numerous economic developments, green-infrastructure projects & policies, and job training & placement systems. Most famously, in 2007 Carter instigated and led the development of the first new South Bronx waterfront park in over 60 years.
Keesmaat is the former Chief Planner for the city of Toronto, Ontario, and host of the podcast Invisible City. Her work in Toronto has focused on walkability, affordable housing, and initiating conversations with the community to get them involved in the planning process.
Enrique Peñalosa is the two-time Mayor of Bogota, the Colombian capital with eight million inhabitants. He is known for having created a network of bicycle paths, projects for the upgrading of slums, a land bank to provide quality housing in low-income neighborhoods, parks and pedestrianised areas in the poorest sectors of the city, daily restriction on car use during peak hours, public parks and libraries, public schools of high architectural quality, and the TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit network.
Theaster Gates is an American Social Practice installation artist, community developer, and Founder of the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit focused on cultural-driven redevelopment and affordable space initiatives in under-resourced communities. He is committed to the revitalization of poor neighborhoods through combining urban planning and art practices.
Gehl has spent his career advocating for the design of active, healthy, inclusive places and may be best known for helping to turn his hometown of Copenhagen into one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. Gehl is founding partner of Gehl Architects and has published several books on designing cities.
Judith Rodin, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, received the 2015 Edmund N. Bacon Award for her work highlighting the issue of and helping to develop plans that address resiliency in cities around the world in the face of natural and man-made disasters.
As Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, and co-founder of Building America's Future, Rendell has worked tirelessly to revitalize old infrastructure and to advocate for investment in our future needs.
From his activist beginnings helping to revitalize the LoDo section of Denver to the administration of his Governorship of Colorado, Hickenlooper has focused his career on revitalizing neighborhoods and cities.
As commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, Sadik-Khan spearheaded the transformation of Times Square from a complicated knot of roadways into one of the most popular public plazas in the city using tactical urbanism.
As an award-winning author and co-founder of the acclaimed Venturi Scott Brown Associates, Scott Brown has become one of the most well-known advocates for urban planning and thoughtful ideas about public spaces.