Foreword
from the Foreword to Urban Excellence by Philip Langdon with Robert G. Shibley and Polly Welch. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, c1990.
About ten years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts announced the Agawam Competition. It was open to architects who wanted to be on a list of acceptable practitioners to design statefinanced housing for the elderly and families. The criteria for the competition stressed the issues of privacy and access, noise and community. Through suggesting readings in these areas, the competition involved each participant in a continuing education process. This seemed like a special opportunity to deal with the other significant issues inherent in architecture - other, that is, than appearance - issues such as function and context.
As a practicing architect, I can certainly understand the attraction of a pretty building, but looks are only part of what a building is about. The making of a building is a complex process in itself, especially in the urban environment. Different players - owner, bank, architect, engineer, contractor, city government, and sometimes community - must all work together before a building can come to life. This collaboration, more than any other factor, defines the product. To the extent that this process involves diverse concerns, the end product becomes the embodiment of the cooperation and vision of the participants. In a very real sense, it is built with a history already attached.
Most existing architecture award programs, be they the AIA Award, the Progressive Architecture Award, or the program sponsored by Cummins Engine Company in Columbus, Indiana, focus on the product rather than the process. But a finished product that photographs well or is intriguing on paper is not necessarily one that functions or serves its community. Nor do separate buildings, no matter how beautiful each may be, make a cohesive city.
The Agawam Competition had considered some of the very real issues of function. The recommended readings suggested ways to integrate these functions into building design. In the end, the judges selected entries that looked pretty but did not address the integration of the issues. A real learning opportunity was lost. But the effort suggested an area in which the Bruner Foundation, already heavily involved with evaluation in the nonprofit sector, could make a significant contribution.
The first major Bruner Foundation project had been to introduce a new level of service professional into the health field, the physician's assistant. What the foundation did, in effect, was to recreate the "general practitioner" by continuing the education of personnel already well versed in the medical field. This effort was successful because the assistant filled the void between the nurse and today's highly specialized doctor. Originally seen as a means to bring increased medical service to rural areas and increase the effectiveness of the urban medical practice, these health practitioners have extended their work to other areas and are widely accepted in the medical field.
As we analyzed the effectiveness of this program, the Bruner Foundation began to move more generally into the realm of evaluation. What, we asked, might be the criteria for success or failure in a nonprofit field? In this type of organization, it is difficult to measure the product in dollars and cents. How, then, could it be measured? We began by trying to define clearly the criteria for success, by trying to understand what makes an effective and efficient program.
In 1985, fueled by this research and the lessons learned from the Agawam Competition, the Rudy Bruner Award for Excellence in the Urban Environment was created. Named in honor of my late father, the award reflects his lifelong interest in cities and their architecture. The program seeks as much to involve the participants as it does to laud the winner. The goal is to understand and broaden each entrant's perspective on urban excellence, discover effective solutions to what are so often conflicting objectives, and publicize alternative options.
Why is excellence in the urban environment an issue? In these days of high interest rates and seemingly even higher construction costs, an ever growing premium is placed on quick construction and easy identification. Except in an increasingly restricted segment of the market, cheap is more important than good, and quick more relevant than thoughtful. Yet, to some extent, our sense of meaning and wellbeing depend on a satisfying environment, one with a sense of permanence and harmony, and one which binds us to it through history and continuity.
To create the Rudy Bruner Award, the foundation assembled a group of professionals who could bring their expertise to the award process. By working through the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), the foundation was fortunate enough to enlist the capable services of Polly Welch and Bob Shibley. Polly Welch, an architect, was at that time a partner at Welch & Epp Associates, a Boston planning and research firm. Now the deputy assistant secretary for public housing production at Massachusetts' Executive Office of Communities and Development, Polly is a nationally recognized expert on the relationship between building performance and user needs. Bob Shibley, professor and chairman of the Department of Architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo, brings to the Bruner Award his expertise in architectural practice, research, writing, and lecturing. Polly and Bob have played central and indispensable roles as professional consultants to the Bruner Foundation in developing the award's approach (including the complex form it had to take), creating and writing the award's announcements and application package, and facilitating the selection process. They carried out the demanding site visits that are a hallmark of the Rudy Bruner Award.
Selection Committee members, each from a different specialty within the urban development field, were chosen for their depth of insight into the complex issues being addressed and for their willingness to work with one another toward a cooperative exploration of urban excellence. New members will be chosen for every round.
Any award that truly intends to seek out excellence must define it in relatively loose terms so as not to reward preconception. The Rudy Bruner Award process tries to make clear the value we place on the integration of social, political, and economic as well as esthetic concerns by soliciting input from participants with different points of view. The entry process itself is designed to stretch the understanding of the applicant and encourage dialogue between the parties involved in the process. A simple statement from a developer or architect will not suffice. The application is intended to be somewhat selfselecting: the transparency of singledimensional projects becomes clear to the applicant even as he or she fails to complete the entry. And in the restriction of entries to those that are already built, there is a presumption that on some level the economics of the project must have worked within the existing system. The challenge here is to design an application process that speaks to particular goals without limiting the range of applicants or type of projects submitted. This is critical if the goal is really to be one of searching for excellence and not just reconfirming preconceptions.
To check the statements and pictures contained in the application against the reality of the actual project, the Bruner Award Task Force determined that the only reliable method was a site visit. Unfortunately, it was not possible to visit every site. Therefore, the selection committee met twice - once to determine which sites merited a closer look and once to review the findings gathered by the evaluators during their site visits. The site visit was essential in extending the investigation and determining the actual effect of the project on the community. In many cases, informal interviews with passersby, coupled with photographs of the rear of the building, are more telling - both pro and con - than the material submitted by the applicant.
The first Bruner Award competition revealed five projects that proved it is possible to combine esthetics with good, solid amenities for the user community. The projects described in this book illustrate that a good urban place reflects its residents and visitors, not just its creator. For, like the Rudy Bruner Award process itself, a city's vitality cannot depend upon one person's vision of urban development. Real vigor requires the continuing infusion of diverse ideas.
The Bruner Award program has been scheduled to run biannually for at least ten years. We hope that in five rounds of this program we will begin to learn something about what makes a city a better place to live in. As we begin to evaluate the success of our program in the late 1990s, we may have some better answers. For the time being, we hope the award process will stimulate collaboration and new ideas. In each round, new participants will bring their particular visions of excellence to our - and the public's - attention. Perhaps by keeping an open mind we can understand just what makes our cities so special. Good luck to us all.
SIMEON BRUNER
Bruner/Cott & Associates, Inc.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Officer, Bruner Foundation
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