Urban Design as a Development Strategy: Opening Ceremony

The Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design:
Urban Design as a Development Strategy
The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture Campus by MASS
Opening Ceremony

About this event:

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. Eligible projects must include more than one building or open space constructed in the last 10 years.
The 15th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design has been awarded to the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA) campus in Bugesera, Rwanda. With this award, the GSD acknowledges excellence in not just design but also process. Demonstrating a commitment to experimentation, the RICA project sets a new standard for evaluating innovation in the field of urban design. The project was realized through constant negotiation between city officials, motivated designers, and mobilized citizens. This process now serves as a model to educate other cities about implementation pathways. MASS led the master planning, architecture, landscape, engineering, furniture design and fabrication, and construction for the project.
This year’s jury includes GSD faculty members Jungyoon Kim, associate professor in practice of Landscape Architecture; Dan Stubbergaard, professor in practice of Urban Design; and Hanif Kara, professor in practice of Architectural Technology. Also on the jury was GSD alumnus Kongjian Yu (1963-2025), professor and founding dean of Peking University College of Architecture and Landscape, and founder and design principal of Turenscape. The jury was chaired by Joan Busquets, Martin Bucksbaum Professor in Practice of Urban Planning and Design at the GSD.

00:00 Welcome by Rachel Weber
05:56 Introduction by Joan Busquets
15:24 Presentation by MASS, Christian Benimana, Sierra Bainbridge, Alan Ricks
40:59 Closing by Joan Busquets