On Oct. 30, USC Price School of Public Policy Adjunct Associate Professor Vinayak Bharne was among nine international trans-disciplinary urban thinkers and invited speakers who were honored at the prestigious Urban Edge Award Seminar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning (SARUP).
Introduced in 2006, the biennial award – now in its fifth iteration – recognizes “excellence in the broad field of urban design and the ability of individuals to create major, positive change within the public realm through engaging research, critical practice and urban activism.” It is modeled after SARUP’s Marcus Prize for emerging architects and urbanists, and generously supported by the Wisconsin Preservation Fund and the law firm of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren.
Bharne is a noted practitioner and educator in the fields of urban design and city planning. In addition to his faculty role at the USC Price School, Bharne is Director of Design at Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists in Pasadena, and also serves as the urban design and planning adviser to the Government of Karnataka’s Directorate of Urban Land Transport in India.
Past recipients of the Urban Edge Award include Julie Bargmann, DIRT (2007), Elizabeth Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (2009), Herbert Dreiseitl, Atelier Dreiseitl (2011) & Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism (2013).
The 2015 list of honorees included:
Over 2015, the activities of the Urban Edge Award were directed by SARUP faculty Associate Professor Manu P. Sobti. Along with the two international seminars, Sobti orchestrated an engaging and collaborative urban design studio centered on the city of Chandigarh’s nested ‘ruralities’ along with a ‘public’ symposium held in Chandigarh marking Le Corbusier’s 50th death anniversary, and the concurrent Urban Edge Exhibition of curated studio work. The efforts will culminate in two important publications that collate the design studio work and multiple seminar presentations along with essays by the honorees.