Car­ol Ross Bar­ney receives 2023 AIA Gold Medal

2023 AIA Gold Medal Award
Car­ol Ross Bar­ney is award­ed the 2023 AIA Gold Medal, hon­oring an indi­vid­ual whose sig­nif­i­cant body of work has had a last­ing influ­ence on the the­o­ry and prac­tice of architecture.

Learn more here

With her unwa­ver­ing focus on design excel­lence, gen­eros­i­ty, and social respon­si­bil­i­ty, she is an unri­valed archi­tect for the peo­ple who cham­pi­ons good design as a right for all.

The American Institute of Architects

The Chica­go River­walk’s ​“suc­cess has been instant and elec­tri­fy­ing. Gen­uine new pub­lic space, owned by the city and free to use is some­thing we rarely see… The end result is com­plex, urbane, and intriguing.

Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times

The Chica­go River­walk may be the most vis­cer­al­ly sat­is­fy­ing new project of the sea­son. We see col­lec­tions of tall build­ings, the streets between them, and peo­ple, all pre­sent­ed episod­i­cal­ly and in high relief. We are in a liv­ing muse­um — one with no roof and no limits.

Reed Kroloff, New York Times

2023 AIA Nation­al Awards — Region­al & Urban Design
Rai­l­yard Park receives a Region­al & Urban Design Award for account­ing for the entire built envi­ron­ment, local cul­ture, and avail­able resources, mod­el­ing architecture’s promise and true val­ue to communities.

Learn more here

We’re look­ing at the park as a cat­a­lyst for future devel­op­ment. Rai­l­yard Park is a beau­ti­ful anchor that boosts eco­nom­ic and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment while main­tain­ing a sense of place and authen­tic­i­ty for Down­town Rogers.

Meredith Bergstrom, Program Officer, Walton Family Foundation

World’s Most Inno­v­a­tive Com­pa­ny
Fast Com­pa­ny names Ross Bar­ney Archi­tects one of 2022’s Most Inno­v­a­tive Com­pa­nies for ​“ener­giz­ing Rogers, Arkansas, with a new park project and McDonald’s restau­rants with a net-zero design”.

Read more here

2021 Coop­er Hewitt Nation­al Design Award
Ross Bar­ney Archi­tects Receives Coop­er Hewitt’s Nation­al Design Award. The hon­or acknowl­edges the studio’s forty-year com­mit­ment to design excel­lence, com­mu­ni­ty, and the envi­ron­ment. 

Read more about the honor.

DuS­able Park design team select­ed
The Chica­go Park Dis­trict select­ed Ross Bar­ney Archi­tects’ joint ven­ture with Brook Archi­tec­ture (DuS­able Park Design Alliance) to design DuS­able Park; a 3.5 acre space where the Chica­go Riv­er and Lake Michi­gan meet.

Learn more here

Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta Duluth, Civ­il Engi­neer­ing Build­ing
The build­ing is used both as a learn­ing tool for the stu­dents and as a recruit­ment tool for the pro­gram… struc­tur­al brac­ing is left exposed and large bifold doors expose the high-bay spaces, both for mov­ing objects in and out and for show­ing off exper­i­ments to prospec­tive stu­dents. Rain scup­pers chan­nel stormwa­ter into cis­terns and a French drain sys­tem in the sur­round­ing land­scape and ful­ly glazed sec­tions between the more sol­id con­crete and Cor-Ten steel allow passers­by to see the activ­i­ty within.

All told, the build­ing-as-teach­ing tool reaps the ben­e­fits of a direct approach to archi­tec­ture in deliv­er­ing hands-on lessons in mate­ri­als and methods.

Vernon Mays, Architect Magazine

The Sear­le Vis­i­tor at the Lin­coln Park Zoo
The Sear­le Vis­i­tor Cen­ter rep­re­sents the aspi­ra­tions of a Chica­go insti­tu­tion that has become one of the last free zoos in the coun­try with a mem­o­rable build­ing that is a gate­way to the park, city, and world beyond. The infor­ma­tion cen­ter, with its retract­ing walls, opens to the Zoo grounds in the sum­mer months, enrich­ing the vis­i­tor expe­ri­ence and cre­at­ing an open and wel­com­ing experience.

“What if… we design dif­fer­ent modes of trans­porta­tion in a sus­tain­able and equi­table way?”

Carol Ross Barney, FAIA, Hon. ASLA

Design Prin­ci­pal and Founder, Car­ol Ross Bar­ney, spoke at Archi­tec­tur­al Record’s 2022 Inno­va­tion Con­fer­ence. Her talk, titled ​“Archi­tec­ture and Infra­struc­ture: Design­ing the Spaces In Between”, focused on mak­ing liv­able and sus­tain­able cities with inno­v­a­tive infra­struc­ture. Although tran­sit, util­i­ties, and pub­lic ways are not gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered to be places for archi­tec­tur­al or design inter­ven­tions, they are impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ties that we can­not afford to overlook.

It’s been a big plus for the com­mu­ni­ty. One of the main rea­sons Google relo­cat­ed here was for the trans­porta­tion in the area

27th Ward Alderman, of the new station

From the Archive
Com­plet­ed in 2005, the Okla­homa City Fed­er­al Build­ing became the first fed­er­al build­ing to be designed by a Women Archi­tect. The project is a philo­soph­i­cal and prac­ti­cal response to tragedy, mak­ing a state­ment on the role archi­tec­ture plays in pro­tect­ing and inspir­ing society.

Pulitzer Prize win­ning archi­tec­ture crit­ic Paul Gold­berg­er described the build­ing as “.…a pub­lic space… The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is not inter­est­ed in bar­ri­cading itself in a bunker, but in fact, makes a state­ment to the pub­lic that they own this build­ing, which is what pub­lic archi­tec­ture should be.”
 

Decar­boniza­tion Award
AIA Chica­go hon­ors the McDon­ald’s Glob­al Flag­ship at Walt Dis­ney World with it’s inau­gur­al Decar­boniza­tion Award, Cita­tion of Merit.

Fast Com­pa­ny World Chang­ing Ideas
Fast Com­pa­ny names the McDon­ald’s Glob­al Flag­ship at Walt Dis­ney World a 2021 World Chang­ing Idea final­ist.
 

Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship
McDon­ald’s Glob­al Flag­ship Chica­go receives LEED Plat­inum Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, the high­est lev­el of achieve­ment from the glob­al­ly rec­og­nized program.

Learn more here

Mate­r­i­al Inno­va­tion
McDonald’s Glob­al Flag­ship Chica­go becomes first com­mer­cial use of Cross Lam­i­nat­ed Tim­ber (CLT) in the city.
 

Jus­tice
Ross Bar­ney Archi­tects is ded­i­cat­ed to empow­er­ing a sense of place, pride, and belong­ing; in our work and in our stu­dio.
 

Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship
Ross Bar­ney Archi­tects designs to pre­serve the plan­et for future gen­er­a­tions and is a sig­na­to­ry of the AIA 2030 Com­mit­ment and Archi­tects Advo­cate. No mat­ter the scope or scale, each of the stu­dio’s projects explore an inven­tive and inte­grat­ed approach to stew­ard­ship; any­thing less is not an option.

Rai­l­yard Park Sig­ni­fies a Small-Town Renais­sance
Addie Broyles of Metrop­o­lis Mag­a­zine cat­a­logs the recent com­ple­tion of the Rai­l­yard Park in Rogers, Arkansas.

Just the Tick­et; New Rail­side Pub­lic Park
Matt Hick­man of The Archi­tec­t’s News­pa­per reflects on chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties and active train tracks pre­sent­ed for the Rai­l­yard Park “…a local trade­mark worth ven­er­at­ing, not obscuring.”

Inno­va­tion by Design
Fast Com­pa­ny hon­ors the Rai­l­yard Park with a top hon­or for Best Urban Design.