Lloyd Crossing Sustainable Urban Design Plan, Portland, Ore.
Mithun

With this 35-block, mixed-use neighborhood plan, the designers sought to prove that negative environmental impacts can be reduced, even as an area becomes more populated.

University Square, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners

On a site consisting of five development parcels, open spaces, and 415,000-square-feet of buildings, this year’s Firm of the Year designed buildings, water systems, and a landscape plan for the University of British Columbia.

Millennium Park, Chicago
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (master architect and planner); Gehry Partners; Gustafson Guthrie Nichol; Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge; Harley Ellis Devereaux; Krueck & Sexton Architects; McDonough Associates; Muller & Muller Architects; OWP/P; Renzo Piano Building Workshop; Teng & Associates

The redevelopment of the Millennium Park transforms an eyesore into a showplace for art, music, architecture, and outdoor activities. Sited in the heart of Chicago, it represents the fruition of a 100-year effort.

Martin Luther King Plaza Revitalization, Philadelphia
Torti Gallas & Partners

Decades of disinvestment and disrepair plunged the Hawthorne neighborhood, south of downtown Philadelphia, into poverty. Fortunately, by the fall of this year, carefully balanced urban-renewal efforts should reinvigorate the area.

The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State, West Bank and Gaza, Palestine
Suisman Urban Design

This ambitious proposal, linking Gaza and the West Bank (approximately 154 miles long and 72 miles wide) could eventually support 2 million new residents at a density of 30,000 people per square mile.

North Point, Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville, Mass.
CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares; Greenberg Consultants (associate architect)

By converting a 42-acre former railroad yard into a mixed-use community, this scheme will introduce 2,700 residential units, 2.2 million square feet of office space, and 150,000 square feet of retail space to three municipalities.

Chippewa/Cree Reservation Plan,
Box Elder, Mont.
Ferdinand S. Johns, AIA, with Allison Orr; Community Design Center (associate architect)

Tribal elders helped strategize the development of this 130,000-acre, Native American–owned property, an abandoned military reservation, whose residents have experienced financial strain in the recent past. Since the population of the tribe is expected to grow from 3,000 to 19,000 by 2050, long-term growth with a focus on sustainability propelled the planning.

Swiss Government Plaza, Bern, Switzerland
Lee & Mundwiler Architects; Stauffenegger & Stutz Visual Design (associate architect)

When automobiles hit the city of Bern (which, incidentally, did not have a tradition of protecting open space), a former plaza in the center of town became a parking lot. The task of bringing a plaza back to this site, which is adjacent to the historically significant capitol building and other Neoclassical structures, took more than half a century.