The prestigious Simeon Bruner award was presented at Dallas City Hall on January 25, 2012 for The Bridge Homeless Assistance Center. The award was presented to Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance President Mike Faenza, the Bridge Homeless Center President Jay Dunn, and Mayor Mike Rawlings. The Gold Medal Award for Excellence was presented not only for architecture and design, but also for the social, economic, and philosophical impact on the urban area.
The committee looked nationally at 13 architecture designs and recognized the Bridge Homeless Assistance Center for Gold Medal distinction. This was due to:
- It has fully integrated with the community and has formed a solid alliance with the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance.
- It has converted its staunchest opponents into strong supporters. It is a quality project, particularly with the given budget.
- The architecture is impressive. It is a healing design and a refuge from the street; it is a project based on safety that honors both the place and people while it avoids a punitive rule-based environment.
- The Bridge reports positive effect on users, volunteers, and the overall community. The Bridge ha a philosophy of serving clients, addressing problems, and integrating services.
- The project appears to accept people "where they are", and adopts a healing approach to is architecture, the homeless, the volunteers, community relations and its relationship to downtown.
- The Bridge's interiors are light with high ceilings and a good connection to the outside. The Bridge brings hope.
In addition to the award, a $50,000 was given to Overland Partners, a San Antonio Architecture firm. The firm said:
“We plan on using the money from the Rudy Bruner Award to fund consulting initiatives that would allow the architectural team to assist other cities, non-profits and researchers with an understanding of the process, the design solution and lessons learned. We also plan to use some of the funds toward design research to conduct studies into best practices, how to best care for the homeless, and the impact of centers as well as a study of scale. Lastly, some of the reward will be allocated for The Bridge Phase II, a feasibility study and concept design of program elements conceived by the Task Force but never implemented, such as an art workshop and coffee shop, managed by the community on site.”
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