Awards & Honors
Seaside Prize honors Prof. June Williamson for rethinking suburbia
The Seaside Institute has bestowed the 2025 Seaside Prize upon Prof. June Williamson and her writing and research partner Prof. Ellen Dunham-Jones. Williamson is director of Graduate Architecture at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. Dunham-Jones is the director of the master’s in urban design at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The Seaside Institute’s award attests to the tremendous impact the duo have had on the built environment via their books and teachings. Co-authors of the groundbreaking “Retrofitting Suburbia” series of books, for over 20 years they have documented and advocated for successful redevelopment, reinhabitation, and regreening of dead shopping malls, aging office parks, and other parking-lot-dominated real estate into more resilient, just, and community-serving places.
Their first book “Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs,” won the Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for best architecture and planning book of the year.
The sequel, “Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges,” won a Great Places Book Award from the Environmental Design Research Association.
Williamson is also the author of “Designing Suburban Futures: New Models from Build a Better Burb” which contextualizes and documents an innovative urban design ideas competition for re-envisioning suburban areas of Long Island.
Williamson and Dunham-Jones continue to inspire architects, planners, urban designers, developers, and community leaders to retrofit aging, underperforming suburban properties to address urgent challenges, disrupt automobile dependence, improve public health, support an aging society, leverage social capital for equity, compete for jobs, and add water and energy resilience. Their work has been widely featured, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, PBS, and TED. Williamson also serves on the board of directors of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.
The Seaside Prize is an annual award presented by the Seaside Institute to individuals who have made significant contributions to the fields of architecture, urban planning, and community development. The recipients are selected based on their exceptional achievements, commitment to design excellence, and their positive impact on communities around the world.
Williamson and Dunham-Jones receive their award on February 8, 2025, from Seaside, Florida, founder Robert Davis, amidst a weekend of festivities beginning Feb. 7, 2025. The Seaside Institute was founded in 1982 as a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the ideas of community, education, and design. Its roots lay in the iconic town of Seaside, Florida, the birthplace of new urbanism, and serves as a collaborative hub for architects, urban planners, and community leaders.
Thea Klapwald
e: tklapwald@ccny.cuny.edu