The 2023 Berkeley Prize essay winners address how architects can help senior citizens live independently

The 2023 winners have been announced for the International Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence. The awards series, celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, based this latest edition on the question: “What are the major issues and the best design responses in your local community for the special needs of your senior citizens?”

“In honor of the first Berkeley Prize (1998–99), The Architect Meets the Nursing Home, this year’s Prize explores the architect’s changing and growing role in assisting senior citizens to continue to lead their lives as independently as they wish, safely and in dignity, through enhanced programming and design,” the organizers explained.

The winning submissions for the prize’s 2023 edition were as follows:

First Place Prize: Hayden Painter (Montana State University) for A Vision for Aging in Rural Appalachia.

Second Place Prize: Samriddhi Khare and Upasana Patgiri (both, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India) for Sab-ki Mandi: Enhancing the Markets of India as an Inclusive Public Space for the Elderly.

Third Place Prize #1: Tushita Basak (Jadavpur University, India) for Widows of Varanasi: The Ganga, the Gallis and the Grizzled.

Third Place Prize #2: Lizzie Turak (Georgia Institute of Technology) for The Built Environment’s Response to Aging in Place in Metro Atlanta.

Fourth Place Prize: Ieshika Singh and Ashima Sani (both, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India) for Greying Hair and Hopes: Senior Citizens of Mukarimnagar.

Honorable Mention: Jerome Kimani (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya) for FROM SPARE ROOM TO SPARE CHANGE: Adaptive reuse for economic revitalization of homesteads in Rural Africa.

Honorable Mention: Mulika Stephen (Makerere University, Uganda) for Environmental Design for the Elderly.