Magnificent seven: ULI global award winners 2024

The ULI’s Global Awards for Excellence once again showcased exemplars of inclusive design and innovative funding models.

Seven projects that feature inclusive design, innovative funding models, adaptive reuse, and sustainability were declared as winners of the 2024 Urban Land Institute’s Global Awards for Excellence in Washington recently.

Three of the projects were from Europe, two from North America and two from the Asia-Pacific region.

“This year’s finalists demonstrate how pioneering developments and programmes can create more inclusive cities through contextual design, thoughtful implementation, and innovative funding models,” said Doug Voigt, jury chair and partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) Chicago.

“Each of the winners exhibits a deep commitment to tackling the most pressing local issues and positively impacting their communities and environments. Together, they showcase a diversity of inventive strategies for transforming cities around the world, serving as replicable examples on both regional and global scales that advance ULI’s core mission.”

The three European winners are the Grainhouse in London; Minerve in Edegem, Belgium; and the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, Poland.

ULI global award winners
Image: Philip Vile

The Grainhouse

The Grainhouse is a former Victorian warehouse in Covent Garden that, following a three-year restoration and refurbishment project, has been reimagined to deliver a European HQ for real estate investment manager Hines.

The scheme includes prime office and retail, and consolidates five mid-19th century buildings, retaining original features to reflect its industrial heritage.

The jury noted that it is a great example of how to attract people back to the office, focusing on the user experience in the delivery of services and amenities. 


Minerve

Minerve is a brownfield development that creates a new biodiverse and sustainable mixed-use residential and commercial area providing 330 homes of various types, including social and co-housing. The scheme utilises residual heat from a nearby factory to deliver domestic heating and hot water, and rainwater collection for reuse.

The jury recognised the innovative solutions that address sustainability, energy and water use, and biodiversity creation to deliver a highly sustainable, affordable, replicable, future-proofed and nature-inclusive project.


Image: Daniel Cieseilski

Polish History Museum

The Polish History Museum, designed by WXCA Architects, is a multifunctional cultural and educational facility that incorporates permanent and temporary exhibition rooms, a concert hall for 600 people, a cinema and theatre hall, library, and conference and learning suites.

The jury noted that the project is much more than a museum and is intended to have a strong community impact and create social dialogue to discuss the complexity of Polish history. 

“What a fantastic showcase of truly impactful and excellent real estate projects that are making great strides in relation to factors such as environmental sustainability and energy use, but also in terms of how they positively impact the communities that they serve,” said Anne Kavanagh, chair of ULI Europe.

The two US winners are the Austin Housing Conservancy in Texas and the Bottleworks District in Indianapolis, Indiana.


Image: Madison Albrandt

Austin Housing Conservancy

The Austin Housing Conservancy is the first ever institutional quality investment fund managed by a non-profit organisation (Affordable Central Texas) to preserve affordable housing for nurses, teachers, musicians and other low-to-moderate income households. ACT also provides social wraparound programmes to create community and provide financial, healthcare, nutrition, and educational improvement opportunities for residents.

The fund has achieved a five-year annualised return of 7.2% and this innovative funding model is now ready to be scaled up and replicated in other markets.

The goal is to create a roadmap for communities across the country to implement an open-end fund model run by non-profit organisations coupled with resident community and wellness programmes.


ULI global award winners
Image: Susan Fleck

Bottleworks District

The Bottleworks District is a $300 million, 12-acre mixed-use development that integrates past and present by reimagining Indianapolis’s iconic Coca-Cola bottling plant. The largest private development of its type in Indiana, Bottleworks serves as a culinary, arts, and entertainment hub, featuring a food hall, boutique hotel, retail and office space. Future phases include additional retail, office, and residential components.

By reusing a historical manufacturing plant originally built in 1930, the development has become the city’s premier entertainment district and hosts multiple events throughout the year.

As a major urban infill development, the project has connected adjacent historical neighbourhoods and become an integral part of the community.

The two Asia Pacific winners are Nightingale Marrickville in Sydney, Australia, and Nantou Ancient City in Shenzhen, China.


ULI global award winners

Nightingale Marrickville

Nightingale Marrickville is a collaboration between Nightingale Housing and Fresh Hope Communities. It is the first purpose-built affordable build-to-rent housing project for Australian architect SJB, Nightingale, and Fresh Hope.

This innovative development comprises 54 homes and two commercial tenancies
at street level, offering a unique build-to-rent community that prioritises affordability by reducing rents to 80% of the local market rate.

The project features two commercial spaces focused on community activation. An arts and cultural space will offer local artists an affordable platform to showcase their work, host knowledge exchanges, and run creative workshops for both residents and the local community.

The vision for Nightingale Marrickville is to create a micro-community, sustained through an onsite community engagement manager and residence manager, who encourage residents to engage through events, workshops, and gallery exhibitions held in the ground-floor retail spaces and across the building.


ULI global award winners

Nantou Ancient City

Nantou Ancient City, located in the heart of Shenzhen, is an urban regeneration project that combines historical significance and contemporary urban village renewal. This 1,700-year-old site features remnants such as the city gate, court, and ancestral hall, reflecting the site’s rich past.

The government selected Nantou Ancient City to pilot the innovative Urban Space Operator model, through a joint venture between the government, village committee, and a private entity, aiming to address urban density issues while balancing public interests with private investment.

The Nantou Ancient City project covers 350,000 sq m, encompassing 992 buildings, and has proven to be a sustainable model of urban regeneration, offering a balance of public responsibilities, individual landlord interests, and financial viability.

Nantou Ancient City now stands as a model for revitalising urban villages across China, suggesting a scalable solution for enhancing communities by catering to the needs of dynamic modern urban populations.


About the ULI Awards for Excellence

ULI began the Awards for Excellence programme in 1979 to recognise superior development efforts in the private, public, and non-profit sectors.

The annual awards celebrate excellence in land use practice across the whole development process, and the judges take into consideration various factors including architecture and design, planning, construction, economics, management, sustainability, and community impact.

In 2024, 109 projects and programmes were submitted across the three ULI regions – the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Of these, 27 were named as winners across the regions and were then considered as global finalists. From this final field, the jury ultimately selected the seven global winners.

In 2024, global winners were selected by a multidisciplinary jury of nine ULI members who had served on their respective regional juries. The jurors represent a range of real estate and land use expertise, including development, finance, planning, urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture.

The jury

The 2024 ULI Global Awards for Excellence jury members are: Doug Voigt, jury chair and partner, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) Chicago; Belinda Bentley, managing director, 9Springs, Sydney, Australia; Dan Cerf, principal, DevinQi Advisors, Singapore; Lisa Cholmondeley, principal, Gensler, Washington, District of Columbia, US; Brigit Gerritse, head of research and strategy, Redevco, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Derek Goring, chief executive officer, Northcrest Developments, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Chris Law, founding director, The Oval Partnership, Hong Kong, SAR; Dan Ringelstein, director – masterplanning and urban design – cities, planning and design, Arup, London, UK; Simone Santi, director and founder, VeO, Milan, Italy.

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