Van Alen Institute has relaunched our long-running Paris Prize in Architecture (1904–97) as the Re:Paris Prize. With a new focus on reparative and regenerative urbanism, the Re:Paris Prize focuses on cities and communities across the global post-colonial landscape.
For the inaugural prize, we’ve partnered with the Pan-African Biennale, the first continental biennale dedicated to architecture and the built environment. Alongside our team, the biennale’s founding curator Omar Degan has helped articulate its themes and supports the mentorship of the winning designers. Two Africa-based winners were selected from participants in the 2026 Pan-African Biennale, and a third US-based winner will be chosen through an open call, with applications due Sunday, November 22.
Winners are selected by a committee including Nora Akawi, Assistant Professor, The Cooper Union; Ifeoma Ebo, Founding Principal, Creative Urban Alchemy; Mark Gardner, Principal, Jaklitch / Gardner Architects; Kabage Karanja, Co-Founder, Cave_bureau; and Mphethi Morojele, Managing Director, MMA Design Studio.
Each winner receives a $35,000 travel fellowship to research how design plays a transformative role in Africa and its diaspora — places once held to the periphery of architectural discourse, but are now increasingly appreciated as centers of innovation in sustainability, resiliency, and cultural preservation. They’ll conduct impactful field research, evolve their work to the next phase of development, and meaningfully engage communities navigating histories of displacement and exclusion in a spirit of cross-cultural collaboration and exchange. Following their field research, they’ll collaborate to present their learnings at Van Alen Institute in Fall 2027 and the second Pan-African Biennale in 2028.
Proposals should:
- Require international travel to connect with experts and opportunities for impactful field research
- Move an important new concept or existing projects to the next phase of development
- Meaningfully engage communities impacted by historical and ongoing harm in a spirit of cross-cultural collaboration and exchange
- Help ideas scale up to achieve greater impact or connect with a wider audience
Proposals should also address one or more of five critical themes in reparative and regenerative urbanism:
- Land use, planning, and regenerative development: How can new models of land use, planning and development repair blighted neighborhoods and promote broad-based prosperity?
- Materials, making, and resilient design: How the physical building blocks of cities can support climate action, circular economies, and waste reduction
- Data, algorithms, and the public realm: How digital infrastructures reshape public spaces, civic life, and spatial perception
- Interdependent ecosystems: How urban design supports environmental repair, ecological stewardship and resilience
- Cultural hybridity: How can we recenter local, indigenous and underrepresented knowledge?
Learn more and apply:Â https://www.vanalen.org/project/re-paris-prize
About Van Alen Institute
Van Alen Institute is a driving force behind community-led urban design, which believes that local knowledge and care enrich the design process.Â
Since 1894, Van Alen has invested in people with a passion for improving cities through the power of architecture and design. Our public space projects build unconventional coalitions of designers, local stakeholders, and city leaders, and we support their visions through project scoping, hands-on guidance, and seed funding.
From our home in New York City, our work confronts longstanding power imbalances in citymaking, showcases the vanguard of community-led design, and supports the next generation of designers in creating more just cities.
See all work at vanalen.org.