An Associate Professor at the Paris IAE - Panthéon Sorbonne University in France, Moreno’s model is that cities should be designed so all residents are able to access their daily needs, such as housing, work, food, health, education, and culture and leisure, within the distance of a 15-minute walk or bike ride. This reduces car traffic and CO2 emissions and increases residents’ health and wellbeing.
The model, which can be adjusted to local culture, conditions, and needs, has already been implemented with success in cities like Paris, Chengdu, and Melbourne, generating a global movement.
According to the awards’ jury, the 15-minute city is a beautiful and intuitive vision that has the potential to vastly improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide and to help create a healthier planet.
Like the two previous Obel Award winners, this year’s winner is about protecting the environment and making life better for people. We are living in a time of urgency to make a change and live more efficiently. The 15-minute city addresses the need for us to rethink how our cities can be reimagined, redesigned, and regenerated for the primary benefit of people and the environment. The 15-minute city is a real step towards the future, a bold and needed perspective.
The Obel Award is an international prize for architectural achievement, presented annually by the Henrik Frode Obel Foundation. The prize is €100,000 and a unique piece of artwork by leading artist Tomás Saraceno.
The aim of the award is to honour recent and outstanding architectural contributions to human development all over the world. Each year, the jury will set a special focus for the awards, with 2021’s being ‘seminal solutions to the challenges facing cities.’
The award ceremony will take place on 21 October in Paris at the Salle des Fêtes of the Hôtel de Ville of Paris.