The Birmingham Jane Jacobs Award for anoutstanding contribution tothe protection ofBirmingham’s Built Environment was first awarded in 2024 and is now taking nominations for 2026.
The award is named after the pioneering activist Jane Jacobs [1] who took on the city leaders of New York to protect the homes, livelihoods and neighbourhoods of citizens.
It is founded on two pillars:
– It recognises the unique contribution of women to the protection of the built environment in Birmingham.
– It celebrates how diverse partners can be engaged by women leading and modelling cooperative working across diverse groups and agencies.
Significant examples of Birmingham’s built heritage arecurrently threatened by demolition and often insensitive redevelopment, which disregards the historic significance of our buildings, the very severe environmental impact of new building over and abovecreative reuse and the cultural and psychological damage of continual flux. The Award highlights the huge opportunities for such reuse to create new homes,jobs and skills for the future economy of the city. To quote Jacobs,
“Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”
The Birmingham Jane Jacobs Award encourages fuller public participation and more informed debate in the city about heritage, climate, housing, and public good for the people of Birmingham. It recognises the outstanding achievements of those who have raised the level of public awareness, empathy and understanding. Like Jacobs, no formal qualifications are needed to be considered for the award and we particularly welcome nominations for those underrepresented voices in thebuilt environment.
There will be an award of £500 for the winner.
This can be used for:
– Enhancing or extending a current project or concern in some way related to the award,
– Sharing and/or publicising the learning and outcomes of the project, in doing so helping to promote the Birmingham Jane Jacobs Award.
Previous Recipients of the Award
2025 – Jayne Murray, artist and community activist received the award for her campaigning work supporting the residents of Druids Heath Estate .
Jayne has worked with residents to draw the community together and raise awareness of the city’s plans for regeneration of the estate. It was the originality of Jayne’s approach to fostering community cohesion and her skill and determination to involve other organisations and institutions in the huge range of projects that she has initiated on the estate that persuaded the panel to present her with the award.
2024 – Mary Keating & Jenny Marris received the inaugural award in recognition of two outstanding contributions. Their book, Birmingham: The BrutifulYears [3] published by The Modernist became the Ikon Gallery’s best-selling book to date. Their BrutifulBirmingham columns in The Birmingham Post, especially during 2022-24, formed a crucial part of the campaign to Save Smallbrook, raising awareness of embodied carbon, climate impact, built heritage, affordable housing, and the labyrinthine and inadequate planning process. Over 200 national and local press articles have appeared, and a documentary has been made on the campaign, leaving a lasting legacy.
Judging Criteria
Candidates should be able to demonstrate excellence in as many of the following areas as possible;
– Championing diversity and ensuring inclusion
– Advocating for and amplifying local voices in the design of urban and regeneration initiatives including housing
– Ensuring that sustainability is at the heart of any project particularly the reuse of buildings
– Celebrating local identity and heritage
– Working with and across interested and overlapping groups and professionals
To nominate someone for the award
Please email Brutiful brutiful2015@gmail.com by 22.05.2026, with the following information;
1. Name, email address and contact number of person being nominated
2. Name, email address and contact number of nominating person (write ‘same’ if self-nominating)
3. Brief reason for nomination (300 – 500 words maximum)
The Judging Panel
– Mary Keating – winner 2024, Save Smallbrook, Brutiful Birmingham
– Jenny Marris – winner 2024, Save Smallbrook, Brutiful Birmingham
– Jayne Murray – winner 2025, artist and community activist
– Dr Michael Dring – Save Smallbrook, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture & Built Environment, Birmingham City University
– Andy Street, Major of the West Midlands 2017-2024
– Cllr Phil Davis – Birmingham City Council PlanningCommitte
Notes:
[1] Jane Jacobs’s seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities of 1961 was hugely influential in urban planning and public activism:
Project for Public Spaces review and biography here
[2] Jane Jacobs Walks take place annually across USA:
https://www.janejacobswalk.org/get-involved/go-on-a-walk
[3] Birmingham: the Brutiful Years, published by The Modernist
[4] Other awards with similar names and objectives:
– Jane Jacobs Prize https://spacing.ca/jane-jacobs-prize/jane-jacobs-prize-winners/
– International Jane Jacobs Medal https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/news/call-nominations-international-jane-jacobs-medal/
Joy in Enough 