Tulane Prize for Susann Ahn and Philipp RW Urech

06/05/2026

In May 2026 Susann Ahn and Philipp RW Urech won the international Tulane Prize for Climate Change Curriculum in the Built Environment for their design studio „Making Greenways: A Typological Transposition between Vienna and Seoul“. Congratulations on this award!

Making Greenways was a climate-responsive design studio at TU Wien examining climate-change impacts along the Wien River. Responding to flood risk, heat stress, and ecological fragmentation, students explored how urban rivers can be restored through topological transformation. Students developed site-specific, idiosyncratic design approaches using high-resolution point-cloud models derived from LiDAR-based 3D reassembly and photogrammetry. The studio treats precision modeling as a design instrument beyond mere visual representation, aiming to reimagine flood-resilient, biodiverse, and publicly accessible urban rivers. A comparative study between the Wien River and Cheonggyecheon in Seoul expanded 

Picture:
TU Wien, Research Unit „Landschaftsarchitektur und Landschaftsplanung“ (Source: ETHZ/PLUS); Design Studio „Making Greenways“, (Credits: TU Wien, Landscape)