Carol Ross Barney

Carol Ross Barney, FAIA, HASLA, the 2023 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal recipient, is an architect, urbanist, mentor, and educator, and has relentlessly advocated that excellent design is a right, not a privilege. Dedicated to design of public spaces, her exploration into the power of how the built environment can improve our daily lives has produced distinctive structures and places that have become cultural icons.

Notable projects include design of the new Oklahoma City Federal Building replacing the bombed Murrah Federal Building for the GSA; Chicago Riverwalk; McDonald’s Chicago and Disney World Flagship Restaurants; Searle Visitor Center at the Lincoln Park Zoo; JRC Synagogue; CTA Cermak and Morgan Street Stations; UMD Civil Engineering Building; Multi-Modal Terminal at O’Hare International Airport; NASA Aerospace Communications Facility; Railyard Park in Rogers, AR and Chicago’s new DuSable Park.

Honors include over 200 major design awards, including the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Award; fourteen National American Institute of Architects Honor Awards for Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design; two AIA Committee on the Environment, Top Ten Project Awards for sustainably designed buildings and over 45 AIA Chicago Awards.  

Carol is a graduate of the University of Illinois and served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica planning national parks. She has taught an advanced Design Studio at the Illinois Institute of Technology for over thirty years. 

Bio and photos courtesy of Ross Barney Architects.