New York Architect Selected by Berkeley for Prize The architect Deborah Berke has been selected as the first recipient of a new $100,000 prize that honors the advancement of women in architecture. The inaugural 2012 Berkeley-Rupp Architecture Professorship and Prize, awarded by the University of California, Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, was announced Monday. The prize is to be awarded biannually to a practitioner or academic who also emphasizes a commitment to sustainability and the community. The prize includes a semester-long professorship, a public lecture and a gallery exhibition at the college. It was made possible by a bequest from Sigrid Lorenzen Rupp, an architect who championed women's rights and died in 2004. A founder of the New York City-based architecture firm Deborah Berke Partners, Ms. Berke has received awards for the 21c Museum Hotel Louisville and the Marianne BoeskyGallery in New York. She is also an adjunct professor of architectural design at Yale University.