Carol Ross Barney
Founder
Ross Barney Architects

Carol Ross Barney has been in the vanguard of civic space design since founding her Chicago-based firm Ross Barney Architects in 1981. Over the course of her career, Barney’s work has been honored with over 200 major design awards, including twelve national AIA Honor Awards, over 40 AIA Chicago Awards, and most recently the 2021 National Design Award from Cooper Hewitt. For the past two decades, Ross Barney Architects has been working on public projects along Chicago’s riverfront, including the design of the Chicago Riverwalk and the 606 Framework Plan, a masterplan for what was previously the Bloomingdale Trail, an elevated-railway turned park. Other notable projects include the Oklahoma City Federal Building, the McDonald’s global flagship restaurants—both in Chicago and Disney World—and the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation Synagogue in Evanston, Illinois. Barney teaches an advanced design studio at the the Illinois Institute of Technology, where she also serves on the College Board of Overseers.