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The couple has made a name for the traditional town-planning movement employed in locations such as Seaside, Florida, the setting for the movie The Truman Show, which opened in the early 1980s and features back-street grids, front porches, town squares, and other pedestrian-friendly elements that counter urban sprawl, suburban subdivisions, and cul-de-sacs.

Richard Driehaus, a Chicago investor, established the annual prize in 2003 as an alternative to the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is endowed by the Pritzker family of Chicago and typically goes to a leading modernist. Driehaus recently doubled the prize money, which had matched the Pritzker prize at $100,000, in part to attract attention to his annual award for tradition-minded designers.

Duany and Plater-Zyberk, the most well-known architects to be awarded the Driehaus, will receive the prize on March 29, 2008, in Chicago.