TOP 10: Standards in Design and Sustainability

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) have selected this year’s recipients of the Top Ten Awards, the industry’s premier program celebrating sustainable design excellence. Now in their 21st year, the Top Ten Awards highlight projects that exemplify the integration of great design and great performance. Submissions are required to demonstrate how the project aligns with COTE’s rigorous criteria for social, economic, and ecological value. 

For this year, COTE substantially revised its Measures of Sustainable Design, the criteria judges use to evaluate projects. New topics include impact on health, wellness, and economy. In past years, criteria was based largely on predicted performance, not actual performance as measured after occupying the buildings. 

Since 2014, past Top Ten recipients have been invited to submit post-occupancy data and narratives to be recognized with a single COTE Top Ten Plus award each year. In 2017, these separate tracks are merged: The ‘Plus’ designation will denote projects with exemplary performance data and post occupancy lessons. New projects (not previous Top Ten award recipients) can submit actual performance data for most measures, typically as an encouraged metric. They can summarize what lessons have been learned during design, construction, and the post-occupancy period in the final Design for Discovery measure. Among the 10 projects selected by the jury each year as COTE Top Ten, those projects with especially strong post-occupancy stories can be designated as Top Ten Plus.

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Materials provided by The American Institute of Architects