The Premier Design Awards

The 2010 AIA COTE awards reflect the escalating standards of sustainable building­—in both design and performance.

By Nadav Malin

The jury, from top: Elizabeth Ogbu, Assoc. AIA | Public Architecture, Robert Harris, FAIA | Lake Flato Architects Denis Hayes, The Bullitt Foundation, Alison Kwok
AIA | University of Oregon, Lisa Heschong, Heschong Mahone Group, Peter Busby, Assoc. AIA, Int’l Assoc.
AIA | Busby Perkins+ Will

View expanded coverage on each COTE award winners.

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This year’s COTE Top Ten jury kicked the program up a notch from recent years in terms of energy and environmental performance of the winners. Juror Dennis Hayes captured their choices well when he said that in an era of constrained and expensive energy, priorities change: “We are redefining what we see as beautiful and effective.” Did they compromise on design quality in making those choices? Judge for yourself.

It wasn’t the jury alone that chose to emphasize energy performance, however. The AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE), which runs the program, inserted an extra step into the awards process to make sure that reliable energy and water data were available to the jurors. The committee selected a team of experts to prescreen all the project data. This team identified areas where data was missing or unclear, and AIA staff then contacted submitting teams to clarify and supplement the data. There were very few projects that did not require some revision or clarification, according to committee chair Filo Castore, AIA.

The jury process began after the technical review ended. Their selections included three projects that have been featured in recent issues of GreenSource. We summarize them, but take a deeper look at the seven remaining projects on the following pages. In the words of jury chair Peter Busby, AIA: “COTE Top Ten should be the premier design award, because it blends both design and performance like no other design award program out there.”

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