Call for Submissions: 2023 AIA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition

Architects play a crucial role in addressing both the causes and effects of climate change through the design of the built environment. Innovative design thinking is key to producing architecture that meets human needs for both function and delight, adapts to climate change projections, continues to support the health and well-being of inhabitants despite natural and human-caused disasters, and minimizes contributions to further climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. Preparing today’s architecture students to envision and create a climate-adaptive, resilient, and carbon-neutral future must be an essential component and driving force for design discourse.

Given their long lifespan, new buildings must be designed to address solutions to climate change and to respond to its projected impacts, well into the second half of the 21st Century and beyond. As with the COTE Top Ten award for built work by design professionals, COTE Top Ten for Students allows designs to be characterized in terms of 10 measures ranging from Community to Water to Wellness.

Ten projects will be chosen for recognition at the discretion of the jury. Winners and their faculty sponsors will be notified of the competition results directly. Winning projects will be announced and displayed at the 2023 AIA National Convention. Winning projects will also be promoted on the ACSA website at www.acsa-arch.org & the AIA COTE® website at www.aia.org/cote.

Furthermore, winning projects will be recognized during the 2023 AIA National Convention at the COTE reception. Winning students and their faculty sponsors will receive cash prizes totaling $13,500 with each of the 10 selected winners receiving:

Student(s): $1,000

Faculty Sponsor(s): $350

An ACSA member school, faculty sponsor must enroll students by completing an online registration form before submission by April 5. The competition is open to students from all ACSA Full and Candidate Member Schools and ACSA Affiliate Members Schools, including international member schools. Students are required to work under the direction of a faculty sponsor. Submissions will be accepted for individual as well as team projects. Teams must be limited to a maximum of three students.

Students are invited to submit their studio projects. Entries must be buildings, but they can be of any program, at any scale, and in any location. Projects can be remodeled or adaptively reused. Work should have been completed in a design studio or related class within the 2022-2023 calendar year. Projects completed in Spring 2022 are eligible to submit, due to the competition calendar shift.