This means continuing our core programs like the COTE Top Ten Awards (this year’s winners will be announced on April 19) and the COTE Top Ten for Students Competition with ACSA (deadline coming up April 5), jumping into new opportunities like updating the AIA Position and Policy Statements on sustainability, and focusing on harmonizing our programs with our fellow sustainability groups within the Institute like CCADE and the 2030 Working Group. I am thrilled to announce our new Leadership Group members: Daniel Jaconetti, AIA (HED), Lyndley Kent, AIA (Neumann Monson Architects), Robin Puttock, AIA (University of Maryland), and Daniel Stine, AIA (Lake|Flato), along with our new COTE Network Liaison to the LG, Bunny Tucker, AIA (Shape Architecture). They have all jumped right in.
Our flagship program, the COTE Top Ten Awards, continues for its 27th year. Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement of this year’s winners on Earth Day! We have asked this year’s entrants to move beyond design intent across the ten measures of the Framework for Design Excellence and to demonstrate successful quantitative and qualitative outcomes. If you are interested in serving on the Top Ten Jury in the future, you can now apply here. The Top Ten for Students is gearing up for its ninth year and the registration deadline is April 5. Thank you to the many volunteers, including our incredible roster of technical reviewers and jurors, and staff within the AIA and ACSA who make these awards a success!
We thank Mike Davis for his longtime leadership of the COTE Advocacy Committee, which remains instrumental in leveraging this community’s technical knowledge in support of the AIA’s climate-related advocacy, and we welcome LG member Arathi Gowda as she steps into the leadership of the group. Arathi’s dual appointment with the AIA GAC and COTE will ensure the continuation of successful collaboration between these groups. The Advocacy Committee has plenty of work ahead this year as the Inflation Reduction Act comes into effect, along with accelerating Building Performance Standards and codes.
We look forward to seeing many of you at A’23 as we reconvene for our face-to-face programs. This year, COTE will share lessons from the COTE Top Ten program at Performing Beautifully, celebrate the winners at the Top Ten Toast, and gather as a community to discuss our most pressing concerns and make in-person connections at the COTE Open Forum. Keep an eye out for more details as registration for the conference goes live (early March)!
I will leave you with a quote by Colette Pichon Battle from her essay “Offering from the Bayou,” in All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (One World, 2020):