Revamped AIA COTE Top Ten Launches in September
by Michelle Amt, AIA
Since 1997, the AIA COTE Top Ten Awards have recognized projects that exemplify the integration of design and performance. It is widely recognized as the nation's premier accolade for sustainable design, with criteria that range from big-picture storytelling to performance metrics that show actual achievement, not just aspiration. Winning projects are published widely, both within and beyond the architecture world, as exemplars of holistic design excellence -- inclusive of climate response, human and ecological health, and community and equity considerations.
The 2023 AIA COTE Top Ten call for submissions launches (at this site) on September 20 this year, and there have been some changes to the program to streamline the submission process while maintaining the program's rigor and continually improving the quality of data received.
Changes include:
- Entries are due by 5pm ET on December 8, 2022, not early January as in previous years. This gives jurors more time to review the entries and still allows award winners to be announced on Earth Day, as has been the tradition.
- Criteria are aligned more directly with the Framework for Design Excellence. AIA COTE originally developed the COTE Top Ten Measures for its awards program. In 2019, the Measures were rebranded as the Framework for Design Excellence and adopted by the AIA organization-wide as the defining principles of good design. However, the definition of "exemplary" is ever-evolving as both the market and our understanding changes. Accordingly, while the criteria for the AIA COTE Top Ten are organized by the Framework for Design Excellence, the AIA COTE Top Ten award pushes further by asking additional questions around design intent and requiring specific metrics that indicate the relative impact of the project. For submitting firms, this closer alignment means that parts of the AIA COTE Top Ten submission can be easily reused for other AIA Awards programs, rather than requiring significant customization.
- Projects are no longer required to submit energy models. The award now requires measured energy data only, not modeled data. While this means that projects must have 12 months of measured data to submit, it also improves the accessibility of the awards program to smaller projects, smaller firms and those projects who may have followed a different pathway to high performance. It also aligns with the program's ethos of awarding actual performance, not intention. Of course, AIA COTE still encourages teams to use energy modeling as part of the design process, in alignment with the 2030 Commitment.
- Submitters must use the AIA COTE Super Spreadsheet (v 3.1). Outside of the awards program, the Super Spreadsheet is a fantastic resource for helping teams benchmark their projects and measure their progress. In this case, it also standardizes calculations and units so jurors can accurately gauge achievement. A new tab in the document now summarizes all of the metrics for entry into the AIA Awards interface, making the submission process smoother and less frustrating. Metrics have been radically streamlined within the interface, so that only synthesis metrics are within the submission platform, with the Super Spreadsheet as the place to "show your work."
- Upload requirements are much, much simpler. Rather than uploading separate image files, reports and data points, teams are only required to submit a compiled .pdf of images and a copy of the Super Spreadsheet.
If you've thought about submitting for the COTE Top Ten before, but you have been a little intimidated, give it a try this year! For those who have submitted in previous years this should be a revolution in terms of the burden on your teams. You can focus on the quality of your submission, not on wrestling with the format.
Let us know (cote@aia.org) how we did and how we can improve for the next awards cycle. In the meantime, good luck, everyone!
Michelle Amt has more than two decades of international experience overseeing a wide range of projects focused on sustainable design. As VMDO's Director of Sustainability, Michelle facilitates design dialogue, leads research and educational efforts, and helps teams achieve sustainability goals across all projects. She ensures that VMDO's compliance with the AIA’s 2030 Commitment leads to further innovation in the fields of health and wellness, building performance and zero-energy and evidence-based design.