Committee on the Environment

Looking for ways to share your time and talent to maximize impact on the next generation of designers? You can help the COTE Top Ten for Students.

Each year, the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE®), in partnership with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), co-sponsors the COTE Top Ten for Students Competition, a student competition challenging students to “use a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems, and technology to provide architectural solutions that protect and enhance the environment.” https://www.aia.org/awards/7291-aia-cote-top-ten-for-students 

The student competition, modeled off of the professional AIA Top Ten competition, recognizes “ten exceptional studio projects that seamlessly integrate adaptive, resilient, and strategies for moving towards carbon-neutral operation within their broader design concepts.” 

In response to demand for architecture graduates fluent in decarbonization, equity, health and resilience, the competition, which uses the AIA Framework for Design Excellence as the judging criteria, has been growing at an exponential rate since its inception in 2015. This year, more than 950 students, from 74 schools in 9 countries participated!  

Curious about how to get involved? We encourage you to check out this years’ winning entries as well as a list of participating schools, both of which can be found here. Registration for next year’s competition is now open and architecture programs considering entering this year would certainly benefit from your knowledge and insight. Please reach out to your local college or university to see if they have an architecture program and/or if they have any studios that may be entering the competition this year. If so, you can offer to be a guest juror or perhaps offer to serve as a workshop participant. Another idea is to reach out to your former professors to see if they know of any opportunities to get involved either in person or remotely. Have questions? Competition specifics can be found here. Still have questions, please email cote@aia.org. 

Side note - If you do serve this year in some capacity, please reach out and tell us about it! We’d love to hear about the impact that our YAF members are having on future architects! 

Learn more from our

AIA COTE Top Ten for Students flyer. 

Robin Z. Puttock is a practicing architect with two decades of professional, national award-winning, sustainable design experience and seven years of international award-winning academic teaching, research and administration experience. She is an Assistant Professor at Kennesaw State University College of Architecture and Construction Management. She is an AIA COTE Leadership Group Member.