CONGRATULATIONS to the 2023 COTE Top Ten Award recipients!! This year’s awardees demonstrate creative, innovative, human-centered approaches to climate action and climate justice. They achieve true environmental and ecological regeneration, advance our discourse about inclusive and equitable places and processes, and strive to reconnect humans to nature through design and education. The winners are:
Casa Adelante 2060 Folsom, Mithun with Y.A. Studio
Confluence Park, Lake|Flato Architects with Matsys
DPR Sacramento Zero Net Energy Office, SmithGroup
Harvard University Science and Engineering Complex, Behnisch Architekten
John W. Olver Transit Center, Charles Rose Architects
RIDC Mill 19: Buildings A & B, MSR Design with R3A Architecture
Science and Environmental Center, Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects
UC San Diego North Torrey Pines Living & Learning Neighborhood, HKS, Inc. & Safdie Rabines Architects
Watershed, Weber Thompson
Westwood Hills Nature Center, HGA Architects and Engineers
I also offer a heartfelt THANK YOU to the jury:
Katie Ackerly, AIA, Chair, David Baker Architects, Oakland, California
Julian Owens, Assoc. AIA, Jacobs, Arlington, Virginia
Seonhee Kim, Design Collective, Baltimore, Maryland
Avinash Rajagopal, Metropolis, New York
The integrity of the COTE Top Ten program also relies on the many technical reviewers who review and
evaluate the details of each submission and the staff who make the program run smoothly! Thank you all for doing this work with us.
As I write this letter, I am just beginning to unpack the inspiring lessons held within this year’s winning projects. We will be digging deep into these projects to explore what this year’s program indicates as trends in the industry, to measure progress in specific measures and metrics, and to assess how we can continue to evolve the program criteria to ensure that we are capturing the bleeding edge of design excellence while representing the diverse range of work undertaken by AIA members. More to come in the next issue of COTE news and at our Performing Beautifully session at A’23.
In case you are wondering about the absence of Top Ten for Students Competition winners, rest assured, they are coming! The student program shifted to align with the academic calendar, which means that this year’s record number of student teams are working on their projects, and the awards will be announced this fall. In the meantime, we will celebrate the collective impact of the student award program at this year’s Top Ten Toast.
I look forward to seeing many of you at A’23 the AIA Conference on Architecture to celebrate our winners at the Top Ten Toast, to learn from each project at Performing Beautifully, and to engage as a community at our Open Forum. And in case you missed it, check out our COTE-curated guide to the conference.
Lori Ferriss, AIA, PE
2023 COTE Chair