Study Architecture 
ProPEL Registration Deadline: April 9, 2025
2025 COTE Competition
AIA COTE® Top Ten for Students
Overview
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 principles ranging from Community to Water to Wellness.
About the Competition
The AIA COTE® Top Ten for Students Competition is sponsored by The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE®), in partnership with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). Each year, the competition recognizes ten exceptional student design studio projects that integrate health, sustainability, and equity, evaluated following the same categories of the AIA COTE® Top Ten Award for built work, and the AIA Framework for Design Excellence (now adopted as the basis of professional practice and awards across the AIA).
COTE Knowledge Community Members are available as competition studio mentors by request. Contact Us.
New This Year
The 2025 AIA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition will offer architecture students the opportunity to compete in two separate categories:
Category I: FOUNDATION LEVEL
This category is open to students enrolled in first-year and second-year design studios, or related classes; in 2-year, 4-year, and undergraduate programs from any ACSA member school, including international member schools. Faculty will be required to confirm satisfaction of this requirement upon registration in this category.
Category II: UPPER LEVEL
This category is open to upper-level students (third year or above, including graduate students) from any ACSA member schools, including international member schools. Faculty will be required to confirm satisfaction of this requirement upon registration in this category.
Students may not enter both categories of the competition.
Awards + Recognition
Ten projects will be chosen for recognition at the discretion of the jury. The ten winners will be based on the percentage of actual submissions received in each category. The approximately top 2-3% juror ranking for each category will be selected as winners.
Winners and their faculty sponsors will be notified of the competition results directly. Winning projects will be displayed at the 2026 AIA National Convention. Winning projects will also be promoted on the ACSA website & the AIA COTE® website. Winning projects will be recognized during the 2026 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) | Faculty Sponsor(s) | ||
Top Ten Winners | $1,000 | $350 |
$13,500
in cash prizes
Framework for Design Excellence
The COTE Top Ten for Students Competition seeks compelling design submissions that meaningfully address the future impacts of climate change, imagine and illustrate a healthy, sustainable and equitable future. Emphasis is to be placed on achieving zero emissions, adapting to projected climate impacts, designing for resilience, and addressing social and environmental equity.
Entries will be judged on design innovation and how well the project has addressed measures of the Framework for Design Excellence:
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Eligibility
International Student Competition
The competition is open to students from all ACSA member schools around the world. You can find a listing of all ACSA member schools online. 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.
An ACSA member school, faculty sponsor is required to enroll students by completing an online registration form prior to submission by April 9, 2025. Students are invited to submit their studio projects. Entries must be buildings, but can be of any program, at any scale, in any location. Projects can be a remodel or adaptive re-use. Work should have been completed in a design studio or related class within the 2024-2025 calendar year.
Criteria for Judging
Successful responses should demonstrate design moving towards carbon-neutral operation through a creative and innovative integration of design strategies such as daylighting, passive heating and cooling, materials, water, energy generation, and other sustainable systems, through a cohesive and beautiful architectural understanding. Issues to consider include community enhancement, land use and effect on site ecology, bioclimatic design, energy and water use, impact on health and wellness, approach to environmental quality, materials and construction, adaptation, long-life considerations, and feedback loops. Entries will also be judged for the success and innovation that the project has met the ten principles of the Framework for Design Excellence.
Image Credits: 2023 COTE Top Ten for Students, Competition Winner
Project Title: Relinquetur Research Center
Student: Gabriel Cachapuz Velasco, Savannah College of Art and Design
Faculty Sponsor: Alice Guess, Savannah College of Art and Design
Collaborator: David Thompson Architect, David Thompson Studio
Competition Organizers & Sponsors
Questions
Edwin Hernández-Ventura
Programs Coordinator
ehernandez@acsa-arch.org
202.785.2324
Eric W. Ellis
Senior Director of Operations and Programs
eellis@acsa-arch.org
202-785-2324
