Before you begin your submission, please prepare the following materials in order to successfully complete the online submission process. Please note: all known building data fields from the CTBUH tall building database will automatically populate the award submission form, reducing the number of required fields for each submission. Submitters retain the ability to add additional building information and amend any of the existing fields, where appropriate.
Part 1: Basic Project Information
- Project Name
- Project Address
- Completion Date (year and month)
- Current Percentage of Occupancy
Part 2: Written Description
Please prepare answers to the following questions within the given word counts. Note: Projects submitted to the CTBUH Awards Program will also be included in the CTBUH Tall Buildings + Urban Habitat publication. Please keep in mind that the text description you enter here will also be referred to in the creation of the book. View sample pages from a recent edition.
- Describe the building where this performance achievement was realized. (200 word maximum)
- Describe why the project performance is exemplary and how the performance has been measured and verified. (400 word maximum)
- Describe the key performance metrics. (200 word maximum)
Part 3: Participation Consent
Participation in the CTBUH Awards Program requires consent to the following:
- “Award of Excellence” winners are expected to comply with the following responsibilities:
- Representatives of the project (for Best Tall Building, Urban Habitat, 10 Year, Interior Design and Renovation categories, this must be both the owner/developer and design architect/urban planner/interior architect) must present at the conference for consideration of also winning the category overall and Audience Awards. All speakers representing the project need to be CTBUH organizational members. These presentations will form the basis for the jury’s selection of Overall Category Winners.
- Attend the annual Awards Ceremony & Dinner at the close of the conference to collect the award(s).
- Support the Council, which does not charge any fees to administer the awards program, by way of all speakers paying the subsidized speaker registration rate at the Conference.
- All projects entered to the CTBUH awards will also be eligible for inclusion in the CTBUH Tall Buildings + Urban Habitat publication which features a global overview of tall building completion annually. The book is published by CTBUH and distributed globally, thus providing excellent promotion for the submitted projects and companies involved.
- While it is typical that most submissions are included in the publication, CTBUH reserves the right to determine that a project will not be included for reasons that include, but are not limited to: a project does not meet the eligibility requirements for inclusion; appropriate, high resolution images were not provided in the submission; the project was submitted for multiple award categories and will only be included in the book once, etc.
- Right to Usage of Materials: All submitted text, images, and drawings are provided with the understanding that they may be used in CTBUH’s Tall Buildings + Urban Habitat publication, as well as on the CTBUH website, press releases, award announcements, and other means of publicity for the purpose of promoting the awards events and “Award of Excellence” winners and Overall Category Winners. This includes the building’s profile page on the CTBUH database, as well as future use in CTBUH publications. Copyright clearance and payment of any fees for artwork is to be organized by the submitter prior to submission. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) confirms that all material will be properly identified with the appropriate copyright notice and credit line, as supplied during the upload process.
Part 4: Reports, Drawings/Images & Supplemental Documents
Performance Data/Metrics
It is left to the submitter’s discretion on how to best and most accurately illustrate the project’s performance, but, as an ideal, a submission that shows performance data/metrics against standard benchmarks for a minimum period of one year would be considered excellent documentary evidence.
Additional documentation or research that you would like to share can be submitted up to a combined maximum of 50 pages. However, please be advised that your answers to Part 2 should serve as the primary source to convey your building’s performance to the jury.
Please include a selection of images (overall, details, interiors, etc.) and drawings (plans, sections, details, etc.) of the building for reference.
General Requirements
Images and drawings should be submitted as individual files and should be medium to high resolution (300dpi at 8.5 in. x 11 in. (215.9 x 279.4 mm) size). Whenever possible, drawings should be submitted as vector-based graphics (EPS, PDF).
Supported file formats: JPG, JPEG, TIFF, TIF, EPS, PDF, DWG
Individual file sizes cannot exceed 20 MB each.
Total upload size of all files cannot exceed 500 MB
Captions & Copyright
You will be required to provide copyright information and captions for each image/drawing uploaded. For the benefit of the jury, please be as descriptive as possible in your captions. We’ve entered your company as the default copyright holder, but please revise as necessary.
Tall Building Performance Award Criteria
The CTBUH Best Tall Building awards, like most awards programs, recognize new buildings – based partly on the stated intentions of these buildings. However, it is increasingly being recognized that the industry needs to focus on actual “performance” rather than “best intentions” and thus, the CTBUH Performance Award recognizes proven environmental value and performance over a period of time.
The Performance Award recognizes the measured environmental performance of a building or development, and the award goes to the building that has the least environmental impact on the urban realm using measured data. The purpose of the award is to recognize buildings that excel in their particular conditions.
- For a building to be considered for the CTBUH Performance Award, it must be at least three years since completion, and the building should have 70 percent occupancy or above.
- The collection and presentation of key data is required and the building must have more than a year of measured data.
- Environmental performance can be assessed in any category, including but not limited to, internal environmental performance, energy use, energy improvements (e.g., reductions for refurbishment), use of natural resources, energy creation, and carbon footprinting. The performance should be linked to occupant satisfaction and contribution to urban realm, although this will be subjective and shall only be a deciding factor between buildings of similar performance.
- Candidates for the Performance Award will need to show documentary evidence of the building performance, which should be benchmarked.
- Some form of independent verification should be available.
- It is left to the submitter’s discretion on how to best and most accurately illustrate this performance, but, as an ideal, a submission that shows performance data/metrics against standard benchmarks for a minimum period of one year would be considered excellent documentary evidence
View an extract from the CTBUH Performance Award 2014 winning submission.
Additional Notes:
- Submissions that do not achieve “Award of Excellence” winner status in a given year are able to resubmit for consideration in a subsequent year.
- A single project can submit for consideration across multiple award categories, in the same or consecutive year, though each submission needs to be crafted differently, according to the specifics of the particular awards category criteria.
- Awards in some categories may not be conferred on an annual basis if the criteria cannot be clearly met or demonstrated.
- If a juror is connected with a nominated project, he/she will not be involved in the judging of that project.
- Jury selections for all winners must be ratified by the CTBUH Board of Trustees.
- All projects entered to the CTBUH Awards will also be eligible for inclusion in the CTBUH Tall Buildings + Urban Habitat publication which features a global overview of tall building completion annually. The book is published by CTBUH and distributed globally, thus providing excellent promotion for the submitted projects and companies involved. While it is typical that most submissions are included in the publication, CTBUH reserves the right to determine that a project will not be included for reasons that include, but are not limited to: a project does not meet the eligibility requirements for inclusion; appropriate, high resolution images were not provided in the submission; the project was submitted for multiple award categories and will only be included in the book once, etc.
- “Award of Excellence” winners are expected to comply with the following responsibilities:
- In order to be considered for winning the category overall and audience awards, a representative from the project must present at the conference. For the Best Tall Building, Urban Habitat, 10 Year, Interior Design and Renovation categories, both the owner/developer and design architect/urban planner/interior architect must present. All speakers who represent the project need to be CTBUH organizational members. These presentations will form the basis for the jury’s selection of overall category winners and audience awards.
- Attend the annual Awards Ceremony & Dinner at the close of the conference to collect the award(s).
- Support the Council, which does not charge any fees to administer the awards program, by way off all speakers paying the subsidized speaker registration rate at the Conference.
