2023 Vitruvian Honors & Awards Program

The Facade Tectonics Institute’s Vitruvian Honors & Awards program celebrated outstanding achievements in the field of facade design and delivery. The program recognized outstanding projects, as well as project teams and individuals that have made extraordinary contributions to facade design, engineering, fabrication, installation and lifecycle performance. The projects and contributions demonstrated the goals of the Institute in advancing the art, science and technology of designing, planning, and constructing high-performance building facades for the benefit of the planet and people.

FTI's Vitruvian Honors & Awards Committee worked collaboratively to develop seven distinct categories that are emblematic of The Institute's vision and mission as well as celebrate innovation, collaboration and achievement within the AECO industry. During an awards ceremony, an award recipient was announced in each of the following categories.

Award Categories & Eligibility

To learn more about submission requirements and project guidelines, explore the award categories linked below:

PROJECT AWARDS

• Outstanding New Facade Low Rise
• Outstanding New Facade Mid Rise
• Outstanding New Facade High Rise
• Outstanding Facade Renovation
• Outstanding Facade Conservation
• Outstanding Facade Innovation
• Outstanding Facade Integration
• Outstanding Unbuilt Facade
• Outstanding Facade Research

Entries & Eligibility

• Projects must have been completed in the last five years and have been in place and functional for at least one calendar year.
• Nominator must be a member of FTI.
• All members of the project team—owner, architect, and key consultants, contractors, fabricators and material and systems suppliers—must be credited.
• Members of the jury credited in an entry, or whose organization of employment is credited in an entry, will be recused from judging that submission.
• Submission form and deliverables must be completed by the submission deadline.

PEOPLE AWARDS

• Collaborative Achievement
• Unsung Hero
• Emerging Professional

Entries & Eligibility

• Nominator must be a member of FTI.
• Members of the jury with affiliations to the entrant, or whose organization of employment is affiliated with the entrant, will be recused from judging that submission.
• Submission form and deliverables must be completed by the submission deadline.

Important Dates

• Monday, June 19th, 2023
  
  Award submission deadline
• Friday, July 14th, 2023
  
  Nominee slate is finalized; nominees notified
• Monday, July 19th, 2023
  
  Announcement and publication of the nominees
• Thursday, September 14th, 2023 (Virtual)

• Tuesday, September 19th, 2023 (In-Person)
  
  Reception and awards presentation at the Center for Architecture in New York City
  
  FTI 2023 Vitruvian Honors & Awards Ceremony

Submission Requirements

Refer to the individual Award categories for submission requirements (see links above for project and people award categories).

Judging Panel

Judges are thought-leaders from a cross section of the AECO industry, in keeping with the FTI mission. Members of the jury credited in an entry, or whose organization of employment is otherwise related to the entry, will be recused from judging that submission.

View jury members

Finalists & Winners

Winners will be honored at the Vitruvian Honors & Awards Ceremony. Finalists will have the opportunity to present their project at the virtual FTI Vitruvian Honors & Awards on September 14th, 2023.

Background

Our climate is in crisis, representing nothing short of an existential threat to humanity. We are chagrined to acknowledge that buildings—our business—are a major part of the problem. Yet this awareness has failed to drive corrective action. We continue to move in the wrong direction, carbon ppm continues to rise along with species extinction and environmental destruction. We recognize the building skin as the lynchpin to achieving resilience and sustainability goals in buildings and urban habitat; nothing in architecture combines attributes of both performance and appearance as does the building facade. You, today’s project teams, are building our future. We must drive change; in thinking, in regulations, in practices, in tools and techniques. We hereby challenge building teams—utilizing the building skin as a mechanism of whole-building integration—to disrupt the conversation, to move the building arts and sciences from a big part of the problem to a leading component of the global solution.

It is our hope that the Vitruvian Honors program will significantly contribute to the following:

• New processes for designing, testing, modeling, procuring, fabricating and assembling deeply integrated buildings and facade systems.
• A deeper understanding of the lifecycle performance of facade system materials and assemblies.
• Formal and performative design practices based on anticipated climate change and predicted climate data as opposed to historical data.
• Adaptive facade designs that optimize passive strategies first but integrate carbon neutral or carbon positive strategies as appropriate to realize lifecycle health and environmental goals.
• Utilization of the facade system as the key to a deeper level of building systems integration with the aim of achieving lifecycle and environmental goals.
• The utilization of empirical over modeling methods, wherever possible, in exploring design alternatives, and the use of empirical evidence to calibrate modeling processes.
• Accelerate the transformation to truly resilient and sustainable built environments.

The Vitruvian Honors & Awards program will be held virtually on September 14th and in person on September 19th, 2023. The deadline for honors and award submissions is Monday, June 19th, 2023.