Cincinnati Design Awards

Celebrating the best in built environment design by Cincinnati-area creative firms

About

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Cincinnati Design Awards

The Cincinnati Design Awards (CDA) program recognizes the best built-environment design produced by Cincinnati-area creative firms and promotes the social and economic value of good design in our community. Each year, a distinguished nationwide jury of design thought leaders and eminent practitioners presents the awards to projects submitted by local architecture, interiors, landscape, and experiential graphic designers.

Traditionally, projects have been awarded based on organization (i.e., AIA, ASID, IIDA, ASLA, SEGD). This year, to acknowledge the multiplicity of contemporary projects in terms of scale, budget, type, style, and degrees of collaboration, projects will be awarded based on the following new categories:

Categories

Projects submitted to the following categories will be evaluated against peer projects of a similar scale:

  • Building Architecture: projects submitted tthis category may include New Construction, Adaptive Reuse, Preservation, Additions, Urban Design and are evaluated against peer projects of a similar scale
    • Large Scale = >10,000 sf
    • Small Scale = <10,000 sf
  • Interior Architecture: projects submitted tthis category may include New Construction and Renovation of Interior Projects
    • Large Scale = >5,000 sf 
    • Small Scale = <5,000 sf
  • Landscape Architecture: projects submitted tthis category may include Residential, Parks, Urban Design, Campuses; Streetscape, Hospitality, Landscape Art, Interior Landscapes, Gardens, Green/Blue Infrastructure, Green Roofs, Trails & Recreation
    • Large Scale = >5 acres
    • Small Scale = <5 acres
  • Experiential Graphics: projects submitted tthis category may include Wayfinding, Branded Environments, Placemaking, Interactive Experiences, Exhibition Design, Individual Signs
    • Large scale = environments or systems
    • Small Scale = features or elements
Projects submitted tthe following categories will be evaluated by a project’s own merit (against a standard of best practice vs. peer projects) at the jury’s discretion.
  • Interdisciplinary: projects submitted tthis category exemplify design excellence through successful implementation of integrated design across disciplines at any scale, type, or budget. Projects may be submitted by individual firms or teams and should demonstrate consistent quality of design and execution of each contributing discipline’s work
  • Innovation: projects submitted tthis category include Built and Conceptual work that advances design thinking or practice (in any discipline) through cutting-edge Research, Methods, Performance

 

Awards Levels

Honor Awards

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Honor Award winners represent design conceived and executed at the highest levels of the profession. Fully realized and expertly crafted solutions like these make our environment more functional, beautiful, and inspiring for everyone.

Merit Awards

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Merit Award winners reveal what design can do when applied with wit and purpose. They often surprise with their resourceful approach to difficult circumstances and never fail to bring delight to users.

Honorable Mention

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There is something about Honorable Mention projects that you can’t always put your finger on, but you can rarely forget. This award is how our jurors say it.