Submit

2020 Important Dates

• Call for Entries details and PowerPoint template available online Friday September 4, 2020.
• Online awards submission system opens Friday September 13, 2020.
• This year’s entry deadline will be Friday October 2, 2020 at 5:00 pm EST.
• The awards ceremony will be held on Friday November 6, 2020.
• To be eligible for the 2020 CDA program, projects must have been completed no earlier than October 18th, 2015.

Contacts

If you have questions regarding the program itself or your entry (requirements, categories, etc.), please contact Michelle VonderBrink (michelle.vonderbrink@thinkchamplin.com) by email.

Checklist

So you are prepared to submit your entry, please gather the following information about your project before starting the online process!

• Complete your 4-slide PowerPoint banquet file BEFORE starting the submission to save time! You can download the template below. The judges do not see this slideshow! This slideshow is only used to show the audience the project while the jury explains its comments during the banquet. You can lay out the slides however you wish as long as it fits in 4 slides and does not include any video (can cause playback issues during the event with unknown video hardware in use).
• Prepare no more than 15 JPEG images to upload for the jury to review. They can include any combination of photos and drawings. They must be in JPEG format and be no more than 2000 pixels for the long edge.
• Project title, location, and completion date. Make sure you edit the TITLE at the very top of the online entry form to be your project’s title so it appears correctly on the website.
• Project team company and individual names you would like to recognize.
• Contractor(s) and Photographer names and company website URL addresses (important! – the URL’s will become links on the CDA website).
• Project narrative (1500 characters max = about 200 words.)

Requirements

The Cincinnati Design Awards (CDA) promote the best in environmental design by Cincinnati-area creative firms. It is the goal of this program to recognize local and regional designers and design firms for their outstanding work in the community and also to educate the general public to the benefits of supporting quality design. Each year, the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Cincinnati), the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) Cincinnati/Dayton City Center, the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Cincinnati/Dayton, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) Cincinnati Chapter, the Miami Section of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and the American Planning Association (APA) Cincinnati Section invite their members to present their best work in their respective annual design competitions. All entries will be judged by a common jury of distinguished guests connected to all facets of the design profession. The awards are announced at the annual CDA banquet with a panel of guest jurors.

2020 Categories

• Building Architecture: projects submitted this 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 this category may include New Construction and Renovation of Interior Projects
  • Large Scale = >5,000 sf 
  • Small Scale = <5,000 sf
• Landscape Architecture & Community Planning: projects submitted this category may include Residential, Parks, Urban Design, Campuses, Streetscape, Hospitality, Landscape Art, Interior Landscapes, Gardens, Green/Blue Infrastructure, Green Roofs, Trails & Recreation, Community and Comprehensive Plans, Open Space Networks, Neighborhood Improvement/Revitalization Plans.
  • Planning & Analysis Projects = evaluating the rigor and soundness of analysis and planning projects that contribute to a unique sense of place.
  • Implementation = results of a plan or a built project of unusually high merit contributing to an improved quality of life. 
• Experiential Graphics: projects submitted this category may include Wayfinding, Branded Environments, Placemaking, Interactive Experiences, Exhibition Design, Individual Signs
  • Large scale = environments or systems
  • Small Scale = features or elements

• Interdisciplinary: projects submitted this 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.
  While most projects are interdisciplinary in nature, this award honors CDA member organizations. Recognition of other project team members is at the discretion of the submitting teams/firms.
  

• Innovation: projects submitted this category include Built and Conceptual work that advances design thinking or practice (in any discipline) through cutting-edge Research, Methods, Performance

Note: The number of awards in any category is subject to the discretion of the jury. The jury also has the right not to award any projects in any given category in any given year if the work is not deemed of sufficient quality.

Eligibility

• Projects must have been completed within five calendar years of the CDA submission deadline each year.
• The submitting firm must have a local office actively involved in the project.
• The submitting firm must be the Design of Record, responsible for the overall design of the project concept.
• Submissions by design teams and joint ventures shall be eligible for the member fee only when the Designer of Record is a local member.
• Non-members may submit at a non-member rate.

2020 Entry Fees

AIA / IIDA / ASID 
Member entries: $150
Non-member entries: $300

ASLA / SEGD / APA
Member and Non-member entries: $100