Celebrating the merit and breadth of firms across the AEC industry
ABOUT THE 2025 BEST OF PRACTICE AWARDS
The Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Practice Awards is back for its fifth edition. While our Best of Design Awards seek out the best projects and Best of Products commends the objects and finishes used to build them, Best of Practice celebrates the companies that create our built environment, from architects to developers, fabricators, engineers, interior designers, landscape architects, lighting designers, and others.
Best of Practice is an award that honors the firms and businesses that are thoughtfully shaping the AEC industry in North America.
What makes a business worthy of recognition? AN’s jury of esteemed practitioners and educators will examine offices with an eye towards three criteria: design, culture, and social impact. Design considers the company’s work product and evaluates the level of quality present in completed projects. Culture considers the internal experience and operations that can best support their employees and create an office culture that prizes advancement, achievement, and diversity. Finally, social impact looks at how a firm engages with its community to envision and enact a better world.
Winners will be selected by a panel of jurors: critics, architects, and other experts on the built environment. Winners will not only receive a trophy but also be showcased to our audience online and in print. Both winners and runner-ups will be announced on archpaper.com in late June, shared on social media, and featured in AN’s end-of-the-year Best of 2025 print magazine.
A full list of categories, submission guidelines, and eligibility can be found below. The 2025 awards program kicks off January 15, with early bird entries due by February 28 (midnight ET) and the submission period running through March 28 (midnight ET).
PUBLICATION AND ANNOUNCEMENT OF WINNERS
Winning firms will receive a custom trophy and will be published in print in AN’s Best of 2025 issue, a compilation of all of AN’s winning firms, projects, and products awarded that year. Photos, descriptions, and juror comments will appear in this print publication that reaches readers nationwide and is distributed at industry events and conferences throughout 2025.
Winner announcements will also be featured on our website and promoted on AN social media platforms, celebrating winners and their work to our audience of over 1 million peers in the design community!
JURY
Announcement Forthcoming
CATEGORIES PER SEVEN REGIONS
Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, West, Canada, and Mexico
Regional
- Architect (XL Firm) (100+ Employees)
- Architect (Large Firm) (50-99 employees)
- Architect (Medium Firm) (10-49 employees)
- Architect (Small Firm) (Under 10 Employees)
- Architect (New Firm) (Founded within last 3 years)
- Interior Designer
- Landscape Architect
Non-regional
- Acoustic Consultant/Engineer
- Developer
- Fabricator
- Facade Consultant
- General Contractor
- Graphic Design & Wayfinding
- Lighting Designer
- MEP Engineer
- Photography Studio
- Render & Visualization
- Structural Engineer
- Sustainability Consultant
- Technology
AWARD DATES & DETAILS
LAUNCH
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION
$245 until February 28, 2025 (midnight ET)
REGULAR REGISTRATION
$295 until March 28, 2025 (midnight ET)
EMERGING FIRM DISCOUNT
To uplift new business, AN offers businesses that have been founded within the last 5 years a discounted entry free of nearly 50 percent off: $125 during early bird and $150 during regular registration. To redeem, use code EMERGING at check out. Note that each code may only be used once per user.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
ELIGIBILITY
AN’s Best of Practice Awards is open to all North American offices, though submitted projects or case studies may be international.
Entrants are asked to submit a 500-word statement making the case for excellence in practice. The statement should describe the way the office operates, which could include its philosophy of design, the culture promoted within the office, how employee growth is cultivated, how the office interacts with the public and/or communities, the office’s position on sustainability and the environment, the office’s investment in research and technology, or any other salient feature of the practice.
Entrants should also submit up to 10 images that support the statement. These items can include photography and/or drawings of projects or the office itself, graphs and/or charts that illustrate claims made in the statement, testimonials from clients or community groups, articles published about the office and/or its work, and any other document that backs up the office’s claim to excellence.
Representatives of offices or developers and public relations professionals are allowed to submit on behalf of their clients. Please provide your direct contact information, but include the name of the entrant in the “Company” field on the registration form.
MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS
Registration must be completed via the registration portal at the top of the page. Submissions can include up to 10 images and/or supporting documents and must include a written statement about the practice (500-word limit). An optional, one-page client testimonial (preferably featuring the company letterhead) may also be included that describes the experience of working with the company.
Digital specs:
File format: JPG
Image format: Landscape (preferred)
Color format: RGB
File size: Images/slides should be 3,000 pixels wide on the long side (preferred)
Include photography credits in image file names where necessary.
While text is welcome as part of diagrams or other slides, please refrain from adding text to project photographs.
When submitting photography, only include one image per file. Do not combine images unless it is part of a larger graphic. Do not upsample images; if photographs aren’t available at the file size listed above, provide in the largest available dimensions.
All submissions must be entered online and received by AN no later than midnight ET on the submission deadline. The Architect’s Newspaper reserves publication rights for all materials submitted as part of the Best of Practice Awards program, extending to all forms of media or content delivery, whether print, online, digital, mobile or otherwise, now or hereafter created.
Registration fees are nonrefundable.
Once a submission is completed and uploaded, you cannot return to the application to make changes.
Submission is not a guarantee of publication or an award.
ABOUT AN MEDIA GROUP
The Architect’s Newspaper provides timely news and cultural reporting on the built environment through a nationally distributed monthly newspaper as well as a design magazine, AN Interior, online at archpaper.com, and through a series of email newsletters. Every issue delivers our trademark blend of topical essays, opinionated columns, project analyses, firm profiles, interviews, new products, reviews of exhibitions and books, and calendars of events in a handy and handsome full-color tabloid and a quarterly magazine. AN reaches a highly engaged online community of hundreds of thousands through our web and social media platforms. AN is the must-read publication for architects, planners, landscape architects, designers, and allied professionals. Learn more about AN Media Group and our other brands at: https://anmediagroup.com/
CONTACT US
For all inquiries about AN’s Best of awards programs, fill in the form, or email us directly competitions@archpaper.com