Framework for Design Excellence Assessment

Download** the Framework for Design Excellence Assessment* (criteria identical to the AIA Philadelphia Design Awards Framework to Design Excellence/Sustainability Form required for entry in the AIA Philadelphia Design Awards; the format is adapted), fill in spreadsheet cell fields according to the instructions specified on the sheet, proceed to save and save/print as a .PDF in order to upload your completed assessment in the required .PDF format to the file upload field below. The file name should follow the naming convention, "Project Title_2025COTE."

This self-calculating assessment spreadsheet is based on AIA's Framework for Design Excellence measures generating scores for each of the 10 measures upon completion. It is intended to be used as a comparative tool, so applicants can identify measures within the framework that demonstrate project highlights and strengths, at the same time identifying opportunities for growth and improvement in other measures.

*Assessment download will be prompted once the link is clicked. The download will not load in the Safari browser. Please open the link to proceed with download in Chrome, Edge, or Firefox browser.

**The assessment is available for download in the COTE Awards segment of the submission form and is LINKED ABOVE ON THIS PAGE. Any critical updates to the assessment will be posted in these two locations. 

The COTE Awards program remains an opt-in program with a separate jury review and assessment. If you opt to enter your project into the COTE Awards program by completing and uploading the assessment, you will also be required to append the completed framework assessment to the "Digital Project Binder" upload. This will give the Design Awards jury the opportunity to review your project in the context of the framework measures. The assessment pages do not count toward the maximum page count.