The Best Projects 2012 Awards competition is now open and accepting entries. Visit ENR.com and any of the regional sections to submit your entry using our new—and much more user-friendly—system.
The competition is a huge undertaking for ENR. Over the past 15 years, thousands of firms have submitted their best work in design and construction, and we’ve gathered hundreds of the construction industry’s most prominent professionals to judge the competition. It has given us the special opportunity to honor on the pages of our regional and national editions and at award ceremonies across the country the entire project teams behind some of the most significant projects in the U.S.
Between now and July 2, the competition seeks entries of projects completed in the past year in any of the 50 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Projects compete first in nine regional contests in which expert architects, engineers, contractors and subcontractors will judge the projects based on criteria that include teamwork, safety, workmanship, quality of design and positive impact to the community. There are 18 project-type categories, from civil, infrastructure and office buildings to landscapes and sustainability.
Winners of the regional competitions then will compete against one another in the national Best of the Best Projects 2012 competition. There’s no need to re-enter. The regional entry is automatically moved along to the national judges.
Projects of all scopes and sizes can win. There have been many winning projects with construction budgets under $10 million and even a few that were under $1 million. Two great examples from past years are the $477,000 Canyon Rim Trail Bridge in Los Alamos, N.M. and the $600,000 Maricopa County Security Building Re-Roof in Phoenix.
What’s important is that submitters address the criteria in the entry form in a compelling way to inform the judges about why their projects demonstrate excellence. Judges always admire innovation and on-time, on-budget (or better) delivery, regardless of project size.
We are proud to introduce the first-ever Best Projects safety award. Judges in each region will recognize the project that demonstrates the best overall safety record, taking into consideration the specific challenges each project team faced and the size and scope of the project. Safety will remain a criterion in all categories, and projects with a construction-related fatality are not eligible for the program. For the safety award specifically, however, only projects with the highest degree of safety performance should apply.
This year, we’ve made many improvements to the entry process. If you haven’t entered a project in a while or thought it was too time consuming before, please look over the new entry form and reconsider.
Click here to get started. Entries to the competition are still free, even for multiple submissions.
Want to see which projects won last year? You can see the Southwest winners here. For winners in other regions, visit the other regional section home pages. To see 2011’s national Best of the Best Projects winners, click here.
Good luck, and be sure to get your entries in before the July 2nd deadline!
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