As a founding member of the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) and the establishment of the AIA COTE Top Ten Awards, we are continually thrilled by the quality of projects and number of designers committed to building in a similar manner, with a focus on performance metrics as a major driver of design excellence. The annual awards program, which AIA calls “the best-known recognition program for sustainable design excellence,” launched in 1997. Of the 130 architecture firms that have won at least one award to date, only 29 have done so more than once, and only 17 have won three or more times.1 As of 2019, BNIM has received 10 COTE Top Ten Awards and one COTE Top Ten PLUS Award.

To learn more about each of BNIM's AIA/COTE Top Ten Projects, click on the images below:

1999: Deramus Education Pavilion 

2000: C. K. Choi Center for Asian Studies (in association with Matsuzaki Wright Architects) 

2006: School of Nursing and Community Center (in collaboration with Lake|Flato) 

2007: Heifer International (in association with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects) 

Project Profile 2008: Internal Revenue Service Service Center (in collaboration with 360) 

Project Profile 2010: Omega Center for Sustainable Living 

Project Profile 2011: Kiowa County Schools

Project Profile 2012: Iowa Utilities Board/Office of Consumer Advocate

Project Profile 2014: Summit Bechtel Sustainability Treehouse (in collaboration with Mithun)

Project Profile 2014: COTE PLUS Iowa Utilities Board/Office of Consumer Advocate

Project Profile 2019: Asilong Christian High School