The 11 awards categories in 2025 are:

Residential Standard Entry Categories
$150 each entry

1. Custom Urban House
Houses located in cities, close-in suburbs, or towns. These houses respond to context in an inventive, expansive way, while balancing the need for privacy and connection to city life.

2. Custom Rural or Vacation House
Houses unburdened by existing context and/or by the programmatic constraints of a primary dwelling, and that mine the unique benefits of their scenic locations.

3. Custom Period or Vernacular House
Houses respond directly and sensitively to existing architectural context, building conventions, or tenets of traditional and classical design. These projects are welcome in the Urban and Rural house categories as well.

4. Renovation
Substantial additions or alterations to an existing home; also, whole-house remodels.

5. Custom Period or Vernacular Renovation/Restoration/Preservation
Substantial additions and alterations to or restoration/preservation of an existing home where the goal is to honor, replicate, and/or sensitively enhance the original style. These projects are also welcome in the Renovation category.

Residential Special Project Categories
$125 each entry

6. Architectural Interiors
Whole-house interiors and apartment interiors, or outstanding special rooms, such as wine rooms, kitchens, baths, game rooms, offices, mudrooms, and the like.

7. Architectural Details
Significant custom-designed and crafted details or focal points of the house. Fireplaces, staircases, ceiling details, scuppers, window seats are some examples.

8. Custom Outdoor Living Design
Projects that extend living, dining, or cooking areas beyond the interior of the home and integrate indoor/outdoor spaces.

9. Custom Accessory or Outbuilding
Detached guest houses, studios, garages, pool houses, architectural follies are some examples.

10. Residential Special Constraints
Single-family and low-rise multifamily dwellings built to sustainable standards programs, stringent architectural review, or pattern book; adaptive reuse to residential; affordable, extraordinary budget or size constraints, pro-bono residential; prototype dwelling or special construction technologies applied.

11. Custom On the Boards
Unbuilt or under construction single-family residential projects of any scale and style, commissioned by a client. These projects should be fully conceived and clearly presented with detailed renderings and floor plans, where possible. 

Residential Design Project of the Year
The jury will choose an overall project of the year from among the built project entries.

Both modern and traditional work will be considered for the top honor of Project of the Year, and jurors will be given discretion to select one modern work and one traditional work for Project of the Year, if they so choose.

About the Jury Process
All entries will be judged by an independent jury of architects selected for geographic and aesthetic diversity. 

The jury will be given broad discretion to move projects to different categories. The jurors may also combine categories or create new ones to better showcase award-worthy entries. Further, they may give more than one or no awards in each category, if they so choose.

Questions about the competition or entries should be directed to Heidi Riedl, Projects Manager, Heidi@solabrands.com.