2026 SARA CA Design Awards

SARA CA Council celebrates design excellence in architecture and design through the SARA CA Design Awards Program, which attracts entries from across the country and around the world from individuals, firms, and students of architecture and allied disciplines. Awards are granted for a wide range of categories and project types, and all entrants will be invited to attend the awards ceremony in California.

Click to submit

Dates

  • Professional Registration Opens November 1, 2025

  • Submission Deadline (all categories): February 5, 2026 at 8:59pm PST

  • Awards Notification: March 2026

  • Awards Celebration April 2026 in California

Entry Fees

  • SARA Members $195

  • Non-Members $295

  • Students $25

Eligibility

Architecture, planning, landscape architecture, and design projects may be submitted by individuals, firms, or students of these disciplines. See Project Categories for a complete list. No project may be submitted which has previously received a SARA CA Council Design Award. (projects which have received SARA National and other Council awards are welcome to apply)

Categories

Entries are to be submitted into any one of the categories listed below. Category assignments may be revised at the discretion of the jury. Each project will be judged upon its own merit separate from other submissions, regardless of category.

  • Single-Family Residential

  • Multi-Family Residential: Condominiums, Apartments

  • Multi-Family Residential: Affordable Housing, Low Income Housing, Market Rate Housing

  • (Quantity and percentage required)

  • Commercial: Office, Retail, Industrial, Mixed-Use

  • Institutional: Educational, Health-Related, Religious

  • Cultural

  • Government

  • Additions and Small Projects

  • Renovation, Restoration, and Adaptive Re-use

  • Sustainable Design

  • Unbuilt and Theoretical Projects

  • Architectural Interiors

  • Landscape Architecture (in any of the above categories)

  • Planning: City and Regional, Urban, Feasibility Studies

  • Related Arts: Industrial Design, Furniture, Lighting, Hardware, etc.

  • Graphic Communication: Rendering, Computer Graphics, Modeling, Virtual Reality Imaging

  • Material Sciences

  • Student Projects (Associate, Undergraduate, and Graduate)

Awards

Awards will be given with the following distinctions: Excellence, Honor, Merit

Entries will be judged based upon any or all of the following:

  • Clarity of Concept, Strength and Uniqueness of Solution, and Accurate

  • Scope of Work

  • Response to Project’s Context of Rural, Suburban, Urban, Campus, or Other

  • Unique Neighboring Conditions

  • Appropriateness, Applicability, and Function

  • Overall Design Aesthetics

  • Creativity, Innovation, Ingenuity, and Invention

  • Social/Cultural/Community Relevance

Award recipients will be notified March 2026.

Awards will be presented at the SARA CA Design Awards Celebration, April (Venue/Date TBD). Entrants and winners will be invited to attend along with their clients, consultants, contractors, fellow students, professors, and families.

Venue

Announcement Coming Soon. Location CA

Sponsorship

Opportunities are available. Promote your firm, brand, or celebrate a winning project!

Learn more

Stay

Hotel recommendations and room group codes.

Coming Soon