IDEAS Awards
IDEAS Awards
AISC is now accepting entries for the 2026 IDEAS Awards.
Entries are due September 30, 2025.
For 2026, AISC is distilling its premier building awards down to its essence, awarding the completed and in-progress ideas behind the country's most innovative structures!
The IDEAS Awards, presented by the American Institute of Steel Construction and Building Design+Construction, are looking for the freshest innovations to celebrate in the steel design and construction industry’s most prestigious competition, be they completed projects or individual aspects of completed projects.
You could even get recognition for your design before the project breaks ground! The new IDEAS|next Award recognizes concepts that are still on the boards. As long as you have a client and a site, you’re eligible!
We’re looking for exceptional projects that demonstrate how domestically fabricated structural steel fosters superior:
- Excellence in adaptive reuse;
- Excellence in architecture;
- Excellence in constructability;
- Excellence in engineering; and
- Excellence in sustainable design and construction.
Visit aisc.org/ideas-rules to learn more.
Ready for the national stage? Winners will be invited to present their project to the industry at the Architecture in Steel conference as part of NASCC: The Steel Conference (April 22 to 24, 2026, in Atlanta). They’ll also be featured in the May 2026 issue of Modern Steel Construction magazine and in other media including Building Design + Construction throughout the year.
AISC will host an exclusive awards night where winners can mingle with top architects just before AIA26!
2025 IDEAS² Award winners
Explore all five winning projects
Project teams across the country continue to push the boundaries with structural steel--and it can be hard to keep up. We’ve made it easy: focus on these five.
They’re this year’s winners of the structural steel industry’s highest design honor: the Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (or IDEAS²) Awards, presented by the American Institute of Steel Construction.
"Innovative breakthroughs happen at intersections--be they meetings of minds, changes in a structure’s needs, or a challenge to build something that will make people stop and take notice," said AISC Senior Vice President Scott Melnick. "Each of these projects found themselves at the right intersection with the right team at the right time."
IDEAS² Award for Excellence in Constructability
200 Park, San Jose, Calif.
IDEAS² Award for Excellence in Engineering
PENN 2 Redevelopment, New York
IDEAS² Award for Excellence in Architecture
Pima Community College – Advanced Manufacturing Center, Tucson, Ariz.
IDEAS² Award for Excellence in Adaptive Reuse
Top of the Rock Redevelopment, New York
Presidential Award for Engineering Design and Construction
Sphere, Las Vegas
The winners were featured in the May 2025 issue of Modern Steel Construction magazine.
Award Archives
AISC had a number of award programs celebrating landmark structures built with structural steel since 1960. Regardless of which award they won, these architectural icons span generations and stand the test of time. AISC recognizes and promotes these projects in recognition of their impact in terms of structural innovation, advances in safety, benefit to the local community, and environmental consciousness.
While many of the winners are landmark structures, the awards program also honors smaller, less well-known projects. Winners have included widely recognized projects such as The Gateway Arch in St. Louis and The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. as well as an outstanding monumental stair, a gorgeous public transit station, and the sustainable equipment barn at a winery in addition to jaw-dropping high-rises and striking education buildings. What all of the winners share is a commitment to innovation and imaginative design!
Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (IDEAS2) Awards Archive
In 2006, AISC joined its two previously separate architecture and structural engineering awards programs (EAE and IDEAS) into one: The IDEAS² Awards. This awards program was designed to recognize all team members responsible for excellence and innovation in a project’s use of structural steel.
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 |
| 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |
| 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |
Innovative Design and Excellence in Architecture with Steel (IDEAS) Awards Archive
The Innovative Design and Excellence in Architecture with Steel (IDEAS) Awards, presented from 1997-2005, recognized those designs where structural steel formed a prominent architectural feature of a building, either as an exterior or interior application.
| 2005 | 2004 | 2003 |
| 2002 | 2001 | 1999 |
| 1997 |
Architectural Awards of Excellence (AAE) Archive
AISC established the Architectural Awards of Excellence in 1960 to recognize and honor outstanding architectural design in structural steel and to encourage further exploration of the many aesthetic possibilities that are inherent with steel construction.
| 1990 | 1987 | 1985 | 1983 |
| 1981 | 1979 | 1978 | 1977 |
| 1975 | 1974 | 1973 | 1972 |
| 1971 | 1970 | 1969 | 1968 |
| 1967 | 1966 | 1965 | 1964 |
| 1963 | 1962 | 1961 | 1960 |