Architecture Awards Calendar 2027: AIA, Architizer and WAF Deadlines

As of September 2026, most of the deadlines that will shape a studio's 2027 awards season are already public, and the first one lands in five weeks. This architecture awards calendar 2027 pulls the confirmed dates for AIA, Architizer, Interior Design's Best of Year, World Architecture Festival and the calls still to come, then walks through the portfolio work each deadline forces onto your desk.

Key takeaways

• AIA's Architecture, Interior Architecture and Housing Awards all close at 5 pm ET on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, with no extensions granted.
• Architizer's 15th annual A+Awards opens October 5, 2026, with fees rising from $275 on October 23 to $425 on February 19, 2027.
• Interior Design's Best of Year names finalists in November 2026 and holds its ceremony December 10 in New York.
• World Architecture Festival runs November 18–20, 2026, in Fort Lauderdale on the theme "Water," with 416 projects already shortlisted.
• ASLA, AIANY and Dezeen had not posted 2027 calls as of late September 2026; based on prior-year timing, expect ASLA and AIANY calls in November.

The calendar at a glance

Treat this as a starting point and confirm each program's current call before you build a submission around it — organizers do shift dates between cycles.

AIA's three November 3 deadlines

The AIA Architecture Award closes at 5 pm ET on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, and the program states plainly that "deadline extension or exception requests will not be granted." Entry runs through the online portal only. A single project submitted to one project-based program costs $450; entering the same project into an additional AIA program costs $100 more per program. Projects must have been completed after January 1, 2021, and the AIA Housing Award shares the identical November 3 deadline and fee structure, so a residential project can go in alongside a firm's general portfolio entry without a second research pass on dates.

The AIA Interior Architecture Award also closes November 3 and requires an AIA architect member in good standing, licensed to practice in the US, as the submitting architect for the project — that person doesn't need to have led the design. One change worth noting for the 2027 cycle: Image Copyright Release Forms are no longer required at the time you submit. They only become mandatory if the project wins, so budget time to track down every photographer and contributor after a win notice, not before. If your studio also does public or civic work, the AIA's Firm Award and Award for Excellence in Public Architecture ran on an earlier August 6, 2026 deadline for this cycle — that window is closed, so note it now for next year rather than discovering it in a search next fall.

For the image counts, word limits and anonymity rules that differ across AIA, Architizer, IIDA and ASLA, our architecture award submission guide compares them side by side; this piece focuses on the dates.

Architizer's four fee tiers from October to February

The 15th annual Architizer A+Awards opens for entries October 5, 2026. The early deadline is October 23, 2026 at $275; the main deadline is December 4, 2026 at $325; the final deadline is January 22, 2027 at $375; and an extended deadline runs to February 19, 2027 at $425. Every tier adds a 3% payment processing fee, and Project of the Year consideration is a separate $195. Entering at the early or main tier before your busiest fall deadlines rather than waiting for the extended one is the simplest way to keep the entry fee down on a project you already know is ready.

Architizer's calendar runs long after entries close: jury deliberation happens in April 2027, public voting opens in May 2027 — the program says the 2025 round drew over 300,000 public votes — and winners are announced in June 2027, the same month as NeoCon. If a project is likely to reach the public vote, that's a second marketing moment worth planning for now, not scrambling for in April.

Best of Year: a closed window and a December ceremony

Interior Design's Best of Year project-entry window for the current cycle has already closed — general and late entries ran through mid-to-late September 2026. If your studio missed it, there's nothing to do but plan for the next cycle. What's still ahead on the calendar: finalists post in November 2026, and the ceremony runs December 10 in New York, hosted by editor-in-chief Cindy Allen and livestreamed on DESIGNTV. This cycle also introduced a Made in America category tied to the 250th anniversary of the United States, a reminder to read the current year's category list rather than assume it matches the one you remember from a past entry.

World Architecture Festival: November 18–20 in Fort Lauderdale

World Architecture Festival runs November 18–20, 2026, at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on the theme "Water." The festival already shortlisted 416 projects across Completed Buildings, Future Projects, Landscape and Inside (interiors), and shortlisted teams present live to an international jury before the overall World Building of the Year is named at the closing gala on November 20. WAF hasn't posted 2027 dates yet; if your studio wants in next year, its entry window has historically opened in the spring, so treat this November's event as the moment to start tracking the program rather than waiting for a direct announcement.

Calls not yet posted: ASLA, AIANY and Dezeen

Three programs a design-focused studio watches hadn't opened their 2027 cycles as of late September 2026, but last year's pattern gives a reasonable window to expect them.

ASLA's Professional Awards 2026 cycle opened its call November 18, 2025, took early-bird entries through January 9, 2026, and closed at 11:59 pm PST on February 6, 2026, across six primary categories — General Design, Residential Design, Urban Design, Analysis and Planning, Communications and Research — plus a separate Landmark Award for work completed 15 to 50 years ago. If landscape work is part of your practice, expect a similar November call for the 2027 cycle.

The AIANY Design Awards 2026 cycle deadline was extended from November 21 to December 8, 2025, with winners announced January 12, 2026, and an honors luncheon that April. Entry ran $225 for AIA New York members and $525 for other registered architects. Its 2027 cycle wasn't posted as of this writing, and neither were Dezeen Awards 2027 dates — the 2026 cycle opened in February, ran late entries to June 3, 2026, and added three new Regional Showcases covering EMEA, Asia Pacific and the Americas. None of these are hard 2027 dates yet, so a calendar reminder to check back in November is more useful right now than a guess.

NeoCon and the June cluster

NeoCon 2027 runs June 13–16, 2027, at The Mart in Chicago, with registration opening in February. That lands in the same month Architizer names its A+Awards winners, and it follows Fulton Market Design Days, which ran June 6–10 in 2026 with 2027 dates not yet published. For an interiors-facing studio, that's a compressed early-summer stretch worth blocking on next year's calendar even before every exact date is confirmed.

The portfolio refresh this calendar implies

A dated calendar is only useful if it changes what you do this quarter. Four tasks follow directly from the dates above:

• Re-shoot or re-render your two strongest projects now, ahead of the November 3 AIA deadline and Architizer's October 23 early tier, rather than working from whatever images you have on hand.
• Cut one roughly 30-second film for each flagship project you expect to submit or push to a public vote. Arch2Video builds one from six images of a single completed project — renderings, drawings or photographs — and its AI director plans the scene order into one 1080×1920 film with a small fictional cast in at least one scene; generation typically takes an hour or more, and you should review the result before it goes anywhere near a jury or a public vote.
• Confirm your photography license covers award entry and any winner's publication before, not during, a deadline — see our guide to architectural photo licensing for video.
• Pre-write your project narratives at a few standard lengths in January, before the next wave of deadlines hits. Our guide to getting a project published covers the same narrative you'll reuse for both press and award entries.

If any of the projects you're refreshing aren't built yet, present them as concept work in every image and film, and disclose AI use wherever a program's rules ask for it — see our AI rendering disclosure guide for what that looks like in practice.

Frequently asked questions

When is the AIA Architecture Award deadline for the 2027 cycle?

Submissions are due by 5 pm ET on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, through the AIA's online portal only. The program states that deadline extensions or exceptions are not granted. A single project submitted to one program costs $450, with $100 for each additional AIA program the same project enters, and it must have been completed after January 1, 2021.

What does it cost to enter the Architizer A+Awards in 2027?

Fees rise across four tiers: $275 at the October 23, 2026 early deadline, $325 at the December 4, 2026 main deadline, $375 at the January 22, 2027 final deadline, and $425 at the February 19, 2027 extended deadline. Every tier adds a 3% payment processing fee, and Project of the Year consideration costs an additional $195.

Has the ASLA 2027 Professional Awards call opened yet?

Not as of late September 2026. The 2026 cycle opened its call in November 2025, took early-bird entries in January and closed in February, so a 2027 call in a similar November window is a reasonable expectation rather than a confirmed date. Check ASLA's own awards page directly before you plan around it.

Should I include a film with my architecture award submission?

It depends entirely on the program: AIA's national awards don't accept video at all, while Architizer's A+Awards allow one optional video and its Vision Awards accept video as the entry itself. Our architecture award submission guide compares video rules across programs; check the current call before you build anything around one.

What should I do if I already missed a 2026 deadline, like Best of Year?

Note the date for next cycle and use the gap productively. Best of Year's project window closed in September 2026, but the format tends to repeat annually, so treat this fall as the time to refresh images, licenses and narratives for the next opening rather than waiting until the call reappears.