The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has announced the winners of its 2025 Award of Excellence competition, spanning 20 countries and more than 20 categories. From carbon-negative towers to adaptive reuse strategies that extend the life of existing structures by decades, the 2025 awardees are unified by an evolution of values: growth as well as stewardship, height and impact.
In categories such as Best Tall Building, Innovation and Urban Habitat, this year’s winners emphasize reuse, low-carbon materials, equitable housing and integrated infrastructure. Submitting companies were also asked to share data on the carbon and material usage in their projects—part of the CTBUH 2025 Awards Carbon Pilot Program—which attempts to consolidate embodied carbon data from across the globe and serve as a benchmark for sustainable development practices. Several projects introduce hybrid programmatic models, blurring the line between public and private realms and prioritizing circularity from the outset.
Each submission was evaluated by multidisciplinary juries comprising leaders in architecture, engineering, planning, construction and real estate development. The selection criteria prioritized performance—environmental, cultural and operational—over prestige or aesthetics alone. Awardees will present their work during the CTBUH 2025 International Conference, themed From the Ground Up: Tall Buildings and City-Making, taking place 6–9 October in Toronto, where they’ll vie for “best in category” recognition. Results will be announced during the conference’s prestigious award ceremony and dinner.
For more information on the CTBUH awards program, including this year’s winners, jury members by category, and all prior Award of Excellence winners, please visit awards.ctbuh.org.