Welcome to Southwest Contractor magazine's annual "Best of 2002" competition. This year, we had more projects entered than ever before, with judges reviewing 85 submissions from Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

As in previous years, we convened a jury of construction professionals in each state, inviting architects, engineers, project managers and subcontractors to sit on our panels. Each judge carefully reviewed every submission and then cast a secret ballot. Projects were judged on design, construction, innovation, ability to overcome unique construction challenges and overall excellence.

Ten points were available in each of the five criteria, with 50 being a perfect score. All of the judges' ballots for each individual submission where then tallied and then averaged out, with the highest average score in each category winning. The project with the highest overall score in each state was named as the overall "Outstanding Architectural Design Project." The editor did not participate in the voting, although he did reserve the right to choose projects he felt were architecturally significant. Those projects can be found under "Editor's Choice."

In Arizona, the top honor fell to the Empire Southwest Machinery renovation; in New Mexico the Explora Center got the top nod, while in Nevada, the Ritz Carlton Resort picked up the top award.
The editor would like to thank all of the judges who took time out of their busy schedule to sit on our juries.

Click to view the best of:

ARIZONA

NEVADA

NEW MEXICO