BALA, the country’s foremost design competition for residential housing, judges entries not only on appearance, but also scrutinizes interior floor plans, how the project relates to its own local market, and the construction techniques and materials used to build it.

Is Your Entry A BALA Winner? It takes an enormous amount of thought and preparation to put together a Best in American Living Awards entry. Skimp on either and your potential winner may never even make it past the initial phase of the judging process where each judge spends only several minutes assessing its merits. What are the judges looking for in this first pass through the entries?

• Good photography. The judges use the photos that accompany your entry to evaluate the architectural elements of your project and are looking for good composition, balance, structure and massing.
• Don't forget the details. Each project's floor plan is evaluated in terms of its livability, considering such elements as accessibility of the kitchen from the garage, the flow of the traffic pattern, the relationship of the formal to informal relationships, and how adult areas relate to those clearly for guests or children.
• Identify your market. Judges consider the plan within the context of its identified market to make sure that it is regionally sensible and has market acceptance.
• Keep it short. During the initial evaluation process, each judge has only minutes to spend looking over each project, so the more clear, concise and detailed your description is, the better chance your entry has to capture their attention and rate a high score.

Judges were carefully selected by NAHB and Professional Builder staff in order to achieve a representative cross-section of housing-related disciplines in a variety of geographical areas. The judge this year were:

Wendy G. Ney Manley, Southdown Homes, Downington, Pa.; Nelson “Chip” Vaughan, Vaughan and Sons, Wayne, Pa.; Michael Medick, Medick and Associates, Baltimore; Mark Tremblay, Marc-Michaels Interior, Winter Park, Fla.; Jillian Pritchard, JP Ltd., Atlanta; Tony Crasi, Crasi Co., Akron, Ohio; Jim Sattler, Jim Sattler Custom Homes, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Larry Garnett, Larry W. Garnett & Associates, Glen Rose, Texas; Preston Wood, Jack Preston Wood, Houston; Eric Zuziak, JBZ Architects, Newport Beach, Calif.; Heather McCune, Meghan Stromberg, Professional Builder magazine.

Smart Growth judges: Bill Warkentin, The Warkentin Partnership, Riverside, Calif.; Creigh Rahencamp, Creigh Rahencamp & Associates LLC, Palmyra, N.J.; Tom Kopf, Downing Thorpe and James, Boulder, Colo.

HUD judges: Andrea Vrankar, P.E., R.A., U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Division of Affordable Housing and Research Technology, Washington; Michael L. McCullough, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Director of Multi-Family Housing, Washington; Deane M. Evans, FAIA, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

• Southdown Homes
• Kaufman & Meeks & Partners
• Vernon & Gretchen Palmer
• Dominick Tringali Associates
• Crasi, Inc.
• JP Limited
• Bloodgood Sharp Buster
• EDI Architects
• Mike Kephart
• Merchandising East