The architecture contest is judged by the Architecture Jury who evaluate "Architecture Design and Implementation" and "Drawing and Specification." The criteria for design follow the principles of firmness, commodity, and delight. LEAFHouse Team's approach to these principles is to look beyond the house itself to its natural setting. Firmness in the building–its ability to remain structurally sound–should not rob nature of its own soundness, and the team has given major consideration this relationship in design, material selection and sourcing.

Commodity usually refers to the ways that the architectural design provides for the  activities and requirements of those living in the building. The LEAFHouse team has embraced the requirements of the site as well by addressing the structure's interaction with rainwater, sunlight and air movement, and by making plant life an integral part of the building design.

Relationships of spaces within the house to one another, and harmony and contrast of materials and colors are some of the experiences that bring delight to the inhabitants of a home. Our aim is not only a beautiful building, but a house that is beautiful in the relationship to nature that it expresses: the sunlight that brightens the northern spaces as well as the southern, the sound of water nearby, and the texture of the edge of a log  as well as highly crafted casework.