Architecture, as the cliché goes, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Even the most masterful of designers relies on a cadre of consultants, contractors, and suppliers for the success of their projects. Each year, AN sets its sights on calling out these unsung heroes of the building trade: the engineers, technology specialists, and material sources whose labor and products come together to turn the abstractions of design into concrete reality. The lists that follow were drawn from hours of interviews conducted by AN’s editors with the architects of some of 2012’s finest finished work.