The Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Florida) has been selected to receive a Component Excellence Award from the American Institute of Architects for its public outreach in the celebration of the association’s 100th anniversary.

The award will be presented at the 2013 AIA Grassroots, which is a leadership and legislative conference for AIA members held in Washington, D.C.

The Component Excellence Awards recognize the best practices and ideas from components around the country with winning programs shared via the AIA website. This is the second Component Excellence Award received by AIA Florida since 2010 in the public affairs and communications category. In total, AIA Florida has received eight component excellence awards since 2004.

The program, developed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the association, also helped AIA Florida achieve one of its highest priorities of the association’s three-year strategic plan- engaging the public in a dialog about architecture. To meet both goals, AIA Florida launched Florida Architecture: 100 Years 100 Places, a competition inviting the public to rank by voting the top 100 buildings in Florida.

“The “Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places.” competition was just one element of what was a yearlong celebration of our 100th Anniversary,” said Don Yoshino, FAIA, Chairman of the 100th Anniversary Celebration Steering Committee. “We had a variety of activities going on in the past year focused on the contributions of this profession and great architecture in Florida.”

AIA Florida teamed with Sachs Media to secure significant statewide news coverage by planning a high-profile kickoff event at Florida’s Historic Capitol building. The team developed a strategic outreach plan and media tool kit to assist local components with outreach efforts. Sachs Media Group was also successful in securing national media coverage of the Top 100 Buildings competition.

“We were thrilled to have played a key role in helping AIA Florida get millions of Floridians interested in our state’s rich architectural legacy,” said Ron Sachs, president and CEO of Sachs Media Group. “Partnering with AIA Florida was a rewarding experience for all of us.”

Together with Sachs Media Group, AIA Florida used social media and a mobile application developed to feature the buildings competing in the contest to reach the public far and wide. AIA Florida was featured in 75 news stories, 15 local television stories and generated more than 2.4 million votes during the span of the competition from Florida, Paris, London and Sydney. Donald Trump even mentioned AIA Florida in tweets asking his followers to vote for the Mar-a-Lago Hotel.

The mobile application is still free and available in Google Play and iTunes for users to take a virtual tour of Florida’s architecture and see the winners of the competition.

“We are so honored to be selected for recognition from a pool of nearly 300 components for a job well done. The year-long celebration was a labor of love in bringing architectural awareness and discussion to people in Florida, and even around the world,” said AIA Florida Executive Vice President Vicki Long, CAE, Hon. AIA Florida. “With nearly 2.5 million votes cast we certainly heard from the public that architecture and design really does matter to our citizens.”

The Component Excellence Awards recognize the best practices and ideas from components around the country with winning programs shared via the AIA website. This is the second Component Excellence Award received by AIA Florida since 2010 in the public affairs and communications category. In total, AIA Florida has received eight component excellence awards since 2004.

AIA Florida 2013 President Dan Kirby, AIA, AICP, LEED AP, 100th Anniversary Celebration Steering Committee Chair Donald Yoshino, FAIA and AIA Florida Executive Vice President Vicki Long, CAE, Hon. AIA Florida, will be present to accept the award.