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President's Message

“Mr. Jones,” calls out one of my Indian River Charter High School students, enthusiastically. “Come check out my house!”

An architect in the making? Perhaps! Or, more importantly, it’s that moment of celebration when a design idea seems to jump off the page and we’re in that place we’ve just created. Excited by the idea, visualizing the possibilities and knowing the potential of what’s to be. It’s with this unabashed enthusiasm that I come to you this year, as we celebrate the 100^th year of the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects.

As I write this, many of you – members, associates, students, educators, AIA Florida Staff and Steering Committee members – will have been preparing many and various celebration related activities, programs, written articles, videos, press releases and much more all in the recognition of great efforts and achievements of so many who have come before us.

For it was in 1912 that 42 “qualified architects” met in Jacksonville and formed the Florida Association of Architects and at a convention held in Jacksonville on December 14, 1912, with 36 charter members, George O. Holmes elected as the Association’s first President, unanimously adopted a Constitution, Bylaws and a Code of Ethics. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Under the leadership of Don Yoshino, FAIA, AIA Florida’s 2008 president, we initiated a strategic plan to establish long-range goals that could be programmed, researched and implemented by our membership and AIA Florida Staff. This past November, a similar planning session took place to evaluate the plan and develop strategies for the next three years. It was amazing how the strength of that vision of nearly five years ago carried through and resonated in this planning session: advocacy, collaboration, component excellence, knowledge, leadership and community and I look forward to sharing this plan and working with all of you in its realization!

So here we are, 100 years later, facing economic times certainly unprecedented in my lifetime, assaults on the practice of architecture and the challenge of energizing not only our membership, professional colleagues and educators, but those who represent the future of our profession. I believe, hopefully as you do, that born out of the challenges we have before us, we have a wonderful opportunity and duty to those who have come before us, to “build on the past and shape the future!”

Peter W. Jones, AIA

AIA Florida 2012 President