San Diego Architectural Foundation

Orchids & Onions (O&O) is an educational and fundraising program of the SDAF.
  
After 3 years of dormancy, the SDAF "reinvented" and re-launched O&O in 2006 to great professional, media and public acclaim. Following the purchase of the program from the AIA San Diego in ‘04, a great deal of thought was given to where it had been and where it should go in the future; for in spite of its general popularity much legitimate criticism had been leveled at the program, from professionals as well as the community at large. These objections prompted the SDAF to take stock of the basic purpose and mission of the Orchids & Onions program. Some strongly advocated that it be discontinued altogether. Others acknowledged that O&O, in its best incarnation, has been the most visible, popular and effective vehicle for stimulating community awareness and response to San Diego's built environment.
  
With the aid of an ad hoc committee representing most of the professional planning and design organizations in San Diego, and after many conversations as to what it would take to make O&O more relevant, effective and meaningful to our community, a set of O&O guidelines were drafted. The guidelines detail topics such as jury composition; submittal screening; background research; the "event" and follow‐up - and devised the rebirth of O&O as we now know it.
   
These past 4 years of the new and improved Orchids & Onions has been an amazing journey of interactive, enlightening and community-driven response to our environs. Through meaningful themes and respectful observations, O&O is driven more now than ever before by its educational roots.
  
In 2008, a dedicated Orchids & Onions website was launched, which offers every citizen of San Diego the ability to nominate a project or planning policy. This year, in anticipation of the economic climate creating alterations in the way we think, plan, design and build, the O&O Organizing Committee made an alteration and opened the nomination window wider, by offering a ‘Miscellaneous’ Category. This new category encompasses everything and anything that the existing categories do not.
  
We also launched the People’s Choice Vote, which allowed everyone to participate in an online vote, with the top voted Orchid and Onion receiving the People’s Choice Orchid and Onion at the awards presentation.
   
Commentary on all nominations is also strongly encouraged, especially from nominees. This allows the site visitor, juror and People’s Choice Award voter, to learn as much as possible about the projects up for recognition.
   
The SDAF and O&O Organizing Committee are committed to various means of follow-up, including the still-blossoming Blooms & Bulbs program, the SDAF Newsletter "By Design", both SDAF and O&O websites and other social networking arenas, and other diverse programs that all weave together with a common thread that serve to inspire excellence in our built environment, in all of its many forms.
  
Sponsorship of this vital and vibrant program not only supports its very existence, but also provides your organization unique and high-profile visibility throughout the season, at the Orchids & Onions Awards Ceremony and Silent Auction, and continuing through Spring, 2011.