SESAH BEST OF THE SOUTH:  PRESERVING SOUTHERN ARCHITECTURE AWARD 

​​Each year the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH) selects a recipient for the Best of the South: Preserving Southern Architecture Award. Established in 2006, the Best of the South (BOTS) Award honors a project that preserves, rehabilitates, or restores a historic property – including a building, a structure, or a complex of buildings and/or structures – in an outstanding manner, and demonstrates excellence in research, design, and execution. Projects with a public interpretation component are encouraged, but not required. Eligible projects for the BOTS Award must be located in the twelve-state SESAH region – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Criteria for consideration

  • Quality of the project documentation, research, education, and/or design plan
  • Importance of the property type within its particular context (national, regional, state, local)
  • Quality of execution
  • Anticipated benefits to the property itself, its context, and/or preservation knowledge
  • Degree to which the project saved a historic property from likely demolition.

Call for Nominations

SESAH invites nominations, including self-nominations, for the 2023 BOTS Award. Projects completed in 2021, 2022, or 2023 (before nominations deadline) are eligible for consideration.

The deadline for submitting nominations is June 1, 2023

The winner will be announced during the awards ceremony at the 2023 SESAH Conference held September 27–30 in Little Rock, Arkansas .

Nominations should consist of:

  • no more than two pages of project description
  • illustrations and any other material supporting the description, including a project budget and timeline
  • a cover letter that identifies the owner of the property, the historic and current use of the property, and the names and contact information of all the major participants of the project (including email addresses).

The nomination should be sent by email as a single PDF document, or as a link to a single PDF posted on Google Drive or Dropbox to the Chair of the BOTS Award Committee Joss Kiely, bots@sesah.org

 

Past BOTS Awardees