Public Interest Design I n s t i t u t e2011-2012 Series Handbook

W W W . P U B L I C I N T E R E S T D E S I G N . C O M

There is a growing sector in the field of architecture known as Public Interest Design documented in exhibits such as MoMA’s Small Scale, Big Change and publications like Design Like You Give Damn. The projects in this sector are unlike traditional practice in critical ways but are an area of great potential for the future of the profession.

A 2011 survey* of national AIA members, shown on the right, confirms the need for a type of training to provide the skills necessary for professionals to be at the forefront of this new field of architecture.

*2011 Survey conducted in July by Bryan Bell and Dasha Ortenberg with support from the Harvard Loeb Fellowship and supportive funding from The College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, with assistance provide by the AIA and the Harvard Institute for Qualitative Social Science.

30% of registered architects gave as their top two reasons for going into the profession as “Putting Creative Abilities to Practical Use” and “Improving the quality of life in communities,” a broad definition of Public Interest Design.

59% of survey respondents believe that there is a need to better define the architectural profession’s principles of appropriate moral conduct.

77% of survey respondents believe that the following is a valuable mission for Public Interest Design: Every person should live in a socially, economically and environmentally healthy community.

75% of respondents believe that these principles together represent an ethical basis for Public Interest Design.

The following % said they were practicing public interest design in these ways (with more than one answer possible):

40% Practicing voluntarily part time

37% Practicing in their place of employment

25% Practicing paid full time

64% are interested in training in Public Interest Design.

The four top learning objectives were (with more than one answer possible):

63% Maximizing a projects positive impact on a community

52% Understanding financial strategies to practice public interest design

50% Measuring the social, economic and environmental impact on a community

49% Learning a step-by-step process of working with a community on a project

CONTENTSTHE PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN INSTITUTE..........................................2PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN & SEED.....................................................3-4THE TOOL : THE SEED EVALUATOR.....................................................5-6SEED CASE STUDY METHOD..................................................................7SCHEDULE & COST OVERVIEW...............................................................8CASE STUDIES 1&2..............................................................................9-10SPEAKER PROFILES..........................................................................11-17 Lisa Abendroth Professor and Coordinator Communication Design, Metropolitan State College of Denver Bryan Bell Founder & Executive Director Design Corps Brent Brown Founder buildingcommunity WORKSHOP John Cary Author & Consultant Public Interest Design.ORG Lawerence Cheng Associate Principal Bruner/Cott Associates Maurice Cox Professor University of Virginia, School of Architeture John Folan Professor of Architecture Carnegie Mellon University Anne Fougeron Principal Fougeron Architecture Anna Heringer Director Anna Heringer Architecture Michael Murphy Co-founder, Executive Director MASS Design Group Mike Newman Co-director SHED Studio Sergio Palleroni Co-founder & Director BaSIC Initiative David Perkes Founder & Director Gulf Coast Community Design Center John Peterson Founder & President Public Architeture Emily Pilloton Founder & Director Project H Dan Pitera Founder & Director Detroit Collaborative Design Center Rashmi Ramaswamy Co-director SHED Studio Katie Swenson Director of Fellowships Enterprise Community Partners Philip Szostak Principal Philip Szostak Associates Emilie Taylor Design Build Manager Tulane City Center Barbara Brown Wilson Director Center for Sustainable Development at UTSOA Michael Zaretsky Director Roche Health Center Design CommitteeARCHITECT MAGAZINE, MARCH 2011......................................................19 By: Edward Keegan

THE PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN INSTITUTEThe Public Interest Design Institute® provides training to architecture and other design professionals in Public Interest Design with in-depth study over two days on methods of how design can address the critical issues faced by communities. Training in Public Interest Design is a way of enhancing an existing design practice and learning skills to become pro-actively engaged in community-based design.

The Harvard Case Method is used as a framework for the institute allowing participants to learn from examples. These case studies and best practices are presented and discussed by leaders in the field. The curriculum is formed around the Social Economic Environmental Design® (SEED) Evaluator, a set of standards that outlines the process and principles of this growing approach to design. SEED goes beyond green design with a “triple bottom line” approach that includes the social and economic as well as the environmental impacts of a project. The SEED process takes a holistic, creative approach to design driven by community needs. This process provides a step-by-step aid for those who want to undertake public interest design.

Tools : the SEED Network & the SEED EvaluatorThe SEED Network was established in October 2005, when a group of architects, designers, and other diverse experts in the public interest design movement convened for a roundtable at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The group represented over 100 organizations, design advocates, and social activists. Their goal was to evaluate the existing social, economic, and environmental roles of architecture and design, and to strengthen those roles in low-wealth communities that struggle with a myriad of social challenges where they are needed most. The Network established a mission and set of principles as well as created an actionable tool, the SEED Evaluator, which establishes a process for public interest de-sign projects to follow, functioning as a collaborative guide and communication tool to allow communities to define goals. The Evaluator provides for a significant involvement of the community, as public participation is an essential of public interest design. As a tool to measure results, the evaluator provides greater transparency and accountability in design projects.

Learning ObjectivesFinding new clientsLearning about new fee sources and structuresUnderstanding public interest design and how it is re-shaping the design professionsPro-actively finding a public interest design projectUsing a step-by-step process of working with a community as a design partnerLeveraging other partners and assets to address project challengesMaximizing a project’s positive impact on a communityMeasuring social, economic, and environmental impact on communities

Continuing Education Credits & CertificationContinuing Education Credits will be given as required of professionals by the American Institute of Architects as well as a certification in the SEED process. SEED Training certification will be given upon completion of an end-of-course test.

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Bryan Bell

Public Interest Design is the practice of design with the goal that every person should be able to live in a socially, econom-ically and environmentally healthy community. As in the field of public health, those practicing public interest design take a holistic approach, considering a broad range of social impacts. As with public interest law, practitioners seek to provide services to the general public, not just those able to pay a fee for services. The first widespread public usage of the term was in 2011, with the award of the $100,000 Latrobe Prize by the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects to fund research in “Public Interest Design Practices in Architecture.”

Public interest design grew out of the community design movement, which began with the challenge of Whitney Young to the American Institute of Architects in 1968. This challenge resulted in the first Community Design Centers and University Design Centers. These centers provided a variety of design services within their own neighborhoods -- primarily affordable housing. The associated professional organization is the Association for Community Design, founded in 1977. This organi-zation’s annual conference provides a venue for sharing the practice of community-based design.

In architecture schools, “design/build programs” provided outreach to meet local design needs. The first program was initiated by students at Yale University School of Architecture in 1967. Among the most publicized is the Auburn University Rural Studio, founded in 1993. The first project, Bryan House, was completed in 1994, and was built by Auburn University students for $16,500.

The first educational program to use the term “public interest design” was initiated at Mississippi State University in the fall of 2010, followed by a program at the University of Texas in June of 2011. The first professional training was conducted in July of 2011 by the Public Interest Design Institute (founded 2011) and held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

The first decade of the new millennium saw an increasing interest in design with public benefits. Conferences, books and exhibits began to illustrate the design work being done beyond the community design centers -- which had greatly de-creased in numbers since their peak in the seventies.

New organizations were founded that provided design services beyond the older neighborhood-based centers, using both volunteers and creative means to provide design and other related services (BaSiC Initiative founded in 1986; Design Corps founded in 1991; AfH founded in 1999).

The Design Corps Fellows and Rose Fellows programs were initiated in 2000 to train recent architecture graduates with skills needed to serve communities effectively.

In 2000, the annual Structures for Inclusion conference was launched to illustrate projects from around the world that demonstrate design in the public’s interest. The first of these was held at Princeton University and called “Design for the 98% Without Architects” and challenged attendees “to serve a greater segment of the population than the 2% currently being served.”

In a related effort to showcase design in the service of communities, a series of books were published which illustrated the growing range of independent work taking place. Unlike monographs which show the work of a single designer, the books showed a critical mass of work demonstrating a cultural movement that was not based on individuals or isolated projects. Publications have included:

Good Neighbors, Affordable Family Housing; Tom Jones, William Pettus, Michael Pyatok, Authors; Images Publishing Group; (October 1, 1997)Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service through Architecture; Bryan Bell, Editor; Princeton Architectural Press; (November 1, 2003)Studio at Large: Architecture in Service of Global Communities; by Sergio Palleroni and Christina Merkelbach; University of Washington Press; (October 2004)Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises; Kate Stohr and Cameron Sinclair; Me-tropolis Books (January 15, 2006)Expanding Architecture, Design as Activism, Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford, Editors, Metropolis Books (October 1, 2008)Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People; Emily Pilloton, Author; Metropolis Books (October 31, 2009)Power of Pro Bono; John Cary, Editor; Metropolis Books (November 30, 2010)

PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN & SEED

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The first exhibit of public interest design was Design for the Other 90%, held in 2007 in the exterior courtyard of the Coo-per Hewitt National Design Museum. The catalog for this exhibit remains the best-selling catalog for any show of the Coo-per Hewitt Museum. This was followed by an exhibit of public interest design in Denver. Interest reached a critical level with the exhibit Small Scale, Big Change at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010. The curator, Andres Lepik, concludes his catalog essay: “To increase the social relevance of architecture at the beginning of the twenty-first century architects must no longer think of themselves simply as designers of buildings, but rather as moderators of change.” This show benchmarks not just a change in the direction of the museum, but a change in the future role of architecture. The New York Times Architectural Critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff notes that the show signals a philosophical shift in the museum’s architecture and design department, “which for most of the eight decades since its founding by Phillip Johnson, famously championed architecture’s artistic merit over its social value.”

In the first decade of the 21st century, the “Green Design” movement focused public attention on the impact of building on the environment. The LEED Certification program of the US Green Building Council provided a standard guide to achiev-ing. In health care, evidence-based design effectively used data to show the impact of design. Before a common standard, claims of green projects had no measurement tool for the public to determine a project’s performance leading to wide-spread “green washing” or misleading claims.

Neither LEED nor evidence based design considered the relationship between design and social and economic chal-lenges that communities faced. In 2005, the Social Economic Environmental Design Network was founded at a confer-ence organized by the Harvard Loeb Fellowship, entitled Expanding Architecture, Design as Activism. The SEED Network established a professional community specifically with a public interest mission and a common set of principles to guide ethical community engagement. A 2011 poll of American Institute of Architects agreed that this mission (77% agreed) and principles (75% agreed) were appropriate for Public Interest Design:

Public Interest Design Mission: Every person should be able to live in a socially, economically and environmentally healthy community.

Public Interest Design Principles:

• Principle 1: Advocate with those who have a limited voice in public life.• Principle 2: Build structures for inclusion that engage stakeholders and allow communities to make decisions.• Principle 3: Promote social equality through discourse that reflects a range of values and social identities.• Principle 4: Generate ideas that grow from place and build local capacity.• Principle 5: Design to help conserve resources and minimize waste.

The SEED Evaluator was developed as an actionable tool for projects to achieve this mission and principles. It estab-lished a standard process for public interest design projects to follow and tracks the progress towards the community’s goals. It functions as a collaboration guide and communication tool to allow communities to define goals and monitor the results of the project in achieving these. The Evaluator provides for a significant involvement of the community, resulting in greater transparency and accountability, and allows tracking a project through its entirety.

Completion of the SEED Evaluator can lead to SEED Certification, which evaluates, through a third-party review, the success of a design project in achieving the goals set by the community. SEED Certification has established the standard used by community organizers, leaders, designers, and funders to measure the public interest aspects of design projects.

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The SEED EvaluatorThe SEED Evaluator is a communication tool that allows communities to define goals for design projects and then mea-sure the success in achieving these through a third-party review. Using the SEED Evaluator allows communities to de-velop their leadership and decision-making from within while using a proven method and recognized standard of success, leading to SEED Certification.

The SEED Evaluator can assist individuals, groups, designers, communities, project planners and participants achieve like-minded goals that are focused on the triple-bottom line of social justice, economic development and environmental conservation. SEED responds to the questions many designers face today:

• How does this project create positive change in the face of social, economic and environmental challenges?• How does the design product answer the short and long term needs of a community that validates ethical and sustain-able approaches to design through a triple-bottom line approach?• How can the design team directly engage the client and other vested parties in the total project process so that the out-come is informed from the ground up?

The SEED Evaluator provides guidelines for a design process that directs participatory research practices and tools to document the goals, process and results of a project.

How does it work?A guided approach broken down into understandable and manageable steps, the SEED Evaluator creates a platform for collaboration and consensus building. Completion of specific phases of the SEED Evaluator can lead to SEED Certifica-tion, which can add validity and needed “proof” of a project’s successes, from design concept through to implementation. Progress and challenges can be documented with evidence through each project phase. As a tool developed for archi-tects, industrial designers, landscape architects, communication designers and urban designers, the SEED Evaluator provides guidance through a strategic matrix of questions that critique the social, environmental and economic viability of each phase of development. Because SEED believes in a bottom-up approach to problem solving that truly activates community concerns, this process entails, and in effect requires, an inclusive and participatory process.

What is SEED Certification?A project is awarded SEED Certification when it has demonstrated that a community has effectively used design to over-come social, economic and environmental issues. The project process must have been transparent and included broad stakeholders from the community in decision-making. Being certified means that a project did what it was meant to do in achieving community goals, and can effectively answer four key questions:

1. What are the critical issues (social, economic, environmental) being addressed with the project?2. What will be the design results, and how will they address these issues?3. How will these results be measured?4. How has the community participated in the project?

SEED Certification results from successful completion of the SEED Evaluator tool Part 1a (Project Basics) Part 1b, (So-cial, Economic and Environmental Goals, Challenges and Data collection), Part 2a (Process Towards Goals) and Part 2b (Results). Project documentation and narrative texts submitted to SEED within the context of the Evaluator are reviewed by third-party certifiers, who are trained specialists in the specific design discipline and who understand the challenges of designing in the public’s interest.

What does certification mean?Communities that achieve the recognition of SEED Certification leverage their accomplishment not only for their own goals but also for that of moving forward a process of inclusion and informed decision-making in design. Obtaining SEED Certification is the standard that community organizers, leaders, designers and funders alike can use to document their significant and valued achievements: It means that a project is recognized as having achieved levels of success within the qualitative and quantitative measures set forth within the SEED Evaluation process. Being certified requires that minimum thresholds of the SEED Mission and Principles be met by the specific goals set within the project and that the project has met benchmarks.

STEP-BY-STEP METHOD: THE SEED EVALUATOR

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STEP-BY-STEP METHOD: THE SEED EVALUATOR

There are many design projects that claim to benefit a community, but a SEED certified project is distinct because it has:1. Significant and documented community participation in project decisions and 2. Measured results of the design product.

How do I apply for certification?To apply for project certification, start the process by downloading the SEED Evaluator, the tool used to guide the certifica-tion process. The Evaluator is available to work with in hard copy format or to use as a live document online at www.seed-network.org once a user account has been set up. This can be found in the header menu under JOIN. Your Username will be the e-mail you entered when you created the account, and the password is of your choosing. After creating and logging into a user account, new projects can be created using the Project Manager. SEED mentors new project submissions and those pursuing SEED Certification through a guided review process. The SEED Evaluator is staged in two parts. Comple-tion of Part One signals the opportunity for submission and early review, and costs $300. This first submission evaluates how the project meets the minimum threshold provided in the SEED Mission and Principles and as answered in Part One of the Evaluator. Once submitted, this completed setion of the Evaluator provides an opportunity to receive feedback about the nature of the project and its prospects in moving towards certification in Part Two while meeting the guidelines set forth in SEED. Part Two costs $200.

SEED Evaluator: Part One:Meeting the threshold: SEED mission and principles Submitting Part One of the SEED Evaluator allows applicants to gain feedback at an early stage as to thepotential for SEED Certification. Project reviewers provide feedback at this stage before a full submission process ensues. A featured aspect of the review entails an assessment of how the project (to date) meets the minimum threshold address-ing the SEED mission and principles. If the SEED mission and principles are not fulfilled or are violated, a project will not advance to the next steps in certification. Applicants will be advised how the project has failed to meet these principles and the project may be subsequently revised and re-submitted.

Part 1a: Project Basics asks basic descriptive questions of the project including applicant, partners, stakeholders, and co mmunity information. Project scope must be described and timelines or phases of development stated.

Part 1b: Social, Economic and Environmental Goals, Challenges and Data collection focuses on the proj-ect’ssocial, economic, and environmental goals, challenges, and data collection methodology. This section requires a compre-hensive knowledge of the project from social, economic and environmental perspectives, and is intended to provide an overview of the project in relationship to the community it affects. Questions address concerns about community participa-tion as well as project goals, issues and challenges, how success will be (or has been) measured, and how the communi-ty will be (or has been) engaged and how input will be (or has been) gathered. Responses to these questions help reveal the depth and breadth of the project, its issues, and will document the inclusion of the community’s voice in shaping and accomplishing common goals. Part One is ideally completed before the project has been finished, therefore measured results of community engagement and completed goals are expected to be minimal, if available at all.

SEED Evaluator: Part Two : Achieving full certificationPart 2a: Process Towards Goals, demonstrates how project goals are being met and how are these goals are measured in terms of successes or failures. These responses should provide validation of how effectively the project has been administered within the community and how inclusive the process has been. Design benchmarks and performance mea-sures are documented in this phase.

Part 2b: Results, is intended to provide an overview of how well the project implementation goals and objectives were met. Project implementation by nature is descriptive of application and execution of final designs. This section is broken down into two phases to detail the conception phase and the results from when the design product is implemented and used. Reflections upon the amount of time since implementation and use/occupancy are requested.

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The SEED Case Method uses a recognized teaching method to bring the lessons from the field into the classroom with rigor. The SEED Case Method is derived from the Harvard Kennedy School and Business School methodology which recognize the realities of decision making which must take multiple factors into account, including the ethical and practical.

The SEED case method emphasizes class participation as a means of learning. Rather then the lecturer having all the answers, the presentations should recognize that all have valuable expertise to contribute to the learning process.

The lecturers should not just give answers but pose questions and dilemmas at critical points of a case, so that the attend-ees experience the decision making themselves.

Tell me, I forget. Show me, I might remember. Involve me and I will understand. Confucius, 450 BCE

Participation turns attendees from passive to active, forcing them to think about what they would do. There are few black and white answers in reality, and most dilemmas can be solved in multiple CREATIVE ways. The attendees use their own creativity address real-life situations.

This decision making process replicates the team approach best used in public interest design. Known as “asset-based,” it recognizes that ideas are contributing assets, and that an open discussion allows possibilities to be vetted and ap-proved. Unlike the top-down approach to design, the asset based method makes better listeners.

Each case study presentation will be sixty minutes including time allowed for active participation, followed by thirty min-utes for further discussion.

Advice for case study presenters:

In approaching a case, the presenter should challenge the participants to restate the following:

What is the gist, the main challenge? Who are the stakeholders, partners? What are the social economic and environmental issues? How did the community participate? How did the community define the priority issues, goals, solution, design? What was the solution? How did it work? How will it be measured?

At times, ask one student to answer another student’s question or point. Provoke debate.

Advice to participants on effective case study learning:

Treat discussion as a debate: what has been said and what can you add?Your comments or questions should address what has been said recently.Best example is respectful debate between students. Provide a brief insight that supports, refutes or adds perspective to the pointDelivery – lead with insight then supportDiversify types of commentsRespond to other studentsRaise your hand only when others have finished talkingBe selective about raising your handHarvard motto: “If you get comfortable not speaking then speak. If you get comfortable speaking then don’t speak.”

SEED CASE METHOD

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Institute Schedule:Day 1:9:00 am to 10:00 am: Introduction to Public Interest Design, Bryan Bell10:00 am to 10:30 am: Introduction to SEED Evaluation Method10:30 am to 11:00: Break11:00 to 11:30: Survey of the profession11:30 am to 12:00: 2011 Latrobe Prize Research12:00 to 1:00 pm: Lunch1:30 pm to 3:00 pm: CASE STUDY 13:30 pm to 5:00 pm: CASE STUDY 2

Day 2:9:00 am to 10:00: The SEED Evaluator, Bryan Bell10:00 am to 10:30 am: Break10:30 to 12:00: CASE STUDY 31:00 pm to 2:30 pm: CASE STUDY 42:30 to 3:00: Break3:00 to 4:30: CASE STUDY 54:30 to 5:00: Evaluations and SEED training test

Cost:$350 Early Bird (4 weeks prior to institute) per participant$450 Regular price per participant

Partnership between Host University & Design Corps:Maximum attendance to the institute is 80 to allow quality participation in the case study method. 30 registrants is the minimum amount required for the event 4 weeks prior to the scheduled date in order for the institute to take place. Only registered participants may attend. An optional eveing public lecture for by one of the presenters is possible.

PID staff will work with the university to secure AIA continuing education credits and provide some marketing material. The host must provide the facility/space for the institute and also personnel to assist in setting up the presentation equipment.

SCHEDULE & COST OVERVIEW

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Demographics: 43.6% White; 39.9% Black; 12.3% Latino; 4.6 % Asian With 12.1% of families living below the poverty level

Results: Project Profile: Downtown 2,800 seat performing arts centerStakeholders: Durham City Government, Durham Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Durham Inc., Hayti community of DurhamClient: City of DurhamProject Architects: Szostak DesignDeveloper: Szostak Design & Garfield TraubFunding Support: City of Durham

Measuring Results:Social: 320,000 guests attended 175 Arts events in 2009 19 unskilled workers given on-the-job training during construction 8 “at-risk” youth employed for construction of project 44% of construction workers were Durham residentsEconomic: 83 construction jobs sustained generating $3.3 million in wages 15 full-time jobs to be supported by DPAC generating $612,000 in new wages $24 million brought in for 2009 season $2.1 million earned for city of Durham over the course of the first 20 months 15,000 rooms expected for Durham lodging market from over-night travelers Environmental: Sited on remediated Brownfield Capable of achieving LEED Gold certification Exceeds ASHRAE energy standards by 30%

Community Participation: Monthly Thursday community meetings were publicly advertised through the Durham City Calendar from 2003-2005. The idea to employ a certain percentage of minority workers was established by the community and affidavits were used to hold the contractors, sub-contractors and designer accountable for their agreements with the community. The community also chose the site for the project: a Brownfield site they sought to transform into a sustainable site and building, requiring that the designer strive to meet a LEED Gold standard of energy efficiency.

Durham Performing Arts CenterSzostak DesignDurham, NC

CASE STUDY 1

Photograph provided by Szostak Design

Issues:

Economic Development

Employment

Environment

Downtown Revitalization

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Congo Street InitiativebcWORKSHOPDallas, TX2011 SEED Award Winner

Demographics: 40% African American; 45% Hispanic; 15% WhiteMedian household income is $20,800 with 26% of families living below poverty level.

Results:Project Profile: 5 redesigned and rebuilt residences; 1 holding houseClient: Congo Street Residents (Jubilee Neighborhood)Project Architects: bcWorkshop (non-profit community design center)Funding Support: The City of Dallas Housing Department, The Meadows Foundation, The Real Estate Council, Citi and individual donors.Construction Aid: Americorps volunteers, University of Arlington (65+ architecture students), Congo Street residents and 20 outside residents; 3 local at-risk youth

Measuring Results:Social: 5 residents maintained home-ownership and residency on Congo Street Increased awareness of street by city and community Increased sense of empowerment by residents; surveys underwayEconomic: Increased property value balanced by decreased utility/maintenance Lowered utility cost information from solar arrays and insulation methods Maintained home ownershipEnvironmental:Reduced utility bills/cost of living Reduced injury, illness, or other home-related health issues of residents Gold & Platinum LEED certification of each rebuilt house *Results are currently being measured by applicant.

Community Participation: Community input was gained from front-porch meetings a year before project implementation. All of the project goals were approved or modified at community gatherings or client meetings and the design was directed by residents with on-site evaluations. *Post-occupancy results are currently being measured by applicant.

CASE STUDY 2

Photograph provided by bcWORKSHOP

Issues:

Community Stability:No Displacement

Home-ownership

Neighborhood Safety

Cultural Preservation

Environment

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Lisa Abendroth, SEED Co-founder

Lisa Abendroth is a Professor and Coordinator of the Communication Design program at the Metropolitan State College of Denver. She earned a BFA in Communication Design from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1991 and an MFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995. Seeking a balance between design research and classroom pedagogy, Lisa works across disciplines in order to embrace what can be broadly referred to as community-based design focused on issues of social equity towards marginalized audiences. This area of study manifested in a multi-year research endeavor culminating in the Fall 2007 international design exhibition entitled, “Substance: Diverse Practices from the Periphery,” which Lisa curated, organized and designed. Extending the spirit of the “Substance” exhibition, Lisa’s research continues to focus on design that addresses under-served people, places and problems. She is a collaborator on the interdisciplinary public interest project, SEED: Social, Economic, Environmental Design®. Her Fall 2009 research sabbatical was devoted to developing SEED tools including the SEED Evaluator and SEED website.

Bryan Bell, SEED Co-founder

Bryan Bell founded Design Corps in 1991 with the mission is “to provide the benefits of architecture to those traditionally un-served by the profession.”In 1985, Bell worked as Project Director with Samuel Mockbee on three houses for rural families in Mississippi. The project received a Progressive Architecture Award in 1986. He has also worked at Steven Holl’s and Richard Rogers’s offices. He holds degrees from Princeton and Yale and was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard in 2010-2011.In 2000 Bell started the Structures for Inclusion conference that has yearly been a forum for students and recent graduates to learn about grass roots efforts making ar-chitecture more accessible. Selected presentations from these have been presented in two publications: Good Deeds, Good Design, was published by Princeton Archi-tectural Press published in 2003 and Expanding Design: Architecture as Activism, published by Metropolis Press in October 2008.The work of Design Corps was featured in Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum Exhibit “National Design Triennial: Design Culture Now” (2003) and was included in the US Pavilion of the 2008 Venice Biennale. Bell’s current work includes “Public Interest Design” which was funded through the 2011 Latrobe Prize awarded by the American Institute of Architects. The work includes a triple bottom line evaluation called the Social/Economic/Environmental Design (SEED) Scorecard.

Brent Brown, AIA, LEED AP, SEED Award Winner

Brent Brown, AIA, LEED AP, is an architect and founder of buildingcommunity WORKSHOP in Dallas, TX, where his work has been recognized locally and nation-ally. Recently, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in conjunc-tion with the American Institute for Architects awarded his Congo Street Green Initia-tive the 2010 National AIA/HUD Secretary Award for “Community-Informed Design.”He was named the Director of the newly established Dallas City Design Studio in October 2009. The Studio is an office of the City of Dallas in partnership with the Trinity Trust Foundation and works daily to connect all of Dallas through thoughtful urban design. This past November, Brent represented the southwest region as part of the Presi-dent’s Forum on Clean Energy and Public Health at the White House. Joining Admin-istrator Lisa Jackson of the Environmental Protection Agency and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department Health & Human Services the forum discussed linkages between clean energy to immediate and lasting public health benefits and the role of community design toward the promotion of healthier lifestyles.He earned his Bachelor of Environmental Design and Master of Architecture from Texas A & M University where he taught design.

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John Cary, SEED Co-founder

John Cary is an advocate, speaker, and writer, who has pioneered a career at the intersection of design and social change. He is the author of The Power of Pro Bono: 40 Stories about Design for the Public Good by Architects and Their Clients. John consults with a wide range of nonprofit design, urban advocacy, and philanthropic organizations, building on seven years of experience as executive director of Public Architecture and recent leadership of Next American City. Cary is a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council, a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a resident of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, and was the 2011 commencement speaker for the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. Cary blogs daily at www.publicinterestdesign.org and can be followed on Twitter @johncary.

Lawrence Cheng, AIA, LEED, Architect of SEED Project

Lawrence Cheng joined Bruner/Cott in 1999 after managing his own firm for several years. His expertise is the design of multi-family housing and mixed use facilities. His contributions include project design, detailing, and supervision of project team activi-ties. Mr. Cheng’s work includes the Chinatown Community Education Center in Bos-ton and multi-family housing developments such as The Penmark Condominiums at Harrison Commons and the Channel Center luxury residential housing. He is a former Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and holds Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT.

Maurice Cox, SEED Co-founder

Maurice Cox is an urban designer, architectural educator at the University of Virginia, School of Architecture and former mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia. He most recently served as Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts where he pre-sided over the largest expansion of direct grants to the design fields.Cox served as a Charlottesville City Councilor for six years before becoming the mayor of that city, from 2002-2004. His experience merging architecture, politics and design education led to his being named one of “20 Masters of Design” in 2004 by Fast Company Business Magazine. He is also a founding partner of RBGC Architec-ture, Research and Urbanism (1996-2006). Their design for a New Rural Village in Bayview, Virginia received numerous national design awards as well as being fea-tured on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and in the documentary film “This Black Soil”. A recipient of the 2009 Edmund Bacon Prize, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design 2004-05 Loeb Fellowship and the 2006 John Hejduk Award for Architecture, Cox received his architectural education from the Cooper Union School of Architecture.

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John Folan, SEED Award Winner

John Folan is the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture, Founder and Direc-tor of the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS), track Chair of the Masters of Urban Design (MUD) Program, and member of the Remaking Cities Institute (RCI) at Carn-egie Mellon University. Since joining the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in the fall of 2009, John and the UDBS have been working with challenged urban communi-ties in Allegheny County on the development and implementation of catalytic projects through participatory design processes. The work has been recognized with the 2010 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award and the 2011 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Educa-tion Award. The work in Pittsburgh represents an extension of efforts in university affiliated community based design and construction, initiated while John was tenured faculty member at the University of Arizona. In Tucson, Arizona John co-founded, co-directed, and served as an executive board member of the Drachman Design Build Coalition (DDBC); a university affiliated, non-profit, 501(c)3 corporation dedicated to the design and construction of environ-mentally specific, energy efficient, affordable housing prototypes. Projects with the DDBC implemented in Tucson’s Urban Empowerment Zone have been recognized with three consecutive AIA Arizona Honor Awards for Residence of The Year and the 2011 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award. Urban strategies employed in the imple-mentation of the DDBC work influenced the collaborative development of the Drach-man Institute’s legislative proposal for regionally specific sustainability guidelines. The work was recognized with first place award in the 2008 National Urban Policy Initia-tive Competition (NUPIC).

Anne Fougeron

Anne Fougeron has provided architectural services in the Bay Area for over 25 years and has been principal of Fougeron Architecture since 1986. Projects range from fea-sibility studies to building rehabilitation to new construction projects in the institution-al, commercial, health- care and residential sectors. Fougeron is personally involved in all aspects of a project, from inception to completion, serving as the main client point-of-contact. Fougeron Architecture has frequently been recipients of local and national awards and have been featured in national and international publications. Anne is on the Board of Directors for the Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland and is the Organizing Committee Advisory Board Chair for the AIA Monterey Design Confer-ence.She has taught architectural design to both undergraduate and graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley and at the California College of Arts.

Anna Heringer, 2007 Aga Khan Award Winner

Anna Heringer is an architectural designer from Salzburg, Austria. In 2005-2006 Anna’s diploma thesis, a school built from mud and bamboo, came to fruition in Rudrapur, Bangladesh. In 2007-2008 she coordinated students from Bangladesh and Austria to build a vocational school and a pilot project on rural housing in Rudrapur. Anna led the studio BASEhabitat– architecture for development at the University of Arts in Linz, Austria from 2008-2011. She has lectured worldwide and conducted international workshops in Bangladesh and Austria. Since 2010 she has been the honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair Earthen Architecture Programme. Her work was shown at MoMA in New York, la Loge in Brussels, Cité d`architecture and du pat-rimoine in Paris, the MAM in Sao Paulo, the Aedes Galery in Berlin and at the Venice Biennale in 2010. She recieved a number of awards such as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2007), the AR Emerging Architecture Awards (2006 and 2008), the Archprix – Hunter Douglas Award (2006) and most recently the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2011.

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Michael Murphy, SEED Award Winner

Michael Murphy is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of MASS Design Group, which is an design firm geared towards improving health outcomes in resource-lim-ited settings. In addition to leading the design and construction of the Butaro District Hospital in Rwanda, which opened in January of 2011, Michael’s firm MASS has been the recipient of the 2010 Design Futures Council Emerging Leaders Scholar-ship, chosen as one of Fast Company Magazine’s “Master of Design” and awarded as a Metropolis Magazine 2011 “Game Changer”. MASS was recently selected as a finalist for MoMA PS1’s 2011 Young Architects Program and was honored alongside IDEO’s CEO Tim Brown for its contribution to the field of design.MASS Design Group currently has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, Kigali, Rwanda, and Port au Prince Haiti. In July MASS opened the Girubuntu Primary School in Kigali, and this fall it is breaking ground on several projects in Haiti, including the new GHESKIO Tuberculosis Facility constructed out of locally fabricated materials.

Michael Newman, SEED Award Winner

Mike has been the Senior Associate at CAPA, a well-known architectural firm, for 12 years. Projects have included affordable housing, community planning designs, commercial and institutional projects, and market rate developments. His work has focused on design innovation for issues of sustainability and affordability in housing and social justice projects. Other concentrations have been on constructability and professional practice topics.Mike is co-director of SHED Studio, a Chicago-based studio committeed to sustain-ability, social justice issues and innovation in design working extensively with not-for-profit clients. SHED Studio’s expertise is in using a participatory community-based process to work with a diverse group of clients, and develop solutions that not only meet needs but respond in a multi-dimensional way to the mission of the client and the community.Mike has been an Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chi-cago for the past 6 years, teaching design studios, building science and preparatory classes for architectural licensure. Previously, Mike taught at Archeworks, an innova-tive design school that develops solutions for projects focusing on social issues.

Sergio Palleroni, SEED Co-founder

Sergio Palleroni is a Senior Fellow of the new Center for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University, and a founding member and faculty of the federally funded Green Building Research Lab. Professor Palleroni’s research and fieldwork for the last two decades has been in the methods of integrating sustainable practices to improve the lives of communities worldwide typically underserved. In 1988, to serve the needs of these communities he founded an academic outreach program that would later become the BASIC Initiative (www.basicinitiative.org), a service-learning fieldwork program. Today, the BASIC Initiative continues to serve the poor in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the U.S. In addition, Professor Palleroni has worked and been a consultant on sustainable architecture and development in the developing world since the 1980s, both for not-for-profit agencies and governmental and international agencies such as UNESCO, World Bank, and the governments of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua and Taiwan. Palleroni holds a Master of Science in Architectural Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon.

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Emily Pilloton, SEED Award Winner

Emily Pilloton founded the nonprofit design firm Project H to use creative capital to improve communities and public education from the inside out in January 2008. Project H’s local initiatives range from small local interventions (water collection and reuse, architectural schemes for foster care facilities, craft-based homeless enter-prises) to deep engagements in the public education system.Emily was named one of Fast Company’s Masters of Design, has spoken on the TED stage and appeared on The Colbert Report . She is the author of Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, which was publicized by means of an unconven-tional book tour in which Pilloton visited 35 towns in 75 days to promote design for good, while traveling a 1972 Airstream filled with 40 of the 100 products.Emily holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of California Berkeley, and a Master of Product Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

David Perkes, SEED Co-founder

David Perkes is an architect and Associate Professor for Mississippi State University. He is the founding director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, a profes-sional outreach program of the College of Architecture, Art + Design. The design studio was established soon after Hurricane Katrina and is providing planning and architectural design support to many Mississippi Gulf Coast communities and non-profit organizations. The design studio works in close partnership with the East Biloxi Coordination and Relief Center and has assisted in the renovation of hundreds of damaged homes and over fifty new house projects in East Biloxi. The Biloxi house projects were awarded an Honor Citation from the Gulf States Region AIA in 2007. David has a Master of Environmental Design degree from Yale School of Architec-ture, a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Utah, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University. In 2004 David was awarded a Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

John Peterson, SEED Co-founder

John Peterson, AIA, Founder & President, Public Architecture, San Francisco, CA. Peterson created Public Architecture in 2002 and joined its staff fulltime in October 2008. John serves as the chief spokesperson and strategist for Public Architecture as well as design director and a member of the board of directors. John maintains a small private architectural practice, Peterson Architects.John is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nice Modernist award from Dwell magazine and the Jefferson Award for Public Service. In 2009, John was rec-ognized alongside Executive Director John Cary with the 2009 Designer of the Year Award from Contract Magazine. John earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. During the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

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Dan Pitera, SEED Co-founder

Dan Pitera is the Executive Director of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture. With the view that “design” is an essential force in establishing human relations, the Design Center is dedicated to fostering university and community partnerships that create inspired and sustain-able neighborhoods and spaces for all people. The Design Center provides not only design services but also empowers residents to facilitate their own process of urban regeneration. Dan was a 2004-2005 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. He was a finalist for both the 2008-2009 Rafael Vinoly Architects Grants in Architecture and the 2006-2007 James Stirling Memorial Lectures on the City. Under his direction since 2000, the De-sign Center was included in the US Pavilion of the 2008 Venice Biennale in Architec-ture and recently was awarded the 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Design Excel-lence for the St.Joseph Rebuild Center in New Orleans. The Design Center was the recipient of the NCARB Prize in 2002 and 2009 and was included in the international exhibit/conference ArchiLab in 2001 and 2004 in Orleans, France. The Design Center has also been the awarded the 2002 Dedalo Minosse International Prize. In 1998, Dan was the Hyde Chair of Excellence at the University of Nebraska. He has lectured and taught extensively throughout the North America, South America, and Europe.

Rashmi Ramaswamy, SEED Award Winner

Rashmi has been a project manager and Senior Associate for McBride Kelley Baurer, a Chicago architectural firm, since 2005. She has been involved in several projects in Chicago for not-for-profit clients including a campus for at-risk teen youth, a transi-tional shelter for women, HUD 202 senior housing and a daycare facility. Rashmi has led MKB’s sustainable effort, and is a LEED Accredited Professional. Rashmi is co-director of SHED Studio, a Chicago-based studio committeed to sustainability, social justice issues and innovation in design working extensively with not-for-profit clients. SHED Studio’s expertise is in using a participatory community-based process to work with a diverse group of clients, and develop solutions that not only meet needs but respond in a multi-dimensional way to the mission of the client and the community.Rashmi serves on the boards of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and archi-treasures, and is a member of USGBC, Chicago Chapter Programs Committee.

Katie Swenson, SEED Co-founder

Katie has directed Enterprise’s Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship since 2006 which brings first-rate design and green building assistance to community develop-ment organizations around the country.Prior to joining Enterprise, Katie was founder and executive director of the Charlottes-ville Community Design Center (CCDC) in Virginia. In 2009, Katie published “Growing Urban Habitats: Seeking a New Housing Development Model,” co-authored with Wil-liam Morrish and Susanne Schindler. Other works include “Louisiana Speaks Pattern Book: Green Building Guidelines;” “Growing Urban Habitats,” an essay in “Expand-ing Architecture: Design as Activism;” and two chapters in the forthcoming “Activist Architecture: Philosophy and Practice of the Community Design Center.” Her work has been cited in trade and popular publications, including Metropolis, Metropolitan Home, Architecture, L’Architecture Au’Jourdhui and Family Circle.Katie’s awards include the EPA Energy Star Award, the Eldon Field Woods Design Professional of the Year Award, the Commonwealth Environmental Leadership Award and the Sara McArthur Nix Fellowship for Travel and Research in France.She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s in architecture from the University of Virginia.

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Philip Szostak, Architect of SEED Project

Philip Szostak has over 30 years of experience in a broad variety of architectural de-sign projects. A graduate of NC State University’s School of Design, he first opened Philip Szostak Associates (PSA) in 1980 where he demonstrated exceptional abilities in designing projects ranging in scale from small renovations to complex, multi-million dollar facilities. Philip was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2009 and was the 2010 co-recipient of AIA North Carolina’s Kamphoefner Award for outstanding contributions to modernism. Philip is responsible for the design and documentation of all projects in the firm. His recent projects include the Durham Performing Arts Center; the Walltown Recreation Center in Durham, North Carolina; the Theater An-nex in Durham, North Carolina, the Columbia Street Annex Residential Development in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and the New American Home residential development in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Barbara Brown Wilson, Ph.D., SEED Co-founder

Wilson has a Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning and a Masters in Architec-tural History from UT, and her research interests include history of social movements, sustainable community development and green affordable housing. Her current research includes an action-oriented research project extending the work of the Alley Flat Initiative to develop integrated codes for green, affordable infill development in Austin. She is co-founder of the Austin Community Design and Development Center (ACD-DC), a nonprofit design center that provides high quality green design and planning services to lower income households and the organizations that serve them.

Emilie Taylor, Architect of SEED Project

As Design Build Manager at the Tulane City Center Emilie Taylor works to coordinate the people, designs, and materials of the TCC’s built projects. Taylor’s recent com-munity design build studio projects include the Storypod, and Project Ish at Hagar’s House. The current design build project, a 4 acre youth farm known as Grow Dat, is the City Center’s most ambitious project yet. Emilie’s education includes a technical building background at the University of Southern Mississippi followed by a Masters Degree in Architecture at Tulane. She is actively involved in university design|build and advocates for the engagement of such programs with the local community. Emi-lie’s creative practice includes a documentary film on self taught builders and explor-ing the intersection between formal and informal architectural practice.

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Michael Zaretsky, SEED Award Winner

Michael Zaretsky is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture and Interior Design (SAID) in the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) at the University of Cincinnati. He is a licensed Architect, a LEED Accredited Professional and a consultant on sustainable and humanitarian design. His research is focused around culturally, economically, technologically and environmentally responsive de-sign for communities in need. His published work includes the book Precedents in Zero-Energy Design: Architec-ture and Passive Design in the 2007 Solar Decathlon (Routledge Press, 2009) and he is co-editor (with Dr. Adrian Parr) of New Directions in Sustainable Design (Rout-ledge Press, 2010). In addition, he has had several articles published in architectural journals and presented at conferences around the world on Sustainability, Humani-tarian Design and Appropriate Technologies.Michael works with the non-profit organization Village Life Outreach Project where he is the director of the Roche Health Center Design Committee, a group that has been developing a zero-energy health center in rural Tanzania. Following extensive research with the local community and within the University of Cincinnati, the Roche Health Center will be the first-ever permanent health care facility in this region and will provide health care to approximately 20,000 villagers. The building design and construction provides a reproducible, low-cost, durable structure made of all local materials and techniques.

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