Executing a Healthier Project

Martha Lewis is a senior architect and Head of Materials at Henning Larsen Architects, where she established an office-wide material database with the firm’s sustainability department and implemented material strategies for projects with a focus on healthy, ethically viable, and environmentally tenable materials. With two decades of professional experience in Copenhagen and Berlin, Martha is currently involved in establishing a Danish/Nordic material declaration, and was a member of the Buildings as Material Banks shareholders network, which has worked to establish an EU material passport. In 2016, she participated in the advisory group for the Danish Environmental protection Agency’s“Undesirable Substances in Sustainable Buildings”, and she has been involved in the Danish Green Building Council’s adoption of the German building certification system since 2011. Martha holds a MArch from Washington University and a BA from Vassar College.

henninglarsen.com

David Lewis is a founding principal of LTL Architects, a design-intensive architecture firm realizing inventive solutions that turn the very constraints of each project into the design trajectory, exploring opportunistic overlaps between space, program, form, budget, and materials. The principals are co-authors of the monographs Intensities, Opportunistic Architecture, and Situation Normal....Pamphlet Architecture #21, as well as the only book on the architectural section, Manual of Section. LTL Architects’ work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. David Lewis holds academic positions as Associate Professor at Parsons School of Design and Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and is a member of the Advisory Council of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University. He received his Master of Architecture from Princeton University, a Master of Arts in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College.

A GreenBiz 30 under 30 sustainable business leader, James Connelly provides strategic leadership for the ILFI’s corporate and manufacturing initiatives, including the Living Product Hub, Living Product Challenge, Just, Declare, and the Handprint Label. James leads the Institute’s strategic consulting for corporations and conducts technical consulting for high profile Living Building Challenge projects both in the US and internationally.

Prior to joining the Institute in 2012, James received a Fulbright fellowship to conduct research on green building rating systems in China. James is a frequent national and international speaker on regenerative design, sustainable business, ecological manufacturing, and affordable housing. He is an avid writer, and his research and commentaries have been featured in news outlets such as China Dialogue, Trim Tab, BuildingGreen, GreenBiz, and Engineering News Record.

Amanda Sturgeon, FAIA is the CEO of the International Living Future Institute, an organization that focuses on realizing a world that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative. She is the author of Creating Biophilic Buildings, the founder and driving force behind ILFI’s Biophilic Design Initiative, and a sought-after expert on biophilic design around the world. In her 15-year career as an award-winning architect, Amanda sought to harmonize the relationship between people and nature. In 2013 she was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in recognition of her extensive advocacy and volunteer service to the green building movement, of which she has been a visionary leader. In 2015 she was named one of the top ten most powerful women in sustainability and received the Women in Sustainability Leadership Award.

Judy Levin is the Pollution Prevention Director at the Center for Environmental Health, where she partners with and provides technical assistance to large purchasers including government, higher education, health care organizations, and corporations on how to identify and prioritize environmentally preferable products. She received the 2015 International Interior Design Association Leadership Award of Excellence for her work reducing the use of harmful flame retardant chemicals. Judy has worked in the non-profit arena for 25 years, and before joining the Center for Environmental Health, she co-founded Family Support Services of the Bay Area. Judy received her Bachelors in Social Work from the University of California at Berkeley and her Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Michigan.

Melissa Balestri is a Specifier and Associate at ZGF Architects in Seattle. She is the Vice President and Education Chair of the Puget Sound Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute, and is on the 2018-2019 ballot as President-Elect. She is also one of three co-founders of the Healthy Materials Collaborative, and was a member of AIA Seattle’s Materials Matter Advisory Committee. Melissa is a Licensed Architect, Certified Construction Specifier and Construction Documents Technologist, and holds two Bachelor’s degrees and a Master of Architecture. She has presented to the Opal Group SpArc Conference, AIA Seattle’s Materials Matter series, Women in Design Leadership (WilDLife), the Cascadia East Side Collaborative, the Cascadia Seattle Collaborative, the Healthy Materials Collaborative, and the Puget Sound Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute.

Breeze Glazer is a Principal and cofounder of LEAP/STEP, an interdisciplinary high-performance design consultancy providing services to design firms and facility owners to improve the performance of buildings. Prior to founding LEAP/STEP, he held various sustainability leadership positions for 10 years at Perkins+Will. Breeze researches material health and toxicity, alternative energy systems, and climate change mitigation, often in collaboration with academic institutions and non-profit organizations. He currently teaches graduate level classes in applied design research and sustainability.

Monica Nañez has a Master of Environmental Science degree with a focus on outreach and education, a BA in Social Work, and 15 years of experience working with local nonprofits, neighborhoods, and schools on community improvement programs and projects. Monica’s work at First Community Housing involves working with property managers, residents, and the FCH asset management team on promoting and establishing programs and practices that promote sustainability across the FCH portfolio.

Emily is the Sustainability Manager for GCI, a San Francisco-based commercial contracting and construction management firm specializing in commercial interior, corporate facility, and building renovation projects throughout the Bay Area and Northern California. Before starting at GCI, Emily founded the Sustainability Program for the Cesar Chavez Student Center at San Francisco State University and interned with Eric Corey Freed at organicARCHITECT, where she helped perform a waste audit at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, spearheading the creation of their first internal sustainability team. She has a BA in Environmental Studies: Sustainability and Social Justice, and a BS in Interior Design.

With over a decade of experience in urban construction management, Geoff has done extensive research on jobsite reduction initiatives for energy, water, and waste, overseeing the monthly tracking of these metrics across the region. Geoff has undergraduate degrees in Civil Engineering and Architecture from Lehigh University with a minor in Urban Studies, an M.S. in Urban Environmental Systems Management from the Pratt Institute, and a professional certificate in Real Estate Development from NYU. He also serves as a board member for Smiling Hogshead Ranch, a non-profit urban farm in the Long Island City section of Queens, NY.

In his role as the Toxics Use Reduction Institute's Laboratory Director, Jason Marshall directs the lab’s services, helping companies, communities, and citizens evaluate the performance of cleaning chemistries and equipment. Recent projects include the promotion of safer ingredients in cleaning products, which resulted in Champion Level recognition from EPA’s Safer Detergent Stewardship Initiative, the establishment of a program to evaluate Do-It-Yourself cleaning recipes, evaluation of biobased products for several janitorial applications in a hospital setting, and an effort to promote the adoption of alternatives to trichloroethylene for businesses in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Dr. Marshall has a Bachelor's of Science in Chemical Engineering, a Master's of Science in Environmental Studies, and a Doctorate of Science in Occupational and Environmental Hygiene from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Susan M Kaplan is the Director of Materials Technology at HLW, where she spent many years building the sustainability practice of the firm. A Certified Construction Specifier and a LEED AP BC&D, she currently serves on the board of the HPDC, and is a working member of the GreenFormat Committee for the national CSI. Susan started her career as a specifier at the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation, and she previously served on the boards of the Metropolitan New York Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute and the Urban Green Council. Her teaching positions catalyze her research on material characteristics, toxicity of materials, and life cycle assessment of products. Susan holds a Bachelor of Architecture from City College of New York CUNY.

An Associate Principal at Dattner Architects, Steve Frankel views architecture as a fully collaborative, creative effort between architect, client, engineer, and builder, with the architect guiding the design process and facilitating teamwork and communication while maintaining design integrity. He joined the firm in 2003, and has worked as a designer in Basel, Switzerland and Barcelona, Spain. Steve holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University, and is an active member of the American Institute of Architects.

As the leader of Vidaris’ Green Services department, John Amatruda specializes in environmentally conscious design and the evaluation of “green”materials and systems. He has worked as a consultant on over 100 LEED projects nationwide and internationally, using all variations of the LEED commercial program. He has also authored a number of green building studies and publications, including the GSA LEED Cost Study for the US General Services Administration, the NYC Department of Buildings’ Energy Code Compliance Study, the Green Material Selection Guidelines for the web-based Whole Building Design Guide, and the Carbon Reduction Study for the United Nations Headquarters Renovation.

Mr. Amatruda is accredited as an International Assessor under the United Kingdom’s BREEAM green building rating system, and has been a LEED Accredited Professional since 2001. He was the first LEED AP registered in the State of Connecticut, as well as one of the first 30 faculty members hired by the USGBC, and was named a LEED Fellow in 2013.

Chris Hellstern is an author and the Living Building Challenge Services Director with The Miller Hull Partnership in Seattle. His recent book, Living Building Education, chronicles his work and the story behind the Bertschi School Living Building. Chris served as a Cascadia Branch member and Living Building Ambassador for ILFI, founded Seattle 2030 Roundtable, and co-founded the Healthy Materials Collaborative. A Living Future Accredited professional, Chris has been a guest speaker at numerous conferences and universities across the country, and he mentors students about sustainable practices and advocacy. He also publishes articles and volunteers with local school groups.

Aaron Dorf is a Director and senior architect at Snøhetta, with over twelve years in the New York office overseeing projects including the National September 11^th Museum Pavilion in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Expansion, Harvard HouseZero, Blaisdell Cultural Center Redevelopment in Honolulu and the Joslyn Art Museum Expansion in Omaha, among others. Aaron looks after Snøhetta’s North American Powerhouse work – a body of projects and partnerships that follow Norway’s strictest sustainability practices for ZEB’s (zero emission buildings) by promoting ultra-low energy use, zero or positive emissions and healthy materials. The first North American project by members of the Powerhouse team, HouseZero, is a renovated office space and headquarters for Harvard’s Center for Green Buildings and Cities – a tiny project with huge ambitions.

snohetta.com

Dennis is an architect with a background in civil engineering and agriculture. His strength is a holistic and collaborative spatial design approach, with a focus on solving environmental challenges and creating human-centric places. He believes that compact + livable + walkable cities are humanity’s greatest invention, and that places at all scales should be designed to create a positive impact on people’s lives. With over 15 years of professional experience, Dennis has worked at various firms in Toronto, New York, and Amsterdam on a wide variety of urban, landscape, building, and interior design projects. He is a Senior Associate as SvN, where he leads projects focusing on the integration of architecture and landscape with urban and ecological systems.

Marty Keller manages the FCH green building program, which has produced and renovated over 1,050 units of sustainable housing, including 4 LEED Platinum and 3 LEED Gold properties, since he founded it in 2002. Marty is currently managing the construction of a 135-unit LEED Platinum modular project which will be the largest permanent supportive housing program in San Jose and a model for combining housing, health care, and social service support to provide an economical and humane approach to homelessness. FCH is exploring the use of modular technology to provide shelter as quickly and economically as possible while having high sustainability and design standards, particularly in healthy materials and indoor air quality. Marty’s background includes experience as a Construction Manager, a Superintendent, and a Journeyman Carpenter, and he holds a degree in Sociology for work as a Social Worker from York College, CUNY.

Jack Dinning is a designer and research strategist committed to making healthier environments for vulnerable populations, specifically through the elimination of toxic building materials.  As Director of the Donghia Healthier Materials Library, he led educational initiatives aimed at making concepts of material-health and toxicology more approachable to designers, providing frameworks for evaluating materials and their environmental impacts, and advised on architectural strategies for “designing-out” potential hazards. Through collaborations with firms such as LTL Architects and Bernheimer Architecture, his work advocates for the populations most vulnerable to exposures, from young children who are likely at critical stages of development to seniors in affordable housing who may have already faced a lifetime of exposures.

Jack holds a B.A. in Architectural Studies from Middlebury College and a Masters in Architecture from Parsons School of Design.

As Executive Director of the Healthy Materials Lab, Alison leverages her practice-based experience as an architect and her knowledge and experience as a long-term academic leader to confront one of the more serious and often overlooked environmental challenges of our time: the health of the built environment. How do we make profound and long-term changes to everyday design practice to create truly healthy buildings, especially for those in the most need of affordable housing? HML creates resources, educational programming, and prototypical innovative housing models for a new post-petroleum world. Alison is co-Principal Investigator of the Healthy Affordable Materials Project (HAMP). The Project is a long-term coalition of four organizations that work together to remove harmful chemicals from the built environment. She is also the recipient of multiple grants that support the work of the Lab.

Alison’s work draws from The New School University’s long tradition of commitment to promoting community-based sustainability, social engagement, and environmental justice, especially in her teaching in architectural design studios at Parsons. She lectures widely disseminating current thinking within the field of material health.

Alison Mears and Jonsara Ruth were awarded the 2022 Women in Architecture Innovation Award from Architectural Record and co-edited the 2023 publication Material Health: Design Frontiers.
 

Jonsara Ruth is co-founder and Executive Director of Healthy Materials Lab (HML) at Parsons School of Design, where she is an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the MFA Interior Design program. At HML, Jonsara brings creative leadership to the ambitious goal of improving the health of underserved communities through the transformation of design and material practices. Drawing from over a decade as a designer in the furniture and interiors industries, Jonsara brings her understanding of manufacturing, supply chains, labor practices, and a penchant for democratic design to her roles at HML and Parsons. She draws from her artistic practice to creatively lead, motivate change, and inspire new methods for making and imagining futures.

She founded Salty Labs, a design collective, to experiment and implement ideas of circularity with healthy, low-carbon materials and strategies, working closely with local artisans to design interiors, furniture, and experiences. With Q Collection Junior, she designed the world's first Greenguard Certified crib for children. Her work is seen internationally in numerous publications, exhibitions, and people’s homes. Jonsara’s lifelong creative goal is to serve society and culture through her work.

Jonsara graduated with a Master of Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design, and currently serves on the board of the Sustainable Furnishings Council.

Together with Alison Mears, Jonsara was awarded the 2022 Women in Architecture Innovation Award.

John Woelfling is a partner at Dattner Architects, one of New York City’s leading designers of multi-family residential architecture. John directs much of the firm’s affordable housing portfolio, and his work is driven by the belief that architecture should be meaningful to society and sensitive to the environment. John leverages his experiences working across project typologies, from education and recreation to healthcare and infrastructure, to inform his leadership on many of the firm’s mixed-use residential projects. He is the principal-in-charge for Prospect Plaza, a multi-phase development that is bringing affordable housing to a former NYCHA site, a multi-site affordable housing and wellness center in the Bronx, and he is leading 425 Grand Concourse – NYC’s largest Passive House affordable housing building. He has lectured on the subjects of affordable housing and sustainability, speaking at the Center for Architecture, AIA NYS, Urban Green and GreenBuild, Forum for Urban Design, and the Re: Imagine Conference. John holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech.

Amanda Kaminsky is Founder of Building Product Ecosystems—multi-disciplinary collaboratives that evolve code, infrastructure, and field logistics for optimal systemic health and performance of major building materials. Improvements to product and process are carefully piloted on projects under current development via regular convening of buyers and their manufacturers, recyclers, contractors, designers/engineers, policy makers, and academic researchers.

Before and during the early stages of BPE, Amanda led sustainable construction and procurement efforts at The Durst Organization. Amanda has collaborated extensively with project teams and supply chains on new and existing commercial and residential buildings to optimize materials and systems design, procurement, and building processes from project inception through construction and into ongoing operations. In collaboration with DSNY, she also managed New York City’s first high rise residential organics collection/compost program. Amanda Chairs the Health Product Declaration Collaborative board, and is a director on the board of Healthy Building Network.

buildingproductecosystems.org

Hank Burr is a Safety Manager at GCI General Contractors, where he works to mitigate risk and liability for the company and its programs.With his daily goal of making sure all employees go home safe, Hank has successfully managed risk at over 100 GCI jobsites throughout the Bay Area. A retired Army Officer, Hank has a Master’s Degree in sports management and an associates degree in Chinese, as well as his Safety Trained Supervisor and OSHA30 training, and he is currently working on his CHST.

As director of Atelier Ten, Shanta Tucker PE is recognized for her leadership in building performance simulation and sustainable consultancy on local and international projects. Her 18-year career includes consulting on net zero, carbon neutral and LEED platinum buildings. She has taught environmental systems at GSAPP, The New School, Yale, and Pratt. Her volunteer experience includes serving as a president of IBPSA-USA in 2015-16 and chairing ASHRAE’s certification committee. She holds a BS in Architectural Engineering from the University of Colorado, is a professional mechanical engineer, is an ASHRAE Member, and has published literature with ASHRAE, IBPSA and ASME.

Alejandra Arce Gomez is the Sustainability Coordinator at Madrone Construction Resources, and she has been with the company since its inception in 2017. Alejandra graduated from The University of San Francisco in December of 2016 with a Master of Science in Environmental Management (MSEM) and a Master of Business Administration (MBA). She is a Zero Waste Community Associate and holds a TRUE Advisor Certificate.

As Sustainability Coordinator, Alejandra oversees the waste management plans for the demolition and construction phases of projects, and she has a crucial role in Madrone’s Furniture Donation Program, which donates materials, plumbing fixtures, furniture, and appliances to organizations in need such as non-profits and community-focused companies that work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and life-cycle impacts of manufacturing. Alejandra also shares responsibility in the day-to-day operation and management of Madrone.

Beatriz (Bea) de la Torre is the Managing Director for Housing at Robin Hood Foundation. Her main focus is finding the most impactful interventions to address the housing and homeless crisis in New York City. Before joining Robin Hood, Bea worked at the Department of Preservation and Development (HPD) in various roles, mostly focused on planning affordable housing developments on city-owned vacant land. Bea has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Planning from M.I.T. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three children.

Heather Henriksen has served as Harvard University’s chief sustainability officer since 2008, advising the President and senior leadership on strategy and building an organizational change enterprise. Heather leads the Office for Sustainability which oversees the implementation of the Harvard’s comprehensive Sustainability Plan (co-created with faculty and students in 2014) and the University’s ambitious new Climate Action Plan (to be fossil fuel-free by 2050 and fossil fuel-neutral by 2026) which builds upon the 2016 achievement of Harvard’s initial science-based climate goal.

The Office for Sustainability (OFS) has expanded a multi-disciplinary living laboratory research program that partners with faculty and students to use the campus as a test bed for piloting and sharing innovative solutions to real-world sustainability challenges. A nationally recognized leader in healthier building materials, Heather is leading an effort with faculty within Harvard to translate research into practice, in partnership with business and non-profit leaders, to address the use of chemicals of concern in common building products. OFS has also spearheaded numerous pilot projects across Harvard focused on indoor air quality, sensor technology, biophilic design and other innovations in the built environment. Heather also advises courses throughout Harvard College and the professional graduate schools and speaks nationally and internationally on sustainability.

Heather is on the Board of Directors of the Health Product Declaration Collaborative. Heather serves as Advisory Committee Co-chair of the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN), and she is a member of Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2). Heather holds a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.