Strategies in Practice

Jonsara Ruth is co-founder and Design 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.

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.

Suzanne is a Research Director in Perkins+Will’s San Francisco office, co-directing the firm’s Materials Performance Lab. The Lab is the conduit for healthy materials knowledge, research, firm-wide dissemination, and implementation into projects. Her career has focused on commercial interiors, specializing in creating healthy environments, and she draws on over two decades of experience to support client initiatives and environmental goals. Suzanne develops content for the Transparency site, and was instrumental in developing the current Precautionary List, and has Her book EcoSoul: Save the Planet and Yourself by ReThinking your Everyday Habits was published in 2013, and she co-authored three installments of the Healthy Environments whitepaper series, including Strategies for Avoiding Flame Retardants in the Built Environment, What’s New (and What’s Not) With PVC, and Understanding Antimicrobial Ingredients in Building Materials.

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.

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

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.

Paul has 26 years of professional experience and holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Texas-Austin and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Tulane University. As a registered architect and MSR principal, Paul shares leadership of the firm’s focus on creating highly sustainable and healthy living and work environments. His design work has achieved notable recognition, including an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Minnesota/McKnight Foundation Affordable Housing Design Award for the Trolley Quarter Flats project and an AIA Minnesota Honor Award and Environmental Initiative Award for the Rose mixed-income housing project with Aeon. Paul received the 2013 AIA Minnesota Louis Lundgren Award for his exemplary volunteerism. He actively donates his time, including serving as president of the East Downtown Council and president of the Board of Directors of the Minnesota Museum of American Art.

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

Bill Walsh is the Founder and President of the Healthy Building Network (HBN). He is a Visiting Professor at Parsons The New School for Design, and a founding Board Member of the Health Product Declaration (HPD) Collaborative. In 2012 Bill received the US Green Building Council’s Leadership In Advocacy Award and was named a Fellow at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts. In 2013 Bill was awarded the Healthy Schools Hero by the Healthy Schools Network. Previously he served as a national campaign director at Greenpeace USA, and held staff attorney positions with the US Public Interest Research Group and the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center. He holds a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law and LLM in Public Interest Advocacy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

David is using his background in chemistry and nanotechnology research to investigate environmental health issues. His work focuses on finding ways to protect public health by educating consumers and changing national environmental regulations and government policies. During his time at EWG he has developed a comprehensive knowledge of the regulatory processes affecting industrial chemicals, consumer products, cosmetics, and nanomaterials. David has conducted more than 100 media interviews on various public health issues and frequently works with federal agencies and legislative offices. His recent work has included collaborating to design and build EWG’s consumer databases, highlighting the overuse of confidentiality claims submitted to the EPA, and researching national water contamination. He holds a B.A. in chemistry from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Northwestern. He has authored more than 15 scientific publications and holds a patent on quantum interference devices.