Sustainable Building: Design and Specification

As 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 long tradition at The New School University’s 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”.

Catherine is a trained artist, designer, and educator. She has 12 years experience in designing and project managing healthier and sustainable interiors. Her current focus is on developing processes to enable change and strengthen a sustainable and regenerative built environment. As an educator she teaches classes on materials and guides the development of methodologies to eliminate toxics and reduce environmental impacts. Her practice focuses on renovation, re-use, and repair of existing structures; implementing core design and construction techniques to build healthier, affordable and sustainable built environments.

Catherine had led educational programming at Parsons Healthy Materials Lab since 2017 and holds a Master of Fine Art in Interior design from Parsons School of Design and an hons degree in Fine Craft Design (Embroidery) from University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is from Sligo in the west of Ireland.

Anasa Laude leverages her background in higher education to provide rare insight and analysis to pressing community needs, serving as a research consultant on economic opportunity and climate change impact studies at the Urban Technical Assistance Project. For over 10 years, Anasa served in teaching and leadership roles in higher education including the graduate Strategic Design and Management at Parsons The New School University program, and the Environmental Economics Program at the City College of NY (CCNY).

Anasa was the director of fellowships at the Colin Powell School, where she also served as Leader in Residence. She was the co-founder and Managing Director of Greenproofing, Inc. a sustainable business consultancy, founded in partnership with faculty at the City College of NY.

Anasa has served as an advisor to several entrepreneurship hubs including Juntobot, the Zahn Innovation Center. She received a BA in Economics and an MA in Finance from CCNY. She sits on the board of NY Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Anasa is a certified LEED Green Associate with the US Green Building Council.