Class of 2004

Four Alumni Elevated to ASLA Council of Fellows – Class of 2024

Four GSD alumni have been elevated by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) as fellows for their exceptional contributions to the landscape architecture profession and society at large. Election to the ASLA Council of Fellows is among the highest honors the ASLA bestows on members and is based on their “works, leadership and management, knowledge, and service.”

  • Anita Berrizbeitia MLA ’87    
  • David Fletcher MLA ’04         
  • Laurel Raines MLA ’83
  • Leo Urban MLA ’71    

The Fellows will be elevated during a ceremony at the 2024 Conference on Landscape Architecture. You can read about the fellows on the ASLA website.

posted September, 2024

“Vincent Scully: Architecture, Urbanism, and a Life in Search of Community” by A. Krista Sykes PhD ’04 published with Bloomsbury

A. Krista Sykes PhD ’04 has published the book Vincent Scully: Architecture, Urbanism, and a Life in Search of Community (Bloomsbury, 2023). This intellectual biography of Scully’s life and career traces the formative moments in his thinking, mapping his relationships with a constellation of architects, artists, and cultural personalities of the past one hundred years. Scully’s extensive body of work, with its range spanning centuries and civilizations, coalesced around the core beliefs that architecture shapes and is shaped by society, and that the best architecture responds, above all else, to the human need for community and connection. Sykes’s timely appraisal provides a platform for reassessing the legacy of these values as well as how we write and think about architecture in the twenty-first century.

For more information, visit here.

For more on Krista Sykes.

posted September, 2023

Jeff Jerden MUP ’04 named Chief Operating Officer at Veritas Investments

Jeff Jerden MUP ’04

Jeff Jerden MUP ’04 has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer (COO) at San Francisco-based Veritas Investments. Veritas Investments, one of the largest operators of multifamily, urban retail and mixed-use properties in the San Francisco Bay Area, has added Jeff to the firm’s leadership ranks. This appointment reflects the ongoing growth of one of California’s premier real estate firms providing high-quality workforce housing to a broad cross-section of residents. 

In his role, Jeff will oversee operations, marketing, property services and leasing for Veritas’ portfolio, including the firm’s growing divisions in Oakland and Los Angeles. Jeff will report directly to the CEO, Yat-Pang Au.  Justin Sato, previously COO, assumes a new role as Chief Strategy and Portfolio Officer.

CEO Yat-Pang Au said, “We conducted a thorough local and national search interviewing candidates with diverse experience and capabilities to support Veritas’ growth, and our ongoing focus on residents, partners and employees. Jeff’s ability to think strategically and foster cross-company collaboration, as well as his deep, insatiable curiosity and positive demeanor make him a great addition to the team.”

Read the full press release here 

posted September, 2019

Hotel by Shangwen Chiu Kennedy MArch/MLAUD ’05, supported by Chloé Lauer MUP ’04, is the First Hospitality Project in the World to be WELL Certified

Shangwen Chiu Kennedy MArch/MLAUD '05

Designed and owned by Shangwen Chiu Kennedy MArch/MLAUD ’05, the Inn at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, CA, is the first hospitality project in the world to be recognized with WELL Certification, which it achieved at the Platinum level. Chiu Kennedy worked with WELL consultant Chloé Lauer MUP ’04 on the certification process. The WELL Building Standard is “a performance-based system for measuring, certifying, and monitoring features of the built environment that impact human health and wellbeing, through air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind.”

“As an urban designer, property developer and entrepreneur, I’m committed to creating sustainable housing-community living environments that enhance the quality of life and well-being of their occupants,” said Chiu Kennedy in a recent article. “When we purchased the Inn at Moonlight Beach [in 2016], knowing that it would require a major remodel, I jumped at the opportunity to implement the standard on this property. It was then a surprise to learn that no other hotels had yet pursued the standard in earnest. Apparently someone needed to lead the way.”

“One of the most exciting aspects of the project is how many people will be exposed to the WELL Standard via the Inn,” said Lauer. “When people stay at the Inn, they immediately experience an ‘exhale.’ There is a sense of peace and serenity that is palpable throughout the site, and guests wonder what created that experience. WELL is a foundational element, to be sure, and something that the Innkeepers and Owner are sure to point out as they welcome guests and show them the property.”

Chiu Kennedy and Lauer met at the GSD in Professor Alex Krieger’s China studio (fall 2003) and later became closer friends while both living and working in San Francisco. They studied together to become WELL APs in 2016 and worked closely with The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) on a custom scorecard for the project as the hospitality vertical was not yet established.

Image provided. 

posted August, 2019

Christian Lahoude MDes ’04 Studio Receives Retail Design Institute Award

Christian Lahoude MDes '04

Christian Lahoude Studio, founded by Christian Lahoude MDes ’04, has received the award for excellence in design and execution from the Retail Design Institute for its Solestice project. The award was presented during RDI’s 47th International Design Awards Gala & Fundraiser on May 23, 2018.

Solestice is a collector-aimed sneaker store in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood. In addition to the award, the project will be inducted into RDI’s “Class of 2017.”

Images provided.

Christian Lahoude Studio 2

posted July, 2018

“Adaptive Sensory Environments” by Maria Lorena Lehman MDes ’04 Wins Nautilus Book Award

Maria Lorena Lehman MDes '04

Adaptive Sensory Environments by Maria Lorena Lehman MDes ’04 has won a 2017 Silver Medal Nautilus Book Award in the Creative Process category. The book presents “a cutting-edge methodology for adaptive sensory design by fostering an inter-disciplinary approach in which aspects of neuroscience, biophilia, captology, nanotechnology, kinetics, and sensemaking all play critical roles in helping adaptive architecture ‘tune’ to occupants (learn more).” Lehman is founder of the Sensing Architecture ® Academy. Her research focuses on links between architectural design, science, and new technologies (learn more).

Established in the US in 1998, the annual Nautilus Book Awards recognize books in the genre of social and environmental justice. Previous winners include Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Eckhart Tolle, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Images provided.

maria lorena lehman udpate headshot

posted May, 2018

Firm of Juan Carlos Vargas MDes ’04, DDes ’08 Opens First Latin America Office; Flavio Sciaraffia MLA ’15 Named Director

Juan Carlos Vargas MDesS ’04, DDes ’08, Flavio Sciaraffia MLA'15

GeoAdaptive, a global think-tank and consulting company founded in 2007 by Juan Carlos Vargas MDes ’04, DDes ’08 (Founding Partner and Managing Principal of GeoAdaptive’s Boston Office), has launched its first office in Latin America. The branch, located in Santiago, Chile, is led by Flavio Sciaraffia MLA ’15 (Partner and Director of GeoAdaptive’s Chile Office), and offers intelligence services and strategy for development and sustainability. This is the third office for GeoAdaptive, which is also located in Boston, MA, and Turin, Italy.

“Chile is a solid platform and, comparatively, the spearhead in Latin America for new paradigms of work strategies, professional services, and problem-solving methodologies,” Vargas said in a press release announcing the new office.

“We decided to establish an office in Santiago, since Chile has a competitive advantage in the region in terms of advanced human capital, which facilitates innovation, a process that is central to our work. In addition, we detected that for both the public and private sectors, the objectives of equality, inclusion, sustainability, and adaptability are integral to economic growth and this unequivocally requires new ways of working that can incorporate multiple levels of information,” Sciaraffia added.

Read the full press release.

Watch the launch video:

Image 1: Relation between street tree-coverage and temperatures. Ricardo Lyon St., Providencia

GeoAdaptive2

 

Image 2: Analyzing temperatures across Santiago

posted January, 2018

Maria A. Villalobos H. MDes ’04, David Gouverneur Malakoff MAUD ’80, and Team Win National Architecture Award in Venezuela

Maria A. Villalobos H. MDes '04, David Gouverneur Malakoff MAUD '80

A project by Maria A. Villalobos H. MDes ’04 and Carla Urbina of Botanical City, along with key advisors David Gouverneur Malakoff MAUD ’80, Lourdes Peñaranda, and Francois Galletti, has won a National Architecture Award in Venezuela. Entitled “Botanical Urban Landscapes: Lessons from Roberto Burle Marx’s Botanical Garden in Maracaibo, Venezuela,” the project won in the Heritage Restoration Category, as well as the main National Award.

The XII National Biennial of Architecture marks a new milestone in the history of the Venezuelan Biennials, which begun in 1963 and has recognized the work of great architects and teams including: Carlos Raúl Villanueva, Tomás José Sanabria, Jesús Tenreiro, Universities, Tomás Lugo. This year for the first time, the National Prize is awarded to a Landscape Architecture Project and Restoration Work. It is also the first time that women are recognized.

Images courtsey of Maria A. Villalobos H. MDes ’04 and Carla Urbina.
Botanical City

posted March, 2017

Home by Noah Walker MArch ’04 featured as Architectural Record’s “House of the Month”

Noah Walker MArch '04

A house designed and built by Noah Walker MArch ’04, of Walker Workshop, has been featured as Architectural Record’s “House of the Month.” Oak Pass House in Beverly Hills, California, is 8,000-square-feet and was designed around 130 protected live-oak trees. Read more about the project and see pictures here.

December 2015

posted December, 2016

Book Edited by Jeannette Kuo MArch ’04 named one of 2013’s “Most Beautiful Swiss Books”

Jeannette Kuo MArch ’04

A-Typical Plan, a book edited by Jeannette Kuo MArch ’04 which features projects and essays on identity, flexibility and atmosphere in the office building, was named one of 2013′s “Most Beautiful Swiss Books” in a competition hosted by the Swiss Ministry of Culture.

March 2014

posted December, 2016

Jeannette Kuo MArch ’04 appointed Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture at GSD

Jeannette Kuo MArch ’04 has been appointed Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, effective January 2016. At the GSD, Kuo has served as a teaching assistant and design critic for core studios in the Department of Architecture. Kuo was the 2006 recipient of the competitive Maybeck Teaching Fellowship at UC Berkeley. Since then, she has also taught at MIT, and since 2011, has held a visiting professorship at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). In addition, she has been a guest critic at numerous institutions such as ETH Zurich, Columbia University, Rhode Island School of Design, Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, Pratt Institute, Hong Kong University, and the University of Toronto.

January 2015

posted December, 2016

Tad Read MDes ’04 featured in Boston Business Journal

Tad Read MDes '04

Tad Read MDes ’04 was featured in the Boston Business Journal about his current stint as the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s interim planning chief. Read the full article on BBJ’s site here.

January 2015

posted December, 2016