Hosted by the Initiative on Cities at Boston University
6 pm, Wednesday, November 5th
Metcalf Trustee's Center, 9th Floor, 1 Silber Way, Boston, MA
Reception: 5 - 6 pm

WELCOME from KATHARINE LUSK, Executive Director, Institute on Cities at Boston University
Katharine Lusk is the executive director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University. She was previously a policy advisor for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, former Mayor of Boston, where she spearheaded his work to make Boston the first city in the country to achieve pay equity for women. Katharine is a 2012 graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, where she was the recipient of the Barbara Jordan Award for Women’s Leadership and the Manuel Carballo Award for her graduate thesis modeling a state-run paid family leave program for Massachusetts. She earned her BA from Williams College.

INTRODUCTION by PHILLIP HENDERSON, President, Surdna Foundation

The 2012-2014 class of Rose Fellows have spent the three years deeply embedded in the communities they serve, ranging from farmworkers to the elderly, to immigrant business owners. They have worked in shrinking cities like Detroit to booming cities like Boston, from urban St. Paul to rural Washington. Each of these dedicated designers has used architecture and community engagement as tools to develop more equitable communities. They will share their experience, their love of their communities, victories and lessons learned. They will address themes including design for the under-resourced, creating community spaces, and diversity in design.  

The program will include fellows’ presentations and dialogue with a public audience of approximately 200 students, faculty, and practitioners in community development and design.

Featuring the class of 2012-2014

SAM BEALL, Cathedral Square Corporation, Burlington, VT
During his fellowship, Sam has focused on two guiding questions: How can the design of senior housing improve public health? And how is senior housing different from other types of housing?  He invested time into evaluating Cathedral Square’s properties and cataloguing their attributes. He also invited the community to a roundtable asking them about their concerns, the places they love and the places they hate. Armed with the opinions of the residents and site managers, Sam took on the challenge of remodeling a modest but well maintained home built in 1980, then applied many of the insights he had gained to the design of Wright House, a new building where he applied both a functional and cognitive perspective to the design of units and common space. In the long-term, Sam hopes to see these innovative changes become standard practice. “A lot of the legwork associated with building programming can be done without an architecture degree. Auditing your own space, articulating values - these are tasks that are often best completed from within.” Sam graduated with a Master of Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2009. He was selected as a 2008 Nix Fellow for researching Corbusier’s work in Marseille and Provence. Prior to his fellowship, Sam worked as designer with Ryall Porter Sheridan Architects, Butler Armsden Architects, and Andrew Mann Architecture and volunteered with the Institute on Aging in San Francisco. 

SAM CARLSEN, Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation, St. Paul, MN
For Minneapolis native Sam Carlsen, community-design is inextricably linked to civic contribution. He has been able to further explore this holistic approach at the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation, where he engages citizens in planning for transit-oriented development. Active in Saint Paul’s renaissance since 1994, Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation works to stimulate economic and community development through broad community efforts such as the Central Corridor Light Rail Line, the Great River Passage, and Lowertown Saint Paul. As a Rose Fellow, Sam has been able to work to integrate and advance the work of city planners, community organizers, architects and landscape architects into affordable housing and other built spaces all along the light rail corridor. One of Sam’s largest projects with SPRC has been the Central Corridor Light Rail initiative – a rail line currently under construction that will link the downtowns of the Twin Cities. After earning a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota in 2008, Sam worked directly with residents who had lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina, helping them rebuild safer and more sustainably in partnership with Gulf Coast Community Design Studio.



MARK MATEL, Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation, Boston, MA
Mark Matel is hosted by Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation in Roxbury, Mass., which is devoted to building the wealth and enhancing the physical, economic, and social well being of Roxbury and other underserved populations in greater Boston through a community-driven process that promotes self-sufficiency and neighborhood revitalization. A major focus of Mark’s fellowship has been the redevelopment of Bartlett Yards, a former transit yard, into a sustainable residential and commercial node in Roxbury. He has worked with local residents to plan temporary events that bring awareness to the Bartlett Yards site and test programming for the proposed plaza. The events have helped to build identity around the concept of this place as a creative village and have encourage community participation in the process. Mark has engaged with the community at all levels, from residents to the city redevelopment authority. Mark earned a Master of Architecture from Hampton University in 2010 and a Master of Design Build from Auburn University in 2011. An associate AIA member, Mark has earned several distinctions, including the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for Service in Architecture, the Design Stewardship Award from Hampton University, the Outstanding Graduate Student Award from Auburn University, and the Rising Star Award from the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations.

CEARA O'LEARY, Detroit Collaborative Design Center, Detroit, MI
Hosted by Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), Ceara O'Leary has worked on a variety of neighborhood revitalization projects throughout Detroit, ranging from community spaces and corridor activation to blue-green infrastructure and eco-district planning. Since 1994, DCDC has worked with over 80 Detroit nonprofit organizations, community groups, and philanthropic foundations to create sustainable spaces and communities through quality design and the collaborative process. Ceara has worked on projects across the city of Detroit, with a focus on Livernois Avenue, the Eastern Market District and East Jefferson Avenue. She has also developed resources that can be used citywide like the Community Development How-To Guides, which received a 2014 SEED Award. She has fostered relationships with many people involved in community development efforts across the city, which informs her work, and teaches at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture, where DCDC is based. Ceara holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University, and dual Masters in Architecture and City Planning from University of California, Berkeley. She is a LEED Green Associate and the Spring 2010 winner of the Sandy Hirshen Prize for Socially-Responsible Architecture at UC Berkeley.

NATHAN POEL, Office of Rural and Farmworker Housing, Yakima, WA
Nathan Poel is a Rose Fellow in Yakima, Wash. with the Office of Rural and Farmworker Housing (ORFH), where he has worked to build healthy communities and affordable housing for migrant farmworkers. ORFH serves a community of predominantly first or second-generation Latino migrant workers who struggle to find affordable housing in the rural region. Focused primarily on farmworker housing, Nathan hosted a design competition for proposed farmworker housing in Sunnyside, Wash in 2012. Nathan also facilitated a design charrette for Catholic Charities Housing Services’ new development in Prosser, focused on the green aspects of the development and improving the site plan, and led the conversion of a former retail site into a community center and shelter. Nathan is a LEED AP and holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Oregon where he was cofounder of HINGE, a student group for the discussion of social justice in architecture.