Current Design Advocates Volunteer Opportunities

D/A are excited to be launching their next project term which will run from January-July of 2023. Their network of participating firms and designers organize their efforts in six-month blocks of time, collaborating with non-profit and institutional clients and the communities they serve.

The current term is a mix of pro-bono and low-bono projects and initiatives addressing hunger, reproductive rights, arts and design based learning, family services, and public space advocacy. Please take a look at the opportunities outlined below, and please get in touch if you’d like to support or participate in these efforts!

Learn more here!

As 2022 comes to a close, what better time to celebrate what we’ve accomplished and consider what we will build in 2023?

In 2022, with your engagement, mentorship, and allyship, we wrapped our third season of programming, kicked off our fourth season, we mentored and #brokethebias with AIANY WIA, we taught, we started business ventures, and we changed career paths.

Here is a snapshot of what the MWA community has been up to this year.

Looking forward to what we will do together in 2023.

Yellow House Architects, PLLC | Intermediate Architect

About Yellow House:

Yellow House Architects is a Manhattan-based fellowship of design creatives with diverse voices, working collaboratively to realize our clients’ architectural vision. We offer highly personalized design service to clients in residential, hospitality, and commercial architecture. Our office is a gathering place where avid learners and thinkers share diverse points of view. For us, Yellow House is a forward-thinking space which fosters creative collaboration, expressed in the language of architecture.

About the Position:

Founded in 2020, YHA is looking for an Intermediate Architect to join our team. The ideal candidate will have solid experience in classical and traditional architecture. We look for people who are passionate about the art of architecture, enjoy working collaboratively on a shared vision, can work with a high level of detail and materiality when collaborating with top craftsmen, and embrace new materials and state of the art technology in their designs.

YHA offers a full benefits package and participates in mentorship programs, professional development, and educational initiatives.

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Produce drawings with direction from the design team

2. Review redlines and incorporate into design drawings

3. Collaborate with the Project Manager to produce deliverable

4. Prepare for and attend meetings with clients and consultants, record decisions and issue notes

5. Participate in weekly coordination meetings with MEP and structural related disciplines

6. Attend site visits and evaluate site conditions and constraints

7. Adapt plans accordingly to resolve any problems that may arise during construction

8. Research current zoning and building code requirements

9. Survey new project sites and as-built conditions.

QUALIFICATIONS

1. Four to five-plus years professional experience

2. Strong proficiency in AutoCAD and Revit

3. Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and Word

4. Strong proficiency In Bluebeam a plus

5. Ability to multi-task and work within a team to meet deadlines

6. Good organizational skills with good oral and written communication skills

 Direct all inquiries to liz@yellowhousearchitects.com.

We are thrilled to share the news of an exciting project underway, co-lead by MWA Founder Nancy Kleppel! For nearly 5 years Nancy has been working on her first real estate development project as a co-founder of the ownership group, Live|Give|Play. The project, a 70-unit mass timber, Passive House rental apartment building in Northampton, MA, is through design development and entering the construction documents phase, planning for a spring 2023 groundbreaking.

Live|Give|Play was founded to transform how older Americans live with new buildings in walkable connected communities.

The challenge:

·      40 million baby boomers will turn 65 between now and 2030

·      30 million of them cannot afford to age in place due to insufficient post-retirement financial resources

The L|G|P solution:

·   Apartments in walkable neighborhoods of small cities

 ·  More vibrant lifestyles, lower costs, and greater sense of purpose than car-centric suburbs

The Live|Give|Play mission as carried out in the Northampton, MA development project concept has been lauded as a sustainable solution to a housing crisis for baby boomers by a number of publications, including Treehugger in this recent article, titled This Mass Timber Passivhaus Rental Building Is Perfect for Active Adults.

BKSK

With her strong professional background as a trained architect, with deep experience in business development, marketing and operations consulting, Nancy serves as serves as LGP’s architectural and design interface. In this role she recommended the architect for the project, BKSK Architects*, and has advised on team members and project participants throughout. As a project owner and sponsor Nancy participates in all design meetings and provides diverse advisory, moving the project forward on all fronts alongside partners David Fox and Patrick McDarrah.

At present L|G|P is pursuing equity investors and construction funding, learning about the twists and turns of the global economy along the way.

As Nancy says, “A career can take you to unexpected places where the thread connecting everywhere you’ve been to where you are currently going becomes apparent. Along the way you tie up all loose ends, bringing the pieces together, culminating in your life’s work. The feeling of pride and accomplishment and deep respect for all the people who played roles along the way is satisfying, humbling and awesome!”

*BKSK Partner, Julie Nelson will lead an MWA seminar alongside Nina Kinoti-Metz in January.

In case you missed it, The Architect’s Newspaper recently sat down with Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, co-founders of Grafton Architects to discuss their winning design for the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Material Innovation at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. Farrell and McNamara won the competition in 2020, the same year they won the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

At a time when the AEC industry is buzzing about mass timber as the only renewable building construction material, the recent article takes a deeper dive into the design of the building, calling it “the first building designed in North America to be a masterclass in timber”.

Grafton Architect’s design is a response to the challenge to provide a building that is “redolent of the qualities of the forest, one that imagines anew timber and wood as materials” and is “hewn, carved, jointed, woven, and assembled, layered, laminated”.

Learn more about the design by reading the complete article titled, How Do You Hang an Auditorium From a Queen Post Truss?