Stewarding the legacy of Palm Springs architectural excellence into the future.
FASTFORWARD2...PRESENTER AND PARTICIPANT BIOS
Welcome...The Mayor of Palm Springs...Christy Holstege
Christy Holstege was elected to the Palm Springs City Council in November 2017 to serve a four-year term. Christy currently represents the City of Palm Springs as the Chair of the Coachella Valley Association of Government’s Homelessness Committee and is also the City’s liaison to the Friends of the Palm Springs Animal Shelter. In addition, she serves on the City Council’s Homelessness and Affordable Housing Subcommittee.
An attorney, prior to being elected to the Palm Springs City Council, Christy was awarded a Stanford Law School-Stanford Public Interest Foundation Fellowship and funding to establish a legal aid clinic for domestic violence survivors within the Coachella Valley’s only domestic violence shelter. Christy has also represented farmworkers in civil rights, housing, and employment litigation at California Rural Legal Assistance in Coachella, California. Christy earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from U.C. Santa Barbara.
Christy has been an active member of the Palm Springs community, serving on the board of directors for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, Well in the Desert, Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, and Shadylane Mobilehome Park. She also served on the City of Palm Springs Human Rights Commission and the Palm Springs Homelessness Task Force.
Christy is proud to live in Palm Springs with her husband Adam Gilbert, who is a business owner and a third-generation resident of Palm Springs, and their dogs Layla and Ollie. They live in Sonora Sunrise neighborhood in a home that their family has resided in for over 45 years.
Speaker Introductions...Geoff Kors
Geoff Kors Geoff Kors serves on the City Council for the City of Palm Springs, having first been elected to the City Council in 2015 and re-elected in 2019. As a member of the City Council, Geoff has drafted ordinances and worked to advance financial stability, small business growth, historic preservation, gun safety, equal benefits, civil rights, ethics and government reform, and environmental sustainability. Geoff works to promote tourism and locally owned businesses and serves as the City’s liaison to the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce, Palm Springs Hospitality Association, P.S. Resorts, Main Street, and Arenas District Merchants Association. Geoff was elected in 2020 as Chair of the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau.
A graduate of Stanford Law School, Geoff has had a distinguished career working for non-profits and government, focusing on policy and law. Geoff served for nine years as Executive Director of Equality California where he led the effort to transform California from a state with almost no legal protections for the LGBTQ community to the state with the broadest protections in the nation. Under his leadership, Equality California also advocated for non-discrimination protections for people living with HIV/AIDS and funding for HIV/AIDS organizations and patients. During his tenure, Geoff helped pass more than 70 bills, many of which he conceived of and drafted. In 2009, Geoff opened Equality California’s Palm Springs office, marking the first time a statewide or national LGBTQ rights organization provided an office and field/education staff in the Desert.
Geoff’s experience includes representing local government as a lawyer, working as a senior legislative staffer for a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors/City Council, and serving as an Assistant Regional Counsel for the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Geoff is the architect and author of San Francisco’s (first in the nation) equal benefits ordinance which is credited with dramatically expending health insurance for LGBTQ employees. Geoff led the ACLU of Illinois Gay and Lesbian Rights and AIDS and Civil Liberties Projects where he won key court cases prohibiting dentists from discriminating against patients with HIV, ending the Chicago Police Department’s practice of testing and refusing to hire HV positive recruits and securing the first co-parent adoption for a same-sex couple. He also served as Government Policy Director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights where he spearheaded work on local, state and federal legislation and government policy and focused on efforts to ban conversion therapy and expand non-discrimination protections.
Geoff has been an active member of the Palm Springs community and currently serves as Vice-President on the Board of the Palm Springs Boys and Girls Club. Geoff previously served on the national board of directors of Freedom to Marry and on the board and as PAC Chair for the SF League of Conservation Voters.
Geoff is a member of the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce, Desert Business Association, Mizell Senior Center Stars Club, Desert AIDS Project Partners for Life, AIDS Assistance Project Angel, Palm Springs Museum Theater Council, PS Mod Com Preservation Partner, HRC Federal Club, Equality California Capitol Club and many other community organizations.
Keynote / Vishaan Chakrabarti and Panelists Brooke Hodge, Dennis Woods and Lauren Bricker
Vishaan Chakrabarti FAIA FRAIC With over twenty-five years of proven experience authoring and implementing visionary design, Vishaan Chakrabarti is the Founder and Creative Director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU). Simultaneously, he is the William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. PAU will as a consequence open a California office in tandem with its existing New York studio, both of which will continue under Vishaan’s creative direction. His highly acclaimed book, A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America (Metropolis Books, 2013), argues that a more urban United States would result in a more prosperous, sustainable, joyous, and socially mobile nation.
From 2012 to 2015, Vishaan was a principal at SHoP Architects, where he co-led major architecture and urban design projects including the master plan and first building at the Domino Sugar site in Williamsburg as well as the master plan and first building at the Essex Crossing site at Seward Park, which together bookend the Williamsburg Bridge in a new form of mixed-use, mixed-income urbanism.
While serving under Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the director of the Manhattan Office for the New York Department of City Planning, Vishaan successfully collaborated on the now-realized efforts to save the High Line, rezone Hudson Yards, extend the #7 subway line, rebuild the East River Waterfront, expand the Columbia University campus, and reincorporate the street grid at the World Trade Center site after the events of 9/11. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley; a Master of City Planning degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and dual bachelor’s degrees in art history and engineering from Cornell University. He is a registered architect in the States of New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and is registered with NCARB.
Vishaan lectures internationally; contributes articles and op-ed’s to the New York Times, Crain’s Business, and other publications; has appeared on CBS Evening News, MSNBC’s TheCycle, Charlie Rose, National Public Radio, WNYC, and other television and radio programs; and was a main-stage speaker at TED 2018: The Age of Amazement and a featured speaker at TED Connects 2020: Build Back Better. He serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York, the Regional Planning Association, the Norman Foster Foundation, and The World Around. He is an emeritus board member of Friends of the High Line and an ex officio board member of the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Films Archive (BAMPFA). Vishaan is also a Mentor & Protégé for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, a member of the Young Leaders Forum of the National Council on US-China Relations and has served on the National Mayor’s Institute of City Design.
Brooke Hodge is an independent curator and writer. She served as Director of Architecture and Design at Palm Springs Art Museum from 2016-2020. Prior to joining PSAM, Hodge served as Deputy Director at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City for two years. From 2010-July 2014 she was Director of Exhibitions Management and Publications at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and from 2001 to 2009 she was Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, where she organized major exhibitions on the work of architect Frank Gehry and car designer J Mays, as well as Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture, a groundbreaking thematic exhibition that examined the relationship between contemporary fashion and architecture.
From 1991-2001, Hodge was Director of Exhibitions and Publications at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where she also held the positions of Adjunct Curator of Architecture at the Fogg Art Musezum and Assistant Dean of Arts Programs at the Graduate School of Design. At Harvard, she organized numerous exhibitions of the work of architects and designers, including Gio Ponti, Zaha Hadid, theater designer and artist Robert Wilson, and fashion designer Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons, among others. Holding a master’s degree in architectural history from the University of Virginia, Hodge has written extensively about art, design, and architecture for The New York Times T Magazine, as well as for other journals including Wallpaper*, Metropolis, Pin-Up, Palm Springs Life, and Cultured.
Dennis Woods has been a Palm Springs City Council member for District 2 since December 2019 after serving as chair of the Palm Springs Planning Commission. Dennis has over 25 years of award winning urban and transportation planning experience in Southern California working in both the private and public sectors. In Santa Monica, Dennis served as Chair of the City’s Sustainability Commission. Dennis was the brainchild behind the country’s first sustainable living street located in Santa Monica, Ca. Dennis managed the development and implementation of the Coachella Valley’s multi-million dollar Transportation Infrastructure Program as the Director of Transportation for the Coachella Valley Association of Governments. In addition to serving as a Councilmember, Dennis currently serves on the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, Coachella Valley Conservation Commission, and CVAG Energy & Environmental Resources Committee.
Lauren Weiss Bricker, Ph.D. is Interim Dean of the College of Environmental Design and Professor of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona where she co- coordinates the historic preservation program, and is director of the ENV Archives-Special Collections. She was a chair of the National Council for Historic Preservation and the California’s State Historical Resources Commission. She was the Clarkson Chair in Planning 2019, University at Buffalo. She writes on American architecture and historic preservation, and has curated several architectural exhibitions.
Most recently she contributed to Surveys and Inventories for Urban Heritage Management: Lessons from Los Angeles and Beyond (Getty, forthcoming) and World Histories of Architecture: the Emergence of a New Genre in the Nineteenth- Century (MIT Press, forthcoming). She is completing the book Designing the Modern American House.
Justice In Housing / Katie Swenson, Larry Scarpa, moderated by Kira Gould
Larry Scarpa...The work of Lawrence Scarpa has redefined the role of the architect to produce some of the most remarkable and exploratory work today. He does this, not by escaping the restrictions of practice, but by looking, questioning and reworking the very process of design and building. Each project appears as an opportunity to rethink the way things normally get done – with material, form, construction, even financing – and to subsequently redefine it to cull out to latent potentials – as Lawrence aptly describes: making the “ordinary extraordinary.” This produces entirely inventive work; work that is quite difficult to categorize. It is environmentally sustainable, but not ‘sustainable design;’ it employs new materials, digital practices and technologies, but is not ‘tech or digital;’ it is socially and community conscious, but not politically correct. Rather, it is deeply rooted in conditions of the everyday, and works with our perception and preconceptions to allow us to see things in new ways.
Mr. Scarpa has received more than 200 major design awards including twenty-one National AIA Awards, Architect Magazine’s HIVE 50 Innovator Award, 2017 National AIA Collaborative Achievement Award, 2017 AIA Los Angeles Chapter Gold Medal, 2018, 2016 & 2014 Architect Magazine’s Top 50 Architecture Firms (ranked 2nd, 4th and 9th respectively), 2015 AIA California Council Lifetime Achievement Award, 2014 Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, 2005 Record Houses, 2003 Record Interiors, 2003 Rudy Bruner Prize, five AIA COTE “Top Ten Green Building” Awards and was a finalist for the World Habitat Award, one of ten firms selected worldwide. In 2004 The Architectural League of New York selected him as an “Emerging Voice” in architecture. His work has been exhibited internationally including the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. He has been Featured in NEWSWEEK and appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2009 Interior Design Magazine honored him with their Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, his firm Brooks + Scarpa was awarded the National and State of California Architecture Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects.
He has taught and lectured at the university level at numerous schools. Since 2013 he has been on the faculty at the University of Southern California. He was also the 2012 Visiting Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, the 2011 and 2012 John Jerde Visiting Professor at the University of Southern California, the 2010 Ivan Smith Eminent Visiting Professor at the University of Florida, 2009 E. Fay Jones Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas, the 2008 Ruth and James Moore Visiting Professor at Washington University, the 2007 Eliel Saarinen Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, 2005 Max Fisher Visiting Professor at Taubman College of Architecture at the University of Michigan, 2004 Freidman Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a co-founder of Livable Places, Inc.; a nonprofit development and public policy organization dedicated to building mixed-use housing on under-utilized and problematic parcels of land. Most recently he co-founded the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute (AHDLI) to help develop more sustainable and livable communities.
Katie Swenson, Senior Principal, Boston, MA, USA...Katherine W. Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator. She is a Senior Principal of MASS Design Group, an international non-profit architecture firm whose mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity. Before joining MASS in early 2020, Swenson was vice president of Design & Sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit organization that invests more than $8 billion annually in community development. Katie’s work explores how critical design practice can and should promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities.
A member of the second class of the Enterprise Rose Fellowship, Swenson was tapped to grow and lead the program in 2007, after completing her fellowship with the Piedmont Housing Alliance in Charlottesville, Va. Under her leadership, Swenson recruited and mentored 85 fellows who are the next generation of leaders in architecture and community development. The Rose Fellowship has been showcased at the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the New York Center for Architecture, and the National Building Museum and been recognized by the American Institute of Architects for its groundbreaking work, receiving AIA Awards in 2017 and 2018 for Collaborative Achievement. Swenson founded the Charlottesville Community Design Center and has received numerous design and social innovation awards. Katie has 20 years of experience in the theoretical and practical application of design thinking and is a talented global public speaker and thought leader.
A prolific writer, she is releasing two books in the fall of 2020: Design with Love: At Home in America, and In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Kindness, both by Schiffer Publishing. In 2008, she co-authored Growing Urban Habitats: Seeking a Housing Development Model. She is a contributing author to Activist Architecture: Philosophy and Practice of Community Design and Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from The University of Virginia. Katie was a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is fluent in French and is the single mother of three spirited daughters.
Design with Love: At Home in America is an essay and photo book featuring the work of Rose Fellows from 2000 to the present by Katie Swenson. With photography by Harry Connolly, the book is a photojournalist dream and coffee table book documenting partnerships and innovations in design across the U.S. led by some of the most talented social entrepreneurs, architects, and community planners in the country. The book captures the lessons of 20 years of community-based development to create beautiful, well-designed affordable housing for some of America’s most vulnerable communities, from the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles to disinvested blocks of West Baltimore. These hopeful stories and photographs show how designers, social activists, and community members have worked together to improve justice and equity — even in the direst of circumstances of inequality, racism, and neglect.
For more information on Katie’s new book, click here.
Kira Gould, Allied AIA, LEED AP, is a writer, strategist, and convener dedicated to advancing design leadership, climate action, and climate justice. Through Kira Gould CONNECT, she provides strategic communications for leaders designing, developing, and building the sustainable future. Kira is a Senior Fellow with Architecture 2030 and serves on the national leadership group of the AIA Committee on the Environment (a group she served as chair in 2007). Kira co-authored Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design (2007) with Lance Hosey, and is co-host of the Design the Future podcast with Lindsay Baker for the Acuity Brands Women in Sustainability platform. Earlier work included directing communications for William McDonough + Partners and Gould Evans and serving as Managing Editor at Metropolis magazine. Kira believes that the best chance for our species to preserve the habitability of Earth is to listen to and learn from the wisdom of nature and indigenous people. She lives on land of the Ohlone and the Chochenyo (now Oakland, California) with her husband and son. She can be reached at kiragould@kiragould.com.
Landscapes for Leisure / Stephen Keylon
Stephen Keylon is an architectural historian who lives in Palm Springs, California, and writes and lectures about Southern California's historic designed landscapes. Steven is the past president of the California Garden & Landscape History Society and is the editor of their quarterly journal, Eden. Vice-president of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation, he has authored two books for PSPF, The Modern Architecture of Hugh Michael Kaptur and The Design of Herbert W. Burns.
Saving the Wild Spaces / Joan Taylor, Nickie McLaughlin and Jane Garrison - moderated by Sidney Williams
Joan Taylor Joan currently serves on the following:
• Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, Governing Board
• Friends of the Desert Mountains, Board
• Sierra Club California/Nevada Regional Desert Committee - Vice
•Chair and Energy Committee Chair • The Wildlands Conservancy, Board • Tahquitz Group of Sierra Club, Chair
Joan has been designated a stakeholder to represent local environmental interests on numerous multi-year regional planning efforts, including:
• Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, Public Advisory Group
• Santa Rosa Mountains National Scenic Area, Steering Committee • Bureau of Land Management Northern & Eastern Colorado Desert Plan Amendment, Issue Committee
• California Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, Stakeholder Committee
• California Salton Sea Management Plan, Long Range Planning Advisory Committee
Joan has advocated for California desert conservation since 1970. Among other things, she has:
• Been called to testify before congressional committees on mining, air quality, Salton Sea, and the California Desert Protection Act
• Led the Sierra Club campaign for designation of the three desert National Monuments: Santa Rosa and San Jacinto; Sand to Snow; and Mojave Trails National Monuments
• Set up more than 20 Sierra Club legal challenges, including ones to protect Oswit Canyon, Chino Canyon, Tacheva Canyon, Big Morongo Canyon, plus numerous other sensitive desert habitats and species
• Drafted the successful petition to list Peninsular bighorn sheep as an endangered species
Joan has been board member or commissioner of numerous organizations: • Desert Riders (and Desert Riders Trails Fund)
• Desert Protective Council
• Santa Rosa Mountains Conservancy
• Coachella Valley Trails Committee
• Friends of the Indian Canyons
• Palm Springs Parks, Open Space and Trails Commission • Riverside County Parks Commission
• Save Our Mountains
• Palm Springs Sustainability Commission Advocacy
Personal: Joan has been a year-round resident of Palm Springs since 1966. She has been married for 45 years to the Hon. Robert G Taylor (Ret.). Joan and Rob have three children and five grandchildren.
Nickie McLaughlin moved from London to Palm Springs in 1988 and became part of the modern movement in the mid 90’s through the many connections made during her years as manager of the 1952 William Cody hotel, L’Horizon.
An avid preservationist of both mid century modern architecture and the surrounding hillsides and mountains of Palm Springs, she joined PS ModCom in 1999 and currently serves as Executive Director.
Nickie is also Chair of Friends of Palm Springs Mountains who have fought for the preservation of Chino Canyon, the entryway to Palm Springs, from massive developments that were approved by former city mayors and councils. In an effort to save the area she also co-produced and directed the film Voices of the Canyon, which was entered into the 2007 PS Short Film Festival and worked on the "No on Shadowrock" referendum that resulted in a resounding victory from the voters to stop destruction of our moutains and hillsides.
Nickie also served as the Executive Director for Modernism week, of which she is a founding member.
Jane Garrison...Oswit Canyon is a spectacular Canyon located in South Palm Springs. It is home to the endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep and countless other animals and birds. It is a popular hiking spot for residents and visitors. Jane launched the campaign to save Oswit Canyon after hearing about a developer's disastrous plan to build several hundred homes and a flood system across the mountain as long as the empire State building is tall.
Jane led the charge for almost five years to protect and purchase the canyon and founded Save Oswit Canyon, inc.(soon to be Oswit Land Trust.) She held rallies, spoke at City council and planning commission meetings, launched a city wide initiative, petitioned the court for a legal challenge, negotiated with the developers, found possible grant money to purchase the canyon and more! Despite the constant challenges, she never took her eye off the prize of preserving the canyon. In June is 2019, the developers finally agreed to sell and Jane went on to raise a million dollars to contribute toward the purchase. In November 2020, Save Oswit Canyon closed escrow on the purchase of Oswit canyon and the land is now forever safe from any destruction or development.
Although new to land protection, Jane has been an advocate for animals for almost 25 years. In fact, she is often a guest on CNN as their Animal Specialist. Some of her highlights over the years include heading up the animal rescue in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. During this time she coordinated hundreds of volunteers a day and personally rescued nearly 2,000 animals with her own hands. Her work for this effort was the focus of two specials on Animal Planet and a special on National Geographic.
She was also one of 10 people featured in a book titled "The Heroes of Hurricane Katrina". Jane worked for many years as an Elephant Specialist. During that time she lived in Africa for 3 months, working to free 30 baby elephants who were captured from the wild and were being tortured to prepare them for zoos. She was successful in getting 23 of those baby elephants back into the wild. She also spent time in Thailand exposing elephant cruelty and working with the Thai government on regulations to protect elephants. She wrote part of a book published by Smithsonian regarding ethics and elephants. Jane is one of the few people who can say she rescued and transported a baboon, 2 wolves, a bear, a coyote and 2 African Lions! These animals were living in appalling conditions with a circus and she convinced the circus owner to let her have them. She transported each of them to sanctuaries where are they are living out their lives in peace.
Just this past year, Jane was awarded the Humanitarian of the Year award through the United Nations Association.
Jane has now been bitten by the bug to save land. It has now become her life's mission and she is working on several projects to conserve land in the Coachella valley. She believes the only way to truly save wildlife is to protect their dwindling habitat. Follow her projects at www.oswitlandtrust.org and www.mesquitedesertpreserve.org
Jane believes you can accomplish anything you set your mind to if you don't give up.
Sidney Williams
Education has always been at the core of Sidney’s life as a parent of students in Palm Springs Unified, as an educator and curator, and now in retirement, as a mentor in the SMART program and board member of The Foundation. Sidney received her BA in art history from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and her master’s degree in art history from UCLA.
After moving to Palm Springs in 1973, she spent most of her professional life working at the Palm Springs Art Museum. She served as director of education and public programs for nine years before assuming the position of the curator of architecture and design. Sidney curated numerous exhibitions with accompanying catalogs and established the Architecture and Design Council with its robust programming. In 2014 the Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, opened in the restored Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan building and she was the founding curator. She served on the City of Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board for six years, three as chair. Currently she is a task force member of the Palm Springs Architectural Alliance that seeks to educate the community on Palm Springs’s architectural legacy and to promote excellence in contemporary architecture.
Monarch Homes and the Desert Aids Project / Maria Song
Maria Song, AIA, LEED AP is the president and principal architect of Interactive Design Corporation based in Palm Springs. She began her career in Boston and moved to California, where she worked her way from designer to Principal of Interactive Design Corporation thanks to the opportunities offered by the mentorship and leadership of reknowned architect Reuel Young, AIA and founder of IDC. She became a LEED AP at the program’s inception and continues to lead Coachella Valley in sustainability and green building.
Ms. Song was Project Architect on the Palm Desert Visitor Center (currently Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert), the first LEED-certified (Silver) commercial building; and Wolff Waters Place in La Quinta, the first LEED-certified (Gold and Silver) multi-family building in the Valley. She is co-author of the Green For Life manual and Guide to Net Zero Energy, both for the Coachella Valley Association of Governments. She currently serves as Director of AIA California’s Desert Chapter and on the City of Palm Springs Planning Commission.
Philosophy
Ms. Song’s collaborative and contextual approach to architecture stems from a multi-cultural background and experiences—born in South Korea, raised in Argentina, and educated in the United States and Italy while blessed to live and practice in the Coachella Valley, rich with architectural history and styles. Three essentials to her practice:
Big Picture & Collaboration
Ms. Song thrives in the tension innate to the Dualism of architecture: leading with the big picture while lining up details; guiding and diving into design and production with the team. Her foresight for anticipating challenges manages strains between multiple disciplines while transforming many facets of a project into a harmonious whole. To that end, she is involved in all aspects of project development—from programming to construction site walk to improvement of the built environment. Her projects are the result of clear communication, collaboration, and learning from one another.
Contextual Design
It is vital to pay respects to designers who came before. Ms. Song’s design process considers the historical and current context of the environment to integrate elements of the past with present trends. Her iconography of architecture style varies from Spanish Mission Revival to Midcentury Modern to Craftsman style because there is no predetermined architectural style. The site and its context shape the design to come. It is only then the dialogue of buildings, neighborhoods, towns, and cities continue, and the story is better told.
Social Responsibility & Stewardship
The core of her firm’s works is affordable and special needs housing with an aesthetic flair. Creating affordable, sustainable, and well-designed housing with equitable access to resources and community is her passion. It is her dedicated belief that a safe, beautiful home is a basic human right. Ms. Song’s choice of projects and design reflects this responsibility.
Website:
http://www.interactivedesigncorp.com
BODE: Reimagining Hotel and Vacation Rental Trends / Dan Spencer, Lance O'Donnell
Dan Spencer, AIA, has an extensive 45 year background in Architecture, Urban Design, and Non-Profit/Arts Community Leadership. Many of his projects are located in the upper Midwest, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where the majority of his projects are schools, medical facilities, corporate environments, commercial/multiuse developments, along with dozens of residences and lake homes. His early residential designs in Palm Springs were completed 20 years ago, and he continues to expand his significant residential work and urban design efforts.
Since arriving in Palm Springs, he has continued his focus on community efforts as President of the AIACDC (American Institute of Architects – California Desert Chapter), Founding Member of the Palm Springs Architecture Alliance, Vice-President of The Foundation for Palm Springs Unified School District, Past Chair of the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Council, and a Founder of the Palm Springs Architecture and Design Center.
Lance O’Donnell and o2 Architecture are dedicated to discovering the essence of place. Our work engages thesenses and intellect with a poetic connection to site and rigorous environmentally crafted modernism. To this end, sustainable design has always been pursued as a continuous thread woven throughout the design process. Each
project is taken as an opportunity to engage an iterative process with our clients while embracing there site's natural beauty and seasonally demanding natural forces--sun, wind, light, water, earth. We recognize these forces as simply daily and seasonal patterns that can allow intelligent design to harmonize with place. Embedded in our process are immersive explorations into modern technology, systems, products and finishes. We advocate a participatory and collaborative design process between client, builders, specialists, and architectural team, from conceptualization through realization.
Born and raised in the Palm Springs area, Mr. O’Donnell has concentrated his professional activities in developing the frontiers of sustainable modern design. He has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects and the California Energy Commission as one of the innovative leaders in sustainable and resilient building design. His award winning work has been published locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
The Rediscovery of Palm Springs / J R Roberts and Lisa Middleton
J.R. Roberts is a respected authority on architecture and a long-time resident of Palm Springs who was elected to and served a four-year term on the Palm Springs City Council
Prior to serving as Councilman and Vice Mayor for the City of Palm Springs, Roberts served on the Palm Springs Planning Commission and was the former Managing Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum’s internationally renowned Architecture and Design Center. He also served as the Chairman of the museum’s Architecture and Design Council and served as Vice President of the Palm Springs Modern Committee. Roberts is well known in the world of architecture and design for preserving and restoring mid-century modern homes and commercial buildings, including the City’s famed Edris House and the former Lawrence Welk residence, which Roberts extensively renovated and both are now designated as Class One Historic Sites.
Roberts attended UCLA and worked for individual clients before spending 12 years as a partner with Boccardo Roberts Architecture Design. Prior to moving to Palm Springs, Roberts served as Mayor and a member of the Sausalito City Council.
Lisa Middleton is a member of the Palm Springs, California City Council becoming in November 2017 the first transgender person elected to a political office in the State of California.
In May 2019, she was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) Board of Directors. CalPERS serves over two million members for retirement, half million members for healthcare and invests assets in excess of $350 billion dollars.
She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Equality California Institute and Desert LGBT Center.
She served for 36 years with the State of California Compensation Insurance Fund, retiring as the Senior Vice President of Internal Affairs.
Lisa is a graduate of UCLA and USC.
Lisa and her wife Cheryl have been together for over 20 years and were married in July 2013. She is the proud parent of two adult children, both of whom are accomplished educators in Southern California.
Christy Holstege was elected to the Palm Springs City Council in November 2017 to serve a four-year term. Christy currently represents the City of Palm Springs as the Chair of the Coachella Valley Association of Government’s Homelessness Committee and is also the City’s liaison to the Friends of the Palm Springs Animal Shelter. In addition, she serves on the City Council’s Homelessness and Affordable Housing Subcommittee.
An attorney, prior to being elected to the Palm Springs City Council, Christy was awarded a Stanford Law School-Stanford Public Interest Foundation Fellowship and funding to establish a legal aid clinic for domestic violence survivors within the Coachella Valley’s only domestic violence shelter. Christy has also represented farmworkers in civil rights, housing, and employment litigation at California Rural Legal Assistance in Coachella, California. Christy earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from U.C. Santa Barbara.
Christy has been an active member of the Palm Springs community, serving on the board of directors for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, Well in the Desert, Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, and Shadylane Mobilehome Park. She also served on the City of Palm Springs Human Rights Commission and the Palm Springs Homelessness Task Force.
Christy is proud to live in Palm Springs with her husband Adam Gilbert, who is a business owner and a third-generation resident of Palm Springs, and their dogs Layla and Ollie. They live in Sonora Sunrise neighborhood in a home that their family has resided in for over 45 years.
Speaker Introductions...Geoff Kors
Geoff Kors Geoff Kors serves on the City Council for the City of Palm Springs, having first been elected to the City Council in 2015 and re-elected in 2019. As a member of the City Council, Geoff has drafted ordinances and worked to advance financial stability, small business growth, historic preservation, gun safety, equal benefits, civil rights, ethics and government reform, and environmental sustainability. Geoff works to promote tourism and locally owned businesses and serves as the City’s liaison to the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce, Palm Springs Hospitality Association, P.S. Resorts, Main Street, and Arenas District Merchants Association. Geoff was elected in 2020 as Chair of the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau.
A graduate of Stanford Law School, Geoff has had a distinguished career working for non-profits and government, focusing on policy and law. Geoff served for nine years as Executive Director of Equality California where he led the effort to transform California from a state with almost no legal protections for the LGBTQ community to the state with the broadest protections in the nation. Under his leadership, Equality California also advocated for non-discrimination protections for people living with HIV/AIDS and funding for HIV/AIDS organizations and patients. During his tenure, Geoff helped pass more than 70 bills, many of which he conceived of and drafted. In 2009, Geoff opened Equality California’s Palm Springs office, marking the first time a statewide or national LGBTQ rights organization provided an office and field/education staff in the Desert.
Geoff’s experience includes representing local government as a lawyer, working as a senior legislative staffer for a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors/City Council, and serving as an Assistant Regional Counsel for the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Geoff is the architect and author of San Francisco’s (first in the nation) equal benefits ordinance which is credited with dramatically expending health insurance for LGBTQ employees. Geoff led the ACLU of Illinois Gay and Lesbian Rights and AIDS and Civil Liberties Projects where he won key court cases prohibiting dentists from discriminating against patients with HIV, ending the Chicago Police Department’s practice of testing and refusing to hire HV positive recruits and securing the first co-parent adoption for a same-sex couple. He also served as Government Policy Director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights where he spearheaded work on local, state and federal legislation and government policy and focused on efforts to ban conversion therapy and expand non-discrimination protections.
Geoff has been an active member of the Palm Springs community and currently serves as Vice-President on the Board of the Palm Springs Boys and Girls Club. Geoff previously served on the national board of directors of Freedom to Marry and on the board and as PAC Chair for the SF League of Conservation Voters.
Geoff is a member of the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce, Desert Business Association, Mizell Senior Center Stars Club, Desert AIDS Project Partners for Life, AIDS Assistance Project Angel, Palm Springs Museum Theater Council, PS Mod Com Preservation Partner, HRC Federal Club, Equality California Capitol Club and many other community organizations.
Keynote / Vishaan Chakrabarti and Panelists Brooke Hodge, Dennis Woods and Lauren Bricker
Vishaan Chakrabarti FAIA FRAIC With over twenty-five years of proven experience authoring and implementing visionary design, Vishaan Chakrabarti is the Founder and Creative Director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU). Simultaneously, he is the William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. PAU will as a consequence open a California office in tandem with its existing New York studio, both of which will continue under Vishaan’s creative direction. His highly acclaimed book, A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America (Metropolis Books, 2013), argues that a more urban United States would result in a more prosperous, sustainable, joyous, and socially mobile nation.
From 2012 to 2015, Vishaan was a principal at SHoP Architects, where he co-led major architecture and urban design projects including the master plan and first building at the Domino Sugar site in Williamsburg as well as the master plan and first building at the Essex Crossing site at Seward Park, which together bookend the Williamsburg Bridge in a new form of mixed-use, mixed-income urbanism.
While serving under Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the director of the Manhattan Office for the New York Department of City Planning, Vishaan successfully collaborated on the now-realized efforts to save the High Line, rezone Hudson Yards, extend the #7 subway line, rebuild the East River Waterfront, expand the Columbia University campus, and reincorporate the street grid at the World Trade Center site after the events of 9/11. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley; a Master of City Planning degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and dual bachelor’s degrees in art history and engineering from Cornell University. He is a registered architect in the States of New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and is registered with NCARB.
Vishaan lectures internationally; contributes articles and op-ed’s to the New York Times, Crain’s Business, and other publications; has appeared on CBS Evening News, MSNBC’s TheCycle, Charlie Rose, National Public Radio, WNYC, and other television and radio programs; and was a main-stage speaker at TED 2018: The Age of Amazement and a featured speaker at TED Connects 2020: Build Back Better. He serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York, the Regional Planning Association, the Norman Foster Foundation, and The World Around. He is an emeritus board member of Friends of the High Line and an ex officio board member of the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Films Archive (BAMPFA). Vishaan is also a Mentor & Protégé for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, a member of the Young Leaders Forum of the National Council on US-China Relations and has served on the National Mayor’s Institute of City Design.
Brooke Hodge is an independent curator and writer. She served as Director of Architecture and Design at Palm Springs Art Museum from 2016-2020. Prior to joining PSAM, Hodge served as Deputy Director at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City for two years. From 2010-July 2014 she was Director of Exhibitions Management and Publications at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and from 2001 to 2009 she was Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, where she organized major exhibitions on the work of architect Frank Gehry and car designer J Mays, as well as Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture, a groundbreaking thematic exhibition that examined the relationship between contemporary fashion and architecture.
From 1991-2001, Hodge was Director of Exhibitions and Publications at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where she also held the positions of Adjunct Curator of Architecture at the Fogg Art Musezum and Assistant Dean of Arts Programs at the Graduate School of Design. At Harvard, she organized numerous exhibitions of the work of architects and designers, including Gio Ponti, Zaha Hadid, theater designer and artist Robert Wilson, and fashion designer Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons, among others. Holding a master’s degree in architectural history from the University of Virginia, Hodge has written extensively about art, design, and architecture for The New York Times T Magazine, as well as for other journals including Wallpaper*, Metropolis, Pin-Up, Palm Springs Life, and Cultured.
Dennis Woods has been a Palm Springs City Council member for District 2 since December 2019 after serving as chair of the Palm Springs Planning Commission. Dennis has over 25 years of award winning urban and transportation planning experience in Southern California working in both the private and public sectors. In Santa Monica, Dennis served as Chair of the City’s Sustainability Commission. Dennis was the brainchild behind the country’s first sustainable living street located in Santa Monica, Ca. Dennis managed the development and implementation of the Coachella Valley’s multi-million dollar Transportation Infrastructure Program as the Director of Transportation for the Coachella Valley Association of Governments. In addition to serving as a Councilmember, Dennis currently serves on the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, Coachella Valley Conservation Commission, and CVAG Energy & Environmental Resources Committee.
Lauren Weiss Bricker, Ph.D. is Interim Dean of the College of Environmental Design and Professor of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona where she co- coordinates the historic preservation program, and is director of the ENV Archives-Special Collections. She was a chair of the National Council for Historic Preservation and the California’s State Historical Resources Commission. She was the Clarkson Chair in Planning 2019, University at Buffalo. She writes on American architecture and historic preservation, and has curated several architectural exhibitions.
Most recently she contributed to Surveys and Inventories for Urban Heritage Management: Lessons from Los Angeles and Beyond (Getty, forthcoming) and World Histories of Architecture: the Emergence of a New Genre in the Nineteenth- Century (MIT Press, forthcoming). She is completing the book Designing the Modern American House.
Justice In Housing / Katie Swenson, Larry Scarpa, moderated by Kira Gould
Larry Scarpa...The work of Lawrence Scarpa has redefined the role of the architect to produce some of the most remarkable and exploratory work today. He does this, not by escaping the restrictions of practice, but by looking, questioning and reworking the very process of design and building. Each project appears as an opportunity to rethink the way things normally get done – with material, form, construction, even financing – and to subsequently redefine it to cull out to latent potentials – as Lawrence aptly describes: making the “ordinary extraordinary.” This produces entirely inventive work; work that is quite difficult to categorize. It is environmentally sustainable, but not ‘sustainable design;’ it employs new materials, digital practices and technologies, but is not ‘tech or digital;’ it is socially and community conscious, but not politically correct. Rather, it is deeply rooted in conditions of the everyday, and works with our perception and preconceptions to allow us to see things in new ways.
Mr. Scarpa has received more than 200 major design awards including twenty-one National AIA Awards, Architect Magazine’s HIVE 50 Innovator Award, 2017 National AIA Collaborative Achievement Award, 2017 AIA Los Angeles Chapter Gold Medal, 2018, 2016 & 2014 Architect Magazine’s Top 50 Architecture Firms (ranked 2nd, 4th and 9th respectively), 2015 AIA California Council Lifetime Achievement Award, 2014 Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, 2005 Record Houses, 2003 Record Interiors, 2003 Rudy Bruner Prize, five AIA COTE “Top Ten Green Building” Awards and was a finalist for the World Habitat Award, one of ten firms selected worldwide. In 2004 The Architectural League of New York selected him as an “Emerging Voice” in architecture. His work has been exhibited internationally including the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. He has been Featured in NEWSWEEK and appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2009 Interior Design Magazine honored him with their Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, his firm Brooks + Scarpa was awarded the National and State of California Architecture Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects.
He has taught and lectured at the university level at numerous schools. Since 2013 he has been on the faculty at the University of Southern California. He was also the 2012 Visiting Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, the 2011 and 2012 John Jerde Visiting Professor at the University of Southern California, the 2010 Ivan Smith Eminent Visiting Professor at the University of Florida, 2009 E. Fay Jones Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas, the 2008 Ruth and James Moore Visiting Professor at Washington University, the 2007 Eliel Saarinen Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, 2005 Max Fisher Visiting Professor at Taubman College of Architecture at the University of Michigan, 2004 Freidman Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a co-founder of Livable Places, Inc.; a nonprofit development and public policy organization dedicated to building mixed-use housing on under-utilized and problematic parcels of land. Most recently he co-founded the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute (AHDLI) to help develop more sustainable and livable communities.
Katie Swenson, Senior Principal, Boston, MA, USA...Katherine W. Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator. She is a Senior Principal of MASS Design Group, an international non-profit architecture firm whose mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity. Before joining MASS in early 2020, Swenson was vice president of Design & Sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit organization that invests more than $8 billion annually in community development. Katie’s work explores how critical design practice can and should promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities.
A member of the second class of the Enterprise Rose Fellowship, Swenson was tapped to grow and lead the program in 2007, after completing her fellowship with the Piedmont Housing Alliance in Charlottesville, Va. Under her leadership, Swenson recruited and mentored 85 fellows who are the next generation of leaders in architecture and community development. The Rose Fellowship has been showcased at the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the New York Center for Architecture, and the National Building Museum and been recognized by the American Institute of Architects for its groundbreaking work, receiving AIA Awards in 2017 and 2018 for Collaborative Achievement. Swenson founded the Charlottesville Community Design Center and has received numerous design and social innovation awards. Katie has 20 years of experience in the theoretical and practical application of design thinking and is a talented global public speaker and thought leader.
A prolific writer, she is releasing two books in the fall of 2020: Design with Love: At Home in America, and In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Kindness, both by Schiffer Publishing. In 2008, she co-authored Growing Urban Habitats: Seeking a Housing Development Model. She is a contributing author to Activist Architecture: Philosophy and Practice of Community Design and Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from The University of Virginia. Katie was a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is fluent in French and is the single mother of three spirited daughters.
Design with Love: At Home in America is an essay and photo book featuring the work of Rose Fellows from 2000 to the present by Katie Swenson. With photography by Harry Connolly, the book is a photojournalist dream and coffee table book documenting partnerships and innovations in design across the U.S. led by some of the most talented social entrepreneurs, architects, and community planners in the country. The book captures the lessons of 20 years of community-based development to create beautiful, well-designed affordable housing for some of America’s most vulnerable communities, from the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles to disinvested blocks of West Baltimore. These hopeful stories and photographs show how designers, social activists, and community members have worked together to improve justice and equity — even in the direst of circumstances of inequality, racism, and neglect.
For more information on Katie’s new book, click here.
Kira Gould, Allied AIA, LEED AP, is a writer, strategist, and convener dedicated to advancing design leadership, climate action, and climate justice. Through Kira Gould CONNECT, she provides strategic communications for leaders designing, developing, and building the sustainable future. Kira is a Senior Fellow with Architecture 2030 and serves on the national leadership group of the AIA Committee on the Environment (a group she served as chair in 2007). Kira co-authored Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design (2007) with Lance Hosey, and is co-host of the Design the Future podcast with Lindsay Baker for the Acuity Brands Women in Sustainability platform. Earlier work included directing communications for William McDonough + Partners and Gould Evans and serving as Managing Editor at Metropolis magazine. Kira believes that the best chance for our species to preserve the habitability of Earth is to listen to and learn from the wisdom of nature and indigenous people. She lives on land of the Ohlone and the Chochenyo (now Oakland, California) with her husband and son. She can be reached at kiragould@kiragould.com.
Landscapes for Leisure / Stephen Keylon
Stephen Keylon is an architectural historian who lives in Palm Springs, California, and writes and lectures about Southern California's historic designed landscapes. Steven is the past president of the California Garden & Landscape History Society and is the editor of their quarterly journal, Eden. Vice-president of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation, he has authored two books for PSPF, The Modern Architecture of Hugh Michael Kaptur and The Design of Herbert W. Burns.
Saving the Wild Spaces / Joan Taylor, Nickie McLaughlin and Jane Garrison - moderated by Sidney Williams
Joan Taylor Joan currently serves on the following:
• Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, Governing Board
• Friends of the Desert Mountains, Board
• Sierra Club California/Nevada Regional Desert Committee - Vice
•Chair and Energy Committee Chair • The Wildlands Conservancy, Board • Tahquitz Group of Sierra Club, Chair
Joan has been designated a stakeholder to represent local environmental interests on numerous multi-year regional planning efforts, including:
• Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, Public Advisory Group
• Santa Rosa Mountains National Scenic Area, Steering Committee • Bureau of Land Management Northern & Eastern Colorado Desert Plan Amendment, Issue Committee
• California Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, Stakeholder Committee
• California Salton Sea Management Plan, Long Range Planning Advisory Committee
Joan has advocated for California desert conservation since 1970. Among other things, she has:
• Been called to testify before congressional committees on mining, air quality, Salton Sea, and the California Desert Protection Act
• Led the Sierra Club campaign for designation of the three desert National Monuments: Santa Rosa and San Jacinto; Sand to Snow; and Mojave Trails National Monuments
• Set up more than 20 Sierra Club legal challenges, including ones to protect Oswit Canyon, Chino Canyon, Tacheva Canyon, Big Morongo Canyon, plus numerous other sensitive desert habitats and species
• Drafted the successful petition to list Peninsular bighorn sheep as an endangered species
Joan has been board member or commissioner of numerous organizations: • Desert Riders (and Desert Riders Trails Fund)
• Desert Protective Council
• Santa Rosa Mountains Conservancy
• Coachella Valley Trails Committee
• Friends of the Indian Canyons
• Palm Springs Parks, Open Space and Trails Commission • Riverside County Parks Commission
• Save Our Mountains
• Palm Springs Sustainability Commission Advocacy
Personal: Joan has been a year-round resident of Palm Springs since 1966. She has been married for 45 years to the Hon. Robert G Taylor (Ret.). Joan and Rob have three children and five grandchildren.
Nickie McLaughlin moved from London to Palm Springs in 1988 and became part of the modern movement in the mid 90’s through the many connections made during her years as manager of the 1952 William Cody hotel, L’Horizon.
An avid preservationist of both mid century modern architecture and the surrounding hillsides and mountains of Palm Springs, she joined PS ModCom in 1999 and currently serves as Executive Director.
Nickie is also Chair of Friends of Palm Springs Mountains who have fought for the preservation of Chino Canyon, the entryway to Palm Springs, from massive developments that were approved by former city mayors and councils. In an effort to save the area she also co-produced and directed the film Voices of the Canyon, which was entered into the 2007 PS Short Film Festival and worked on the "No on Shadowrock" referendum that resulted in a resounding victory from the voters to stop destruction of our moutains and hillsides.
Nickie also served as the Executive Director for Modernism week, of which she is a founding member.
Jane Garrison...Oswit Canyon is a spectacular Canyon located in South Palm Springs. It is home to the endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep and countless other animals and birds. It is a popular hiking spot for residents and visitors. Jane launched the campaign to save Oswit Canyon after hearing about a developer's disastrous plan to build several hundred homes and a flood system across the mountain as long as the empire State building is tall.
Jane led the charge for almost five years to protect and purchase the canyon and founded Save Oswit Canyon, inc.(soon to be Oswit Land Trust.) She held rallies, spoke at City council and planning commission meetings, launched a city wide initiative, petitioned the court for a legal challenge, negotiated with the developers, found possible grant money to purchase the canyon and more! Despite the constant challenges, she never took her eye off the prize of preserving the canyon. In June is 2019, the developers finally agreed to sell and Jane went on to raise a million dollars to contribute toward the purchase. In November 2020, Save Oswit Canyon closed escrow on the purchase of Oswit canyon and the land is now forever safe from any destruction or development.
Although new to land protection, Jane has been an advocate for animals for almost 25 years. In fact, she is often a guest on CNN as their Animal Specialist. Some of her highlights over the years include heading up the animal rescue in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. During this time she coordinated hundreds of volunteers a day and personally rescued nearly 2,000 animals with her own hands. Her work for this effort was the focus of two specials on Animal Planet and a special on National Geographic.
She was also one of 10 people featured in a book titled "The Heroes of Hurricane Katrina". Jane worked for many years as an Elephant Specialist. During that time she lived in Africa for 3 months, working to free 30 baby elephants who were captured from the wild and were being tortured to prepare them for zoos. She was successful in getting 23 of those baby elephants back into the wild. She also spent time in Thailand exposing elephant cruelty and working with the Thai government on regulations to protect elephants. She wrote part of a book published by Smithsonian regarding ethics and elephants. Jane is one of the few people who can say she rescued and transported a baboon, 2 wolves, a bear, a coyote and 2 African Lions! These animals were living in appalling conditions with a circus and she convinced the circus owner to let her have them. She transported each of them to sanctuaries where are they are living out their lives in peace.
Just this past year, Jane was awarded the Humanitarian of the Year award through the United Nations Association.
Jane has now been bitten by the bug to save land. It has now become her life's mission and she is working on several projects to conserve land in the Coachella valley. She believes the only way to truly save wildlife is to protect their dwindling habitat. Follow her projects at www.oswitlandtrust.org and www.mesquitedesertpreserve.org
Jane believes you can accomplish anything you set your mind to if you don't give up.
Sidney Williams
Education has always been at the core of Sidney’s life as a parent of students in Palm Springs Unified, as an educator and curator, and now in retirement, as a mentor in the SMART program and board member of The Foundation. Sidney received her BA in art history from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and her master’s degree in art history from UCLA.
After moving to Palm Springs in 1973, she spent most of her professional life working at the Palm Springs Art Museum. She served as director of education and public programs for nine years before assuming the position of the curator of architecture and design. Sidney curated numerous exhibitions with accompanying catalogs and established the Architecture and Design Council with its robust programming. In 2014 the Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, opened in the restored Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan building and she was the founding curator. She served on the City of Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board for six years, three as chair. Currently she is a task force member of the Palm Springs Architectural Alliance that seeks to educate the community on Palm Springs’s architectural legacy and to promote excellence in contemporary architecture.
Monarch Homes and the Desert Aids Project / Maria Song
Maria Song, AIA, LEED AP is the president and principal architect of Interactive Design Corporation based in Palm Springs. She began her career in Boston and moved to California, where she worked her way from designer to Principal of Interactive Design Corporation thanks to the opportunities offered by the mentorship and leadership of reknowned architect Reuel Young, AIA and founder of IDC. She became a LEED AP at the program’s inception and continues to lead Coachella Valley in sustainability and green building.
Ms. Song was Project Architect on the Palm Desert Visitor Center (currently Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert), the first LEED-certified (Silver) commercial building; and Wolff Waters Place in La Quinta, the first LEED-certified (Gold and Silver) multi-family building in the Valley. She is co-author of the Green For Life manual and Guide to Net Zero Energy, both for the Coachella Valley Association of Governments. She currently serves as Director of AIA California’s Desert Chapter and on the City of Palm Springs Planning Commission.
Philosophy
Ms. Song’s collaborative and contextual approach to architecture stems from a multi-cultural background and experiences—born in South Korea, raised in Argentina, and educated in the United States and Italy while blessed to live and practice in the Coachella Valley, rich with architectural history and styles. Three essentials to her practice:
Big Picture & Collaboration
Ms. Song thrives in the tension innate to the Dualism of architecture: leading with the big picture while lining up details; guiding and diving into design and production with the team. Her foresight for anticipating challenges manages strains between multiple disciplines while transforming many facets of a project into a harmonious whole. To that end, she is involved in all aspects of project development—from programming to construction site walk to improvement of the built environment. Her projects are the result of clear communication, collaboration, and learning from one another.
Contextual Design
It is vital to pay respects to designers who came before. Ms. Song’s design process considers the historical and current context of the environment to integrate elements of the past with present trends. Her iconography of architecture style varies from Spanish Mission Revival to Midcentury Modern to Craftsman style because there is no predetermined architectural style. The site and its context shape the design to come. It is only then the dialogue of buildings, neighborhoods, towns, and cities continue, and the story is better told.
Social Responsibility & Stewardship
The core of her firm’s works is affordable and special needs housing with an aesthetic flair. Creating affordable, sustainable, and well-designed housing with equitable access to resources and community is her passion. It is her dedicated belief that a safe, beautiful home is a basic human right. Ms. Song’s choice of projects and design reflects this responsibility.
Website:
http://www.interactivedesigncorp.com
BODE: Reimagining Hotel and Vacation Rental Trends / Dan Spencer, Lance O'Donnell
Dan Spencer, AIA, has an extensive 45 year background in Architecture, Urban Design, and Non-Profit/Arts Community Leadership. Many of his projects are located in the upper Midwest, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where the majority of his projects are schools, medical facilities, corporate environments, commercial/multiuse developments, along with dozens of residences and lake homes. His early residential designs in Palm Springs were completed 20 years ago, and he continues to expand his significant residential work and urban design efforts.
Since arriving in Palm Springs, he has continued his focus on community efforts as President of the AIACDC (American Institute of Architects – California Desert Chapter), Founding Member of the Palm Springs Architecture Alliance, Vice-President of The Foundation for Palm Springs Unified School District, Past Chair of the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Council, and a Founder of the Palm Springs Architecture and Design Center.
Lance O’Donnell and o2 Architecture are dedicated to discovering the essence of place. Our work engages thesenses and intellect with a poetic connection to site and rigorous environmentally crafted modernism. To this end, sustainable design has always been pursued as a continuous thread woven throughout the design process. Each
project is taken as an opportunity to engage an iterative process with our clients while embracing there site's natural beauty and seasonally demanding natural forces--sun, wind, light, water, earth. We recognize these forces as simply daily and seasonal patterns that can allow intelligent design to harmonize with place. Embedded in our process are immersive explorations into modern technology, systems, products and finishes. We advocate a participatory and collaborative design process between client, builders, specialists, and architectural team, from conceptualization through realization.
Born and raised in the Palm Springs area, Mr. O’Donnell has concentrated his professional activities in developing the frontiers of sustainable modern design. He has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects and the California Energy Commission as one of the innovative leaders in sustainable and resilient building design. His award winning work has been published locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
The Rediscovery of Palm Springs / J R Roberts and Lisa Middleton
J.R. Roberts is a respected authority on architecture and a long-time resident of Palm Springs who was elected to and served a four-year term on the Palm Springs City Council
Prior to serving as Councilman and Vice Mayor for the City of Palm Springs, Roberts served on the Palm Springs Planning Commission and was the former Managing Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum’s internationally renowned Architecture and Design Center. He also served as the Chairman of the museum’s Architecture and Design Council and served as Vice President of the Palm Springs Modern Committee. Roberts is well known in the world of architecture and design for preserving and restoring mid-century modern homes and commercial buildings, including the City’s famed Edris House and the former Lawrence Welk residence, which Roberts extensively renovated and both are now designated as Class One Historic Sites.
Roberts attended UCLA and worked for individual clients before spending 12 years as a partner with Boccardo Roberts Architecture Design. Prior to moving to Palm Springs, Roberts served as Mayor and a member of the Sausalito City Council.
Lisa Middleton is a member of the Palm Springs, California City Council becoming in November 2017 the first transgender person elected to a political office in the State of California.
In May 2019, she was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) Board of Directors. CalPERS serves over two million members for retirement, half million members for healthcare and invests assets in excess of $350 billion dollars.
She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Equality California Institute and Desert LGBT Center.
She served for 36 years with the State of California Compensation Insurance Fund, retiring as the Senior Vice President of Internal Affairs.
Lisa is a graduate of UCLA and USC.
Lisa and her wife Cheryl have been together for over 20 years and were married in July 2013. She is the proud parent of two adult children, both of whom are accomplished educators in Southern California.