Oct. 21, 2011
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Rick Cook
Founding Partner, Cook+Fox Architects
Over the past 25 years, Rick Cook has pioneered sustainable design within the dense urban context, specifically forwarding the advancement of natural, biophilic design principles in New York City. Rick leads the award-wining design studio Cook+Fox Architects with long-time friend and Partner Bob Fox. The firm is best known for its design of the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park – the first commercial skyscraper to receive LEED Platinum certification from the US Green Building Council and the second tallest building in New York City. His projects redefine the role of architecture to promote global citizenship and healthy living with a multi-generational focus. Rick is often invited to speak internationally, focusing on his expertise on low-impact design that forges a deep connection between humans and the natural world. In the summer of 2006, Rick and Bob joined green-building experts Bill Browning and Chris Garvin to form Terrapin Bright Green, a global strategic consulting firm that crafts high-performance environmental strategies for clients such as Interface, Google and the National Geographic Society.
Haas&Hahn
Artistic Creators, Favela Painting Project
Haas&Hahn is the working title of artistic duo Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn. They started working together in 2005, when they filmed a documentary about hip hop in the favelas of Rio and São Paolo for MTV. Inspired by this visit, they embarked on a journey to bring outrageous works of art to unexpected places, starting with painting enormous murals in the slums of Brazil together with the local youth.
Jeroen Koolhaas (Rotterdam, 1977) studied graphic design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and has been working as a freelance audio-visual designer and illustrator for the New Yorker magazine since graduation. Dre Urhahn (Amsterdam, 1973) has worked as a journalist, copywriter, and art-director and has set up successful companies specializing in different fields, from event management to television production.
Francisco Rodriguez-Caicedo
Conflict, Security and Development Consultant
Francisco Rodriguez-Caicedo recently finished his mission with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) where he advised the Police Component in strategic planning and community policing. Prior to this, Francisco coordinated several South-South security cooperation projects as International Affairs Advisor to Colombia’s Ministry of Defense. As Policy Advisor to the Presidential High Counsellor for Reintegration, he co-drafted the country’s National Reintegration Policy and led the office’s community-based reintegration initiatives aimed at enhancing the absorption capacity of receptor communities through infrastructural interventions. Francisco holds an MA in War Studies from King’s College London and a BA in Political Science from the Freie Universitaet Berlin.
Christopher Sharples
Founder Principal, SHoP Architects and SHoP Construction
Christopher Sharples received his Master of Architecture from Columbia University (1990). In 1988 he established SHoP Architects PC with his four partners in New York City. He has taught at Parsons School of Design, The City College, City University of New York, The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University and at the University of Virginia as Shure Professor of Architecture and as Louis I. Kahn Assistant Visiting Professor for Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture. Mr. Sharples is NCARB-certified and registered architect in the State of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and Washington D.C.
SHoP Architects was recently awarded the 2009 Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian Institute’s National Design Award in Architecture, the 2008 SBIC Beyond Green High Performance Building Award for their design of Garden street Lofts in Hoboken, NJ, and a 2007 Progressive Architecture (P/A) Award for their design of the East River Waterfront Park in Lower Manhattan. SHoP has also been recognized for their design of The Porter House in New York with a 2005 AIANY Housing Design Award, a 2005 AIANY Honor Award in Architecture, and a 2005 Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award. In addition, SHoP was awarded the 2001 Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the 2001 Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York and the 2003 Rave Award in Architecture from Wired Magazine. Their current work includes a two-mile waterfront park along New York’s East River, and projects for the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, and Google in Mountain View, CA, the Barclays Arena in Brooklyn NY, and Botswana Innovation Hub in Botswana Africa. Recently completed projects include Garden Street Lofts in Hoboken, NJ, Hangil Book House for the Heyri Art Valley in Seoul, South Korea, The Porter House in New York City, and SanLiTun in Beijing.
Oct. 22, 2011
1-2pm INVESTING IN SOCIAL AND SUSTAINABLE REAL ESTATE
Constantine Kontokosta
Clinical Associate Professor and Director, Center for the Sustainable Built Environment, NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate
Constantine Kontokosta, Ph.D., P.E., is the Founding Director of the NYU Center for the Sustainable Built Environment and a Clinical Associate Professor at the New York University Schack Institute of Real Estate. He serves on the Board of the United Nations Environment Programme Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the Urban Systems Collaborative. Constantine is a member of the Executive Team of the NYC Urban Technology Innovation Center (NYC UTIC), where he plays a critical role in advancing policy and finance issues relating to green building technologies. In addition to his academic responsibilities, Constantine is currently the Vice Chair of the Suffolk County Planning Commission, appointed in 2005 as the youngest member to serve on the Commission. Constantine is also the Principal and Founder of the KACE Group, a New York-based real estate development and investment firm that owns, manages, and develops a diverse portfolio of properties in the New York region, His current projects include an affordable modular housing development and a net-zero winery.
Constantine’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Fortune, Travel & Leisure, Robb Report, Green Real Estate Daily, Crain’s, and Commercial Mortgage Alert, among other media outlets. His research focuses on urban systems theory and smart cities, market transformation around climate change and energy efficiency, land use regulations and sustainable development policies, and technological innovation and economic competitiveness. He has presented his academic research at numerous conferences across the globe, and has published in leading scholarly journals. He holds a PhD in Urban Planning from Columbia University, an M.Phil and M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia, an M.S. in Real Estate Finance and Economics from New York University and a B.S.E. in Civil Engineering Systems from the University of Pennsylvania. He was recently named a Fulbright Senior Scholar in the field of Urban Planning.
David Devos
Global Director of Sustainability, Prudential Real Estate Investors
As the Global Director of Sustainability for Prudential Real Estate Investors, David leads PREI®’s Global Sustainability Committee and oversees its regional committees in the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia. He also works with organizations such as the United Nation sponsored Principles for Responsible Investing and the Greenprint Foundation to help guide PREI’s sustainability initiatives and goals. Formerly the Director of Corporate Sustainability for Kohl’s Department Stores, David also served on the Whole Building Design steering committee for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Retailer Energy Alliance and created a partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Under his direction, Kohl’s premiered some of the first LEED-Retail Certifications, certifying over 50 projects (4.5 million sq. ft.), including Silver and Gold level certifications.
Previous to Kohl’s, David was the Vice President of Store Design and Construction for the Follett Higher Education Group and Vice President of a commercial general contractor. David’s diverse corporate and retail credentials grant him an understating of construction from an owner’s, architect’s, and contractor’s point-of-view.David holds a Bachelor in Environmental Design degree and a professional Bachelor of Architecture degree, both from the University of Minnesota. His education was further supplemented with an M.B.A. from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is a LEED A.P
John Ducey
Vice President, Community Investment Partners at Calvert Foundation
John Ducey brings 23 years of community development experience to Community Investment Partners, a subsidiary of the Calvert Foundation. For the previous five years, John worked at Enterprise Community Investment Inc. (Enterprise). As a vice president there, he was responsible for the company's placement of equity for workforce housing and New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) investments targeted at mixed-use and commercial developments. These transactions comprised a national scope. While at Enterprise, John led the teams that applied for NMTC tax credit allocations for Round 7 and Round 8, and he was involved in the strategy and review of the Round 5 and Round 6 applications. John led the team that originated, structured and closed 20 NMTC transactions totaling $230 million in allocation. In 2011 he provided strategic and product development advice to four Community Development Entities that applied for $329 million in NMTC allocation.
John has been involved in originating, structuring and closing investments of more than $730 million to finance 1.8 million square feet of commercial development and over 15,400 units of housing. Prior to Enterprise, John spent four years with Prudential Mortgage Capital Company where he originated and structured $336 million in affordable housing loans. From 1999 until 2002, John was a vice president at Muni Mae (now MMA Financial). In that capacity, John originated and underwrote multifamily tax-exempt bond transactions and originated conventional construction loans as well as Fannie Mae permanent loans. Before joining Muni Mae, John spent five years with Enterprise as the manager of the Enterprise Loan Fund, and then structuring low-income housing tax credit transactions with the New York Equity Fund and the City of New York. John began his career as a community organizer in Southeast Washington, D.C. and as a developer of affordable housing, with SOME (So Others Might Eat). John holds a Bachelor degree in Finance from St. Bonaventure University and a Master of Public Policy with concentrations in Social Policy and Public Sector Financial Management from the University of Maryland, School of Public Policy.
Douglas Lawrence
Managing Principal, 5 Stone Green Capital LLC
Douglas has more than 25 years of commercial real estate industry experience. Prior to this role, he was a managing director at JPMorgan Asset Management-Global Real Assets. In his 12 years at JPMorganChase, he co-authored the investment thesis and served as the co-Portfolio Manager of the $180 million green real estate Urban Renaissance Property Fund. The Fund uniquely invested ONLY in sustainable real estate. Preceding this assignment, he was a Client Portfolio Manager for JPMorgan Asset Management where he was responsible for raising capital while also helping clients such as the pension plans of New York City, City of Baltimore, and Jacksonville Police and Fire design and implement their real estate strategies as a trusted fiduciary. He raised during his tenure more than $1.2 billion in new business for the firm.
Douglas obtained a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the University of Connecticut in International Business Finance. He is Chairman of the Real Estate Committee of the $500 million Abyssinian Development Corporation. He is a trustee of University of Connecticut Foundation and sits on both its Real Estate Committee and its Investment Committee. He also sits on the Board of Advisers of Rutgers Business School. His memberships and affiliations include or have included the Urban Land Institute, National Association of Securities Professionals, and NY-U.S. Green Building Council. Douglas holds FINRA series 7 & 63 licenses. He is a frequent speaker on topics related to sustainability, real estate and
the economy.
Marc Norman
Vice President, Community Development Finance Group at Deutsche Bank
Marc Norman is a Vice President at Deutsche Bank in its Community Development Finance Group. In this position, Marc provides loans and investments to organizations serving low income communities throughout the U.S. With a Masters degree in Urban Planning from U.C.L.A., Marc has over 15 years of experience in the field of affordable housing development and finance. Having worked for both for-profit and non-profit developers, investors, and lenders, Marc has seen community development from every angle. Prior to his current position at Deutsche Bank he was a Managing Director at Duvernay Brooks, a real estate development and consulting firm in New York City which specializes in helping governmental agencies and private developers execute mixed income, mixed use urban revitalization. Marc serves and multiple boards and has lectured on real estate development and public private collaborations at numerous conferences and Universities. In addition to professional endeavors he is an avid cyclist and hiker.
Jason Schupbach is the Design Director for the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversees all design grantmaking and partnerships. Previous to his current position, Jason served as the Creative Economy and Information Technology Industry Director at the Massachusetts Department of Business Development. In this job he focused on the nexus of creativity, innovation and technology to grow the innovation industries cluster in the state, including software, hardware, film, tv, digital media, videogames, design, advertising, music, and publishing businesses. He formerly was the director of ArtistLink, a Ford Foundation initiative to stabilize and revitalize communities through the creation of affordable space and innovative environments for creative entrepreneurs. Jason worked for the mayor’s office and Department of Cultural Affairs in Chicago, and he was the staff urban planner and capital projects manager for the Department of Cultural Affairs in New York City.
3-4pm DISASTER RESPONSE AND RECONSTRUCTION
Tom Darden
Executive Director, Make It Right Foundation
Tom Darden is the Executive Director of the Make It Right Foundation, the organization founded by actor Brad Pitt to build 150 affordable, green, high design homes in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Tom oversees a staff of engineers, builders, landscape architects, homeownership counselors and community organizers. He has worked with the Make It Right Board to raise over $36 million from more than 31,000 donors, managed the design process with 21 architectural firms and completed 75 homes, all of which have been or have applied to be certified LEED Platinum by the U. S. Green Building Council.
Tom received a B.A. with Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Benjamin Krause
Country Director, J/P Haitian Relief Organization
Benjamin Krause is Country Director of J/P Haitian Relief Organization (J/P HRO), the NGO Sean Penn founded in response to the January 2010 earthquake. His team manages two camps home to more than 20,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the heart of Port-au-Prince working to ensure that these camps are as safe as possible while supporting families’ working towards durable, sustainable housing options. As a result, J/P HRO has become an innovative and effective leader during the earthquake response in the areas of Camp and Relocations Management, Health services, Education and Community Programming, rubble removal and demolition of earthquake damaged homes and finally Community Redevelopment. Since the start of 2011, J/P HRO focused on harmonizing services between IDP camps and the surrounding neighborhoods so to support families’ return and reconstruction. This has meant relocating, repairing and rebuilding schools, medical clinics, community centers, safe water facilities, public lighting and waste management systems while also working to support camp residents as they ‘build back better’ homes for their families.
Benjamin’s career has been in community-based development and non-profit management gained from working throughout Latin America, East Africa and poverty-stricken pockets of the United States. He received his MA in International Development and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and his BA in Philosophy and Spanish from Xavier University. Both institutions awarded him as the most outstanding graduate of his class.
Anne Kronenberg
Executive Director, San Francisco Department of Emergency Management
Anne Kronenberg was appointed Executive Director of the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) in December 2010. Kronenberg directly supervises three deputy directors and oversees a department of 253 employees and a budget of $50 million. She previously served for 16 years as Deputy Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. In that role, she was responsible for disaster preparedness, pre-hospital emergency medical services, medical surge, multiple casualty incidents and mass prophylaxis planning.
Kronenberg serves as chair of the Approval Authority for the Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), which manages over $150 million in federal homeland security grant funding for the 10 Bay Area counties. Kronenberg has extensive government experience, having worked at the federal level in Washington DC, for Senator Ted Kennedy; at the state level as Chief of Staff for Assemblyman John Vasconcellos; and at the local level on both the legislative and executive sides of government. She began her long public service career as an aide to the late Supervisor Harvey Milk, after running his successful election campaign to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Kronenberg holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Washington, and a Master of Arts in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco.
Daniel Wallach
Executive Director and Co-Founder, Greensburg GreenTown
Daniel Wallach is a lifelong social entrepreneur seeking to bring ideas and innovation to challenges facing us. He is the Executive Director and Founder, along with his wife, of Greensburg GreenTown, the nonprofit organization established a week after an EF-5 tornado destroyed the community of Greensburg, Kansas in 2007. Today the town stands as an internationally recognized model of sustainable living and Daniel was a driving force in helping craft the sustainable vision for the town and then bringing it to fruition. In 2010, Daniel Founded GreenTown National, an organization established to seed GreenTown affiliates in communities across the country in order to strengthen sustainability initiatives in the US. In August of 2011, he started the fledgling GreenTown Joplin, a brand new organization and planned Eco-Home learning center to assist Joplin, MO in the rebuilding of their community integrating sustainable principles.
Daniel is co-authoring the “Sustainable Recovery Handbook” and has been quoted in over 100 publications and media outlets including NPR, Time Magazine, USA Today, CNN, New York Times and on ABC and NBC morning shows. He was honored with the distinction of being one of 15 people profiled in the United States Green Building Council “15 years, 15 stories” video and annual report to mark its 15 year anniversary in 2009.
MacKay Wolff
Writer and Programme Designer, United Nations
MacKay Wolff has designed and managed humanitarian emergency and development projects for more than twenty years. On behalf of the United Nations, he has helped ensure the delivery of human services, including shelter, water and sanitation, education, recreation, food and nutrition, health, and human rights, to refugee and destitute populations in the Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and West and East Africa. Happenstance brought him into the circle of art & design schools with complementary interests, and he has since been able to incorporate certain of their sensibilities into standard practice for disaster response in the field.
MacKay currently serves as a speechwriter and specialised writer for the UN in New York, and as a stand-by emergency programme manager. His most recent work has been in the on-going process of streamlining internal structures across UN agencies. He holds a B.A. from Oberlin College in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies, and an M.A. in Economics and Law from the School for Advanced International Studies.
MODERATOR -
Eric Cesal
Haiti Regional Program Manager, Architecture for Humanity
Eric is a designer, builder, analyst and writer. A native of Washington, D.C., Eric completed his undergraduate studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and achieved a Masters in Architecture, a Masters in Construction Management and an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) from Washington University in St. Louis. In between he practiced in Washington, D.C., working primarily on educational and institutional projects.
Eric first joined Architecture for Humanity in 2006 as a volunteer in Biloxi, Mississippi. He followed up that work the following year with another stint in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana, before joining Architecture for Humanity full time in 2010. He now oversees ground operations for the Architecture for Humanity Haiti Rebuilding Center, and spends his free time learning Creole and writing, occasionally.
5-6pm GREENING OUR SCHOOLS
Kim Dempsey
Director of Innovation and Strategy, NCB Capital Impact
Kim Dempsey is Director of Innovation and Strategy at NCB Capital Impact, a national, non-profit, community development financial institution (CDFI). She is responsible for directing and managing NCB Capital Impact’s processes for strategy development and ensuring organizational learning and accountability. In addition, she fosters growth opportunities for the organization through management of a disciplined innovation process and development of an innovation portfolio that supports expansion into new markets and new products. Recently, she took a lead role in the organization’s Green Charter Schools Initiative; which has included convening stakeholders to discuss how to incentivize charter schools to build and renovate facilities sustainably and the creation of The Sustainable Answer Key, a primer for charter schools on the basics of “going green.” Prior to assuming her current position, Kim worked in NCB Capital Impact’s Community Investment Group for more than five years; most recently as Vice-President/Business Development Officer and manager of lending strategy in the health care sector. She received a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts in both Community Studies and Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Rachel Gutter
Director, Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council
When the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council was established in 2010 to serve as the driver for green schools dialogue, policy development and innovation, USGBC appointed Rachel Gutter to take the reins. Rachel came to USGBC in 2007 to oversee the launch of LEED for Schools, a version of USGBC’s popular green building certification program that facilitates the design, construction and operations of high-performance, green schools. To accelerate market transformation, USGBC launched the National Green Schools Campaign to engage students and teachers, parents and school superintendents, elected officials and other policy makers in a national conversation about the relationship between high-performance educational facilities and high performing students.
Rachel’s professional experiences in the fields of green building consulting and interior architecture and her time with the Green Building Program of Montgomery County Public Schools have contributed to her in depth knowledge of green schools. However, it is her six years of teaching experience that fuels her commitment to educating a generation of sustainability natives. Rachel received her Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University. A competitive figure skater throughout her childhood, today Rachel finds balance through a daily dose of yoga. She lives in Washington, D.C.
David Just
Director, Cornell University Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs; Project Lead, Smarter Lunchrooms
Professor David R. Just uses the tools of psychology and economics to find why we eat and what we can do about it. As the director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs, David has conducted dozens of field and laboratory experiments identifying the subtle factors in the environment that can lead both children and adults to make the healthy choice. His work on behavioral economics and the school lunch program has shown how low cost solutions—like moving the salad bar closer to the checkout line—can lead school children to make healthier choices without reducing overall availability of choices, or breaking the school budget.
David’s award winning research has been published in scores of research articles, winning wide recognition both among academics and within the popular press. His work has been reported in numerous media outlets including NPR, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, US News and World Reports, Newsweek, Washington Post among many others. In 2006 Discover Magazine cited his research in their list of top science stories of the year. David received his PhD and Master’s degrees in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Brigham Young University.
Bruce G. Nelligan
Principal, Nelligan White Architects
In the last decade, Bruce Nelligan has been the Principal-In-Charge for more than 100 projects, covering a range of building construction types. Included in this work are more than 40 Capital Improvement Projects for the NYC School Construction Authority and an additional 20 projects for building enclosure rehabilitation for a variety of libraries, cultural, transportation, and health facilities for the NYC Department of Design and Construction. Bruce has successfully completed the renovation of several landmark townhouses, 20-building complexes for the New York City Housing Authority, and has designed such projects as a downtown Brooklyn Buddhist Community Center and a revitalization plan for the Gowanus Canal.
Bruce is strongly committed to architectural education and environmental sustainability. He is a frequent guest critic at such New York City professional schools as City College, the Pratt Institute, and the Parsons School of Design and participated in the Historic Districts Council’s fall lecture series, “The Architecture of Knowledge: New York City’s Historic Schools and Libraries.” Bruce is a member of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), the Sustainable Building Industry Council (SBIC), and the Municipal Arts Society. Having has sat on such committees as the Architects, Designers, & Planners for Social Responsibility Committee on Environment, Bruce has become dedicated to sustainable design and historic preservation. Bruce earned his professional degree at the Cooper Union School of Architecture. He is a recipient of the New York Society of Architects Matthew del Gaudio Award and the AIA School Medal and Certificate of Achievement. His work has been published in A Guide to Recent Architecture and New Stores in USA.
Michael Pavelsky
Sustainability Director, The Sheward Partnership, LLC
Michael Pavelsky is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional with over ten years of progressive architectural experience. An AIA member, he serves as co-chair for the Philadelphia Committee on Environment and is a member of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council and Urban Land Institute. He is committed to developing affordable architectural solutions that encourage sustainable design. A dedicated professional, Michael has excellent communication skills that enable him to interact effectively with clients and team members alike. An award winning designer, Michael believes that architecture should be responsible to future generations and he strives to develop environmentally sensitive, sustainable projects for both new and rehabilitated structures that meet client needs. A graduate of Philadelphia University where he was a Distinguished Honors Scholar, Michael earned a Bachelor of Architecture and a Minor in Historic Preservation.
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Kate Evarts
Education Architecture Design Fellow, Architecture for Humanity
Kate is a licensed architect and LEED AP from Seattle. She has over 20 years experience in educational and cultural projects in New York, Zurich, and Seattle. She received her M.Arch from UCLA. Kate’s professional focus has been on campus master planning and design for K-12 schools. Her work has emphasized community engagement and educational outreach with a strong emphasis on programming. Kate joined Rebuilding Center in April 2011. She brings her expertise in educational design to help oversee the Center's school projects.
