Last month, we lost a dear one. Marsha Maytum, FAIA, was diagnosed with ALS in 2021 and succumbed on 10 February; she was 69 years old. She is mourned by many overlapping communities -- designers, architects, sustainability leaders, accessibility advocates and housing advocates, and more.
I met Marsha when I was researching Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design in the early 2000s, and I was lucky enough to work with her through COTE from 2017 onward. Marsha was an immensely generous, open-hearted leader, designer, and mentor; she inspired many of us to be better, work harder, and think more expansively about what was possible. She was tenacious and kind, rigorous about design but with a clarity that eschewed ego and leaned toward collective action, broad impact, and real change in an industry that had long seemed recalcitrant. Even when operating in the context of a large organization and an entrenched business sector, Marsha was persuasive, inclusive, and persistent. As Michelle Amt, the 2024 COTE chair, said to me the other day, “Marsha showed me a different way to be that continues to inspire me.”
Through her firm, she produced built work that changed communities and lives and won many design awards. She also co-authored Practice with Purpose, with her husband, Bill Leddy, and their partner, Richard Stacy, about how to make and run a firm with purpose and passion.
The COTE community feels this loss acutely because she was a COTE leader in a consummate way at a pivotal time. She taught throughout her career and she was instrumental in the founding and shaping of the AIA/ACSA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition, now in its tenth year. Vivian Loftness, FAIA, was on the AIA Board of Directors in 2020. She remembers how Marsha helped turn the AIA more firmly toward a robust definition of design excellence, one that includes climate, health, and equity: “I cannot imagine AIA leadership with Marsha Maytum. Marsha was the power behind the Resolution for Urgent Climate Action and the 2020 AIA Board ratification of the Resolution that led to the adoption of the COTE Top 10 as the AIA Framework for Design Excellence. Her leadership helped to transform our professional goals, and it was a privilege to call her a friend.”
Learn more about Marsha here:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/marsha-maytum-obituary-18640421.php
www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/16722-tribute-marsha-maytum-19542024
www.architectmagazine.com/design/visionary-architect-and-advocate-marsha-maytum-passes-away-at-the-age-of-69_o
https://www.designthefuturepodcast.com/episodes/marsha-maytum