n our latest podcast episode, Lindsay Baker and I talk to Sandy Mendler -- architect, planner, and researcher focused on creating new models for healthy, sustainable living. She is a design industry thought leader and dynamic project leader; at Gensler, she is a principal, studio director, and regional practice leader for education. She previously worked at Mithun (where she was part of a Bay Area Resilient by Design team in the Rockefeller Brothers Fund competition) and HOK (where she led the influential EPA HQ project and co-authored, with William Odell and Mary Ann Lazarus, the HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design).
As many of you mah know, Sandy was also a COTE leader in the 90s/early 00s ... an important voice in shaping the open, collaborative culture of COTE (which welcomed even non architects, including me!), its Top Ten awards as a way to highlight leading edge work, and more.
Throughout her career, Sandy has been asking big questions about complex topics and developing solutions that demonstrate the value of sustainable, equitable design that she calls "prototypes for the positive future." She is dedicated to deep collaborations with multiple disciplines within the built environment community and with many people beyond it. "We are systems thinkers," she says. "We work as teams to create solutions that do many things at once and have positive, ongoing impact. Part of this is that we can, and must, co-create with communities. We have to catalyze investment in under-invested areas because it's the right thing to do but also because it's part of the equation around emissions and healthy places."
Sandy notes that she has been inspired by architect Bob Berkebile and his focus on regeneration and also architect Jeanne Gang and her concept of "actionable idealism."
Listen on our site (www.designthefuturepodcast.com/episodes/sandy-mendler)
or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Kira Gould Hon. AIA
Kira Gould CONNECT
Oakland CA
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