Hello!

My name is Charla Lemoine and I am a senior architecture student at the University of Washington. I am writing a paper for a class called "Architects as Civic Leaders," taught by Dr. Sharon Sutton. The provisional title of my paper is "Designing With Conviction: Developing and Maintaining a Civic Focus in a Profit-Oriented Society." It is to be a short, somewhat informal paper, but as it is not a topic that has been covered before, I have to do some primary research. I am looking for a few people with architectural backgrounds who work in the affordable housing and community design fields to answer these short questions, to whatever extent they can.

I would also ask that, if you know someone else whose experience and opinions would be helpful to my research, please forward this email to them. Also, if this email was forwarded to you, please be sure to reply to clemoine@u.washington.edu rather than the address from which it was forwarded! Thank you.
 
Many young professionals, especially doctors, lawyers and architects, choose their careers based upon their youthful idealism and the capacity to help people and incite change through their chosen field. More often than not, however, these professionals follow a traditional career path and, whether consciously or not, compromise some of their intentions toward the public good. I am not insinuating that the average professional works without regard for the public good, merely suggesting that at some point the focus seems to shift away from it. The purpose of this paper is to discuss architects and architecture firms who seem to have successfully devoted their practices to improving society with regards to research and design in the realm of affordable housing and community design, and to explore their reasons for making the decision and the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.
 
1.       What is your educational background? Are you a registered architect or on the path to becoming one?
 
2.       What is your job title? What is the focus of your firm/organization? (A link to a website would be helpful.)
 
3.       Do you consider yourself a "civic-minded" professional? A "non-profit" professional? Why or why not?
 
4.       At what point (if ever) did you decide to focus your professional attention towards the public good? Did it happen by accident? Did you ever want to change your mind?
 
5.       What impacts, positive and negative, have this decision had on your professional life? Family life? Self-identity?
 
6.       What is your opinion of the architecture field and its commitment, or lack of commitment, to community issues? What is your opinion of the architectural education system?
 
7.       Is there anything else you would like to say or to ask me?
 
Thank you for your time!
Charla Lemoine
clemoine@u.washington.edu
206-240-0766