ABOUT

Roosevelt Jr. High School

Thank you for visiting my website and learning more about my work. I have been an architect for over 25 years...always feeling a deep desire to enhance the built environment and resultant spaces that impact where we live/learn/work/play. I tend to be a generalist in my designs and thus work in all areas of architecture--from schools, government facilities, libraries, and commercial sites, to residential, live/work projects and mixed use. I most enjoy designing spaces that function well, respect human scale, have unusual features, and are just plain fun to be in!

I also like to do projects that are socially and environmentally sensitive. Since the concept of leaving a smaller footprint and the Tiny Homes Movement have come into being, I have tried to design for more efficiency and economy while maintaining a high level of excitement and aesthetics. One outcome of this is The Urban Studios Project, which I recently designed. [It can be seen on this website and is planned and designed for the Bay Area.] Also, I love doing 2nd-Dwelling Units (sometimes known as a Granny or In-law Unit) which allow more urban density and are changing how we conceive of the single family home. Over the years, I have designed for both temperate as well as cold-weather climates, and am very sensitive to environmental issues in creating a structure. I especially like to use shading devices such as awnings, overhangs and trellises/arbors. One of my recent projects, a dental office in Santa Rosa, is powered by photo-voltaic panels, and uses LCD lighting as well as other energy-conserving products. Through my work in architecture, I also developed a love of the graphic arts and computers. I have a small graphic design practice and do various types of projects, all the way from family holiday photo cards and wedding "newsletters" to calendars, business cards, invitations, brochures, and announcements.

Additionally I am a Psychologist and completed my doctorate at the Institute of Imaginal Studies. Although I had always been interested in the human psyche, I became even more so when gifted with a very unusual event in my life--what is commonly called an "anomalous experience." This led to my return to graduate school and the dissertation topic entitled, Unseen Gifts: Turning Toward the Marginalization of Anomalous Experience. It explores how unexplainable experiences such as NDEs are often denied or minimized--both personally and culturally. The research focused on helping participants reclaim and revalue their experiences, which led to a deeper capacity for creative expression as well as practices of possibility.

As part of my graduate study, I have also been drawn towards the creative arts therapies, and became a coordinator of the CareFlags Project--a community art collection. This was sponsored by the Center for the Creative Arts Therapies, and led to my becoming the curator for over 2500 flags painted by children and adults in the North Bay area.

I am also starting a business called CycleChic so that I can design a line of clothes for women who want to ride their bike to work or various social engagements. CycleChic exists to empower women in making a difference environmentally by riding their bikes more often and making it easy to find the right clothing for that level of commitment. I currently live downtown in my live/work studio and biking is my PMT (Primary Mode of Transportation) within Santa Rosa. As part of CycleChic, I am implementing a community project named "Cycle to Services," which will enlist 20 religious/spiritual communities in Santa Rosa to encourage members of their congregations to ride bikes to services on the weekend of July 19-20th and throughout the warm weather months.