ABSTRACT
The environmental movement and influence of solar design were strong in Colorado during the 1970s but were not yet incorporated into the academic field of architecture. It was a time of change, when young architects were following Paolo Soleri’s work and Buckminster Fuller’s ideas, when design-build was an experimental field outside academia; when community-based, not-for-profit design was happening in other countries; and when women, in particular, were championing historic preservation in American cities. These were the active elements in the formation of women in architecture who came of age during the 1970s—the days of the environmental and women’s movements, Vietnam backlash, and Black Power—yet they are not to be found within the context of real-life design practices.
This chapter explores the impact of individuals such as Jane Jacobs and of key places, that is, Denver, CO; Philadelphia, PA; Geneva, Switzerland; South Africa; and Rwanda, that influenced the development of the author’s work in Colorado, where her environmentally based and community-engaged practice was established with the emphasis on “learning from place,” and in Vermont, where she was the director of the nonprofit Vermont Design Institute and taught at the University of Vermont. The input of women’s organizations (WIA, UIFA) is emphasized, and examples of the author’s work in Rwanda are highlighted.
