Rethinking Urban Design for a Sustainable Future

Over three decades of distinguished practice, Anne Fougeron has remained clear: architecture can change lives—both over time and in the moment—and every individual from every background deserves access to design’s transformative potential. Since founding her eponymous firm in 1986, Fougeron Architecture, she has demonstrated this principle time and again, establishing a model of practice dedicated to making the dignity and inspiration of good design available to all.

At the heart of this activist mission is Anne’s belief that great architecture can, and should be, part of the political world—and that principles of design are inextricably rooted in the principles of democracy. A building that is vivid and full of life communicates respect for all individuals within a community; an environment that is harmonious and reassuring to everyone within reinforces the value of social equality.

Working across an array of building types and budgets, Anne has advanced a humane modernism, an architecture that embraces society’s fundamental responsibilities in the language of today. She crafts enriching environments that uplift the spirit, awaken the senses, and benefit the human endeavors they were designed for— be it work, learning, wellness, or family life. Her approach confronts conventions within the field to argue for design strategies that support the breadth of their inhabitants’ needs, and by example, her work challenges our profession to uphold this responsibility.

Benjamin Grant is a city planner, urban designer, curator and teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. He helps lead Sitelab’s work on the Port of San Francisco’s Waterfront Resiliency Program. He spent over a decade at SPUR, the urban policy research organization, where he served as Urban Design Policy Director, leading research on physical planning, public space and urban design.
He is the author of numerous reports and studies on subjects that include retrofitting suburbs for walkability, the innovation-sector workplace, accommodating regional growth, and managing public open space. He led the development and implementation of the Ocean Beach Master Plan, an award-winning climate adaptation strategy for San Francisco's open coast.
He has curated numerous exhibitions for the SPUR Urban Center, and as co-founder of city|space, a nonprofit cultural organization. He has taught urban history and design at UC Berkeley, San José State University, and the San Francisco Art Institute.

Blaine Merker is a partner at Gehl, an urban design and strategy consultancy based in Copenhagen, New York and San Francisco, dedicated to making “cities for people and planet”.

For two decades, Blaine has focused on public space design, spanning the spectrum from tactical implementation to long-term visions. In 2006, he co-founded the California-based studio Rebar, best known for projects like Park(ing) Day and pioneering the idea of tactical urbanism that put street transformation on the global urban agenda. In 2014, he joined Gehl to lead their practice in the Americas. He currently heads Gehl’s climate action initiative, advocating for the role of urban design in simultaneously addressing decarbonization while improving health, equity and quality of life. He holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s from Reed College. He is a planning commissioner in Berkeley, where he lives with his partner and two kids.

Charlie Stott, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB leads Stott Architects in San Francisco.

He designs environments that embrace sustainability and resilience, enhance the history of place, and reveal the craft of construction. His project experience ranges from adaptive reuse of historic structures to ground-up multi-story buildings. Charlie has led the design of academic buildings, single and multi-family housing, and community and institutional projects—many achieving awards recognition from the American Institute of Architects, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the US Green Building Council. Charlie is active with the American Institute of Architecture, and currently co-chairs the AIA San Francisco Committee on the Environment (COTE).