School of Design announces 2000-01 Loeb Fellows

James G. Stockard Jr. curator of the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Design School (GSD), has announced the selection of the Loeb Fellows for 2000-01. The Loeb Fellowship is a program of independent study for practitioners whose work involves the built and natural environment. Selected for their leadership qualities and potential to make an impact in their field of expertise, 11 outstanding professionals are invited to the GSD each year. The fellows design their own program of study, writing, reading, and collaboration.

This year’s Loeb Fellows are as follows:

Marcel Acosta is the senior vice president of the Chicago Transit Authority. He is in charge of operations planning and facilities development for the second-largest transit system in the nation. Acosta will focus his work at the GSD on metropolitan growth issues, urban design, neighborhood development, and other topics related to understanding more completely how cities work and the role transit plays in that process.

Terrence Curry is a registered architect who runs the Detroit Collaborative Design Center at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture. The Design Center involves students as it works with nonprofit community development organizations to develop quality design solutions for Detroit’s poorest neighborhoods. Curry is the founder of the Design Center, as well as director of design. He will spend time at Harvard learning more about the best practices in participatory design processes, both at the building and neighborhood scale. Curry will also advance the work on a home-building “kit” he has been designing.

Anthony Flint is a reporter for the Boston Globe. For the past three years, he has covered planning and development in Boston out of the Globe’s City Hall bureau, examining both physical projects and socio-economic implications, such as gentrification. He is author of the 1999 series, “Booming Boston, Changing Boston,” an analysis of city building trends in the context of Boston politics. Flint will study landscape architecture, urban design, and city planning in order to provide additional grounding for his writing.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie is an architect by training and currently a regional manager for Sustrans, Ltd. in Britain. Sustrans (which stands for “sustainable transport”) is a nonprofit organization developing practical means to reduce dependency on private cars. Hamilton-Baillie is particularly interested in the impact of transport policies on children and health and is studying woonerfen (mixed-use residential streets) in The Netherlands and Northern Europe. While at Harvard, he will explore the future of the traveling landscape in America and compare American and European approaches to local transport and urban design.

Tony Irons is the city architect for San Francisco. He recently completed planning and oversight for the seismic retrofit and historical renovation of San Francisco’s City Hall. He has responsibility for the oversight and facilitation of design and construction of significant public buildings in the city. Currently, he is working on a major medical facility, a new city jail, and a complex effort in Golden Gate Park involving a new De Young Museum, a new California Academy of Arts and Sciences building, and a parking facility for these structures. Irons will study design, historical preservation, and development economics.

William McFarland is the executive director of Peoplestown Revitalization, a respected community-development corporation in Atlanta. The organization originally focused on strategic planning for its neighborhood, and then moved on to housing development, economic development, and public safety. McFarland will study the ways in which neighborhood development relates to transportation issues, economic success for those currently in the neighborhood, and the new discussions about smart growth. He will also spend time increasing his knowledge of housing finance and public finance.

Paul Okamoto is one of the partners of Okamoto Saijo, a small architectural practice in San Francisco. Okamoto has been primarily engaged in the design of housing and institutional buildings. As a volunteer, he has also organized a significant group of design professionals and others (known as Urban Ecology) to study the environmental impacts of zoning and building codes, development patterns, state and local policies, and other key influences on the environmental conditions in the Bay Area. He will study the intersection between design approaches and public policy, especially as it effects the shaping of metropolitan regions.

Roxanne Qualls has just completed six years as the mayor of Cincinnati. During that time she was involved in the reshaping of the city’s downtown area, including the construction of two new stadiums, the rerouting of major highways, a significant increase in park and open space, and the successful attraction of new types of housing back into the downtown. She believes strongly in the power of good design to impact citizens’ feelings of attachment to their city. In her year at the GSD, Qualls will work on developing tools to help political leaders and neighborhood activists understand how to evaluate the work of architects and planners and encourage high-quality design.

Bob Stacey was the executive director for policy and planning of the regional transportation agency of Portland, Ore., for the past two years. During the past decade he has been actively involved in Portland’s efforts to plan for urban growth limits, a strong regional transportation system, and the intensified development of the downtown area. Stacey wants to study the most current thinking about “smart growth” and sustainability in order to form a more comprehensive and thoughtful framework for the work the regional transportation agency has done in Portland.

Rebecca Talbott is the interagency partnership coordinator to the Outside Las Vegas Foundation, an organization “dedicated to preserving the public lands surrounding Las Vegas, enriching the experience of its visitors and the quality of life for local residents, and promoting community stewardship of these valuable resources.” She coordinates this partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. While at the GSD, Talbott specifically wants to test the model of the partnership work in Las Vegas against other models, both rural and urban, involving both natural and built resources. She is particularly interested in the connection between her work in remote areas and similar processes and issues in the urban context.

Katy Moss Warner was most recently director of Disney’s Horticulture and Environmental Initiatives for the Walt Disney World Corp. in Florida. She had overall responsibility for maintaining and enhancing the design integrity of all theme park and resort landscapes throughout the 30,500 acres of the Walt Disney World Resort. Warner is particularly interested in interactive garden spaces designed specifically for children to encourage learning, discovery, creativity, and an appreciation for the value of natural spaces. Her study will focus on landscape design, creative leadership, and interdisciplinary learning, while her research will focus on the relationships between plants and people.

For more information about the Loeb Fellowship or the fellows for 2000-01, contact Sally Young at (617) 495-9345 or visit the Web site at www.gsd.harvard.edu/loebfell.nh.