Top: Daniel Oddo, Christian Waweru, Katelyn Dimopoulos, Professor Julie Kim, Amy Stone, Ben Mayo
Middle: Maria Pastorelli, Anna Kiningham, Daniela Marquez, Kathi Tran, Minh Nguyen, Bangseh Akuchu
Bottom: Leslie Ellsworth, Ersela Kripa, Julia Gamolina, Jim Cramer, Gene Kansas
We believe that as the rising generation of architects and designers, striving for equitable practice is vital to our future.
Forum 2020 is an investigation of equity beyond why. This year, we are asking how. At different scales, from the individual to the urban, how can we nurture and inspire a healthy collaborative culture that also strives for equitable practices, designs, and initiatives that generate impact beyond our profession? We believe that participatory action is a powerful force that can secure equity at all scales. Actualizing equity beyond the individual is not merely good, but fundamentally imperative.
FORUM 2020 SPEAKERS
Julia Gamolina
Director of Strategy at Trahan Architects
Editorial Director of Madame Architect
Julia Gamolina is dedicated to the built environment and the visibility and advancement of the women who work in it. She is the Director of Strategy at Trahan Architects, a global architecture firm rooted in New Orleans, where she focuses on new business, digital communications, and brand development. Julia is also the Founder and Editorial Director of MadameArchitect.org, an online publication focusing on the women that advance the practice of architecture.
Thus far, Julia has interviewed over 100 architects and designers, as well as CEOs, publicists, journalists, business developers, lawyers, and more. In addition, she writes a column for A Women’s Thing magazine titled “Woman to Woman: Conversations Across Boys’ Clubs,” interviewing women in other male-dominated fields such as comedy, wine, and venture capitalism. In 2019, Julia received the Special Citation from AIANY for her work with Madame Architect, and was named one of Professional Women in Construction's "20 Under 40". Julia received her Bachelor of Architecture at Cornell University, graduating with the Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Medal for exceptional merit in the thesis of architecture. She is based in New York City, with roots in Novosibirsk and Toronto.
Ersela Kripa
Founding Partner | AGENCY
Assistant Professor | Texas Tech University El Paso
In her practice, Ersela works in urban and architectural ecologies to inform new ways of living, seeking productive and unexpected anomalies within urban contexts, and capitalizing on their potential through tactical interventions.
Ersela has received numerous awards for her design work and scholarship, including the 2018 Emerging Voices award from The Architectural League of New York, the Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome in 2010, and residency fellowships at the MacDowell Colony in 2009 and 2013. Ersela was named a Fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2010, and was recognized as one of ARCHITECT Magazine’s Emerging Talents in 2011. Ersela was awarded a Cameron Visiting Architect fellowship at Middlebury University in 2016, and named a DISCREET Fellow in Residence at the Berlin Biennale in 2016.
Ersela’s ongoing design research seeks to amplify the reach of local practices in informal environments, identifying opportunities for intervention and proposing agile minimal inventions she calls ‘Hackable Infrastructures’. Ersela tests her speculations with direct action, installing prototypes in urban environments, testing their effectiveness and gauging public response to refine relationships between design technologies, resources, and communities.
Leslie Ellsworth, RA
Founding Principal | Studio SOGO
Leslie received her Master of Architecture at Tulane University in 2006 after earning a Bachelor of Arts in History, with minors in Architectural History, Historic Preservation, Italian, and Interior Architecture at the University of Oregon in 2003. Over the years, she has been privileged to work on a variety of retail, commercial, and institutional projects at HKS, Praxis3, and Houser Walker before joining Kronberg Wall Architects as Director of Design in 2011.
In 2014 Leslie and her partner Kenny founded Studio SOGO Architecture & Interiors. Since then, she has applied her skills in adaptive reuse and urban infill with her love of architecture and interior design to every project she touches - big and small.
Leslie is a Registered Architect in the State of Georgia and a LEED Accredited Professional. During her free time, Leslie plots to take over the world with her 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son in tow. After moving around the country from east coast to west, she is a self-proclaimed Atlanta convert - happily settled in the southwest ATL community of Westview.
Gene Kansas
President, Gene Kansas | Commercial Real Estate
In his 20+ years in Atlanta commercial real estate, Gene Kansas has garnered a reputation as a champion of historic preservation, adaptive reuse, community building, and storytelling through the built environment. Each Gene Kansas project aims to blend an appreciation of culture and history with creative, responsible, and vital refashioning that brings new relevance to space and how it is used by clients, neighborhoods, and the city.
The founder and president of Gene Kansas | Commercial Real Estate, Gene leads with passion and purpose, with the ability of looking forward and a mindset of giving back. Company accomplishments include: the historic preservation of the Atlanta Daily World Building in Sweet Auburn, named the #2 Preservation Win by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2014; the catalytic marketing and design contest that helped save the Clermont Hotel; and his creative repositioning, value creation, and leasing for Amsterdam Walk, Historic Commercial Row, and Sweet Auburn Curb Market.
Gene is also the creator and founder of Constellations, “where stars come together to shine,” a civic and socially-based shared workspace in the reimagined Southern Schoolbook Building on Auburn Avenue. Through that, Gene Kansas | Commercial Real Estate is the only firm in the city of Atlanta to serve as owner, operator, broker, and developer of a shared workspace. Constellations won the ARC Award of Excellence in 2018, an Atlanta Urban Design Commission Award of Excellence in 2019, and was a finalist for ULI’s Award of Excellence in 2019
James P. Cramer
Founder | DesignIntelligence
Co-Founder | The Design Futures Council
Lecturer | Georgia Tech School of Architecture
Jim is a former Chief Executive of the American Institute of Architects. He is the co-founder along with Dr. Jonas Salk, of the Design Futures Council. He is also the founder of the Leadership Summit on Sustainable Design and the journal DesignIntelligence.
Cramer has authored six books including How Firms Succeed and A Field Guide to Design Management, now in its 5th Edition (with Scott Simpson). As a trends in technology authority, he has just written (with Scott Simpson), Small Firm Success: How the Smallest Firms are Succeeding During a Time of Acceleration. The book is one outcome of the recent 10 Under 10 projects funded by the AIA and the Design Futures Council.
Cramer is a Richard Upjohn Fellow of the AIA, a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council and a Fellow of the International Leadership Forum. He received the Presidential Medal from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). In 2019 he received the Christian Peterson Design Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Iowa State University College of Design.
Today Cramer writes, lectures, and teaches the popular Business of Design course at Georgia Tech.
Student Moderador
Bangseh Akuchu is Master of Architecture student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, currently in his last year of the program. He completed his undergraduate studies at Georgia Tech in 2017, receiving a B.S. in Architecture. After working in the fields of senior living, affordable housing and student housing for a year, he decided to return to Tech for his Masters degree. In addition to his studies, Bangseh is a Designer at SHAPE (Studio H Architecture Planning Environments). He is passionate about community focused design and hopes to design spaces that facilitate and foster interactions between the users.
