Chartreuse Blog

Cameron Sinclair and Dr. Mitchell Joachim, both world-renowned leaders in sustainable design, we be headlining a slate of five keynote speakers at Plain Green 10, April 28-29, 2010.

Cameron Sinclair is the co-founder and ‘eternal optimist’ at Architecture for Humanity, a charitable organization that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crisis and brings professional design services to communities in need. Over the past ten years the organization has worked in twenty six countries on projects ranging from school, health clinics, affordable housing and long term sustainable reconstruction. Sinclair and Architecture for Humanity co-founder Kate Stohr have compiled a compendium on socially conscious design titled “Design Like You Give A Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises”. He serves on advisory boards of the Acumen Fund, Detroit Collaborative Design Center and the Institute for State Effectiveness.

Sinclair is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2006 TED prize and the 2005 RISD/Target Emerging Designer of the Year. Recently he was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Along with co-founder Kate Stohr, Sinclair was awarded the Wired Magazine 2006 Rave Award for Architecture for their work in responding to housing needs following Hurricane Katrina. In 2008 they were recipients of the National Design Award for demonstrating “that good design can indeed change the world.” As a result of the TED Prize he and Stohr launched the Open Architecture Network, the worlds’ first open source community dedicated to improving living conditions through innovative and sustainable design. In 2009 the network will host a global challenge to redesign educational facilities around the world. Learn much more at http://plaingreen.org/speakers.

Mitchell Joachim is a leader in ecological design and urbanism. He is a Co-Founder at Terreform ONE and Terrefuge. He is faculty at Columbia University and Parsons and has been awarded the Moshe Safdie Research Fellowship, and the Martin Family Society Fellow for Sustainability at MIT. He won the History Channel and Infiniti Excellence Award for the City of the Future, and Time Magazine Best Invention of the Year 2007. His project, Fab Tree Hab, has been exhibited at MoMA and widely published.

Joachim was chosen by Wired magazine for “The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To”. Rolling Stone magazine honored Mitchell as an agent of change in “The 100 People Who Are Changing America”. He was selected to be the Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at the University of Toronto for Spring 2010. Mitchell has also won the 2010 TED Fellowship.

Other keynotes at Plain Green 10 will include:

Gail Vittori, author of Sustainable Healthcare Design and 2009 Chair of US Green Building Council, the organization overseeing the LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) rating program.

Steve Clark, Walking and Bicycling Program Manager for Transit for Livable Communities, overseeing a 4 year, $22.5 million pilot program to improve conditions for walking and bicycling throughout the state of Minnesota.

Brian Dunbar, Executive Director of the Institute for the Built Environment (IBE), professor of Construction Management at Colorado State University and co-author of 147 Ways to Teach Sustainability.

Now in it’s third year, Plain Green will be bigger and better than ever in 2010, with five star-power keynote speakers, in-depth workshops, interactive breakout sessions and three floors of the best green exhibitors, all under one historic roof. Learn more about all the Plain Green 10 speakers here.