Congratulations to our 2019 Volunteer and Committee Award Winners!
AIA Seattle's Volunteer Award recognizes individuals who demonstrate attributes of an emerging leader, poised for significant contribution and accomplishment through their work, community service, and/or active participation in AIA Seattle programs and committees. The Committee Award recognizes and honors a group of AIA Seattle volunteers who has made an outstanding contribution to the organization.
This year we recognize Karen DeLucas AIA (top left) and Cheryl Jacobs AIA (bottom right); Trevor Dykstra AIA (bottom center); and the Committee on Homelessness, co-chairs: Anton Dekom AIA (top right) and Alexander Froehlic Assoc. AIA (bottom left).
Volunteer Award Winner: Karen DeLucas AIA
Karen DeLucas AIA has over twenty years of experience in residential design in the Seattle area. After fifteen years working with Ross Chapin Architects where her focus was on their award-winning cottage neighborhood projects, she started her own practice in 2018. Karen DeLucas Architecture specializes in small homes that live large including backyard cottages, new homes, and remodels. In 2015, she designed and her husband built their own energy efficient home in the Madison Valley neighborhood of Seattle. Karen is receiving this award in honor of her diversse service to the Housing Task Force, Public Policy Board, SPARC and SPROUT groups, and so much more.
Volunteer Award Winner: Cheryl Jacobs AIA
As a project manager and passionate architect, Cheryl leads teams in the design of learning environments and wellness facilities. With a background in psychology, Cheryl is a champion for equity, diversity, and inclusion and is a leader in NAC’s Diversity Initiative. Her commitment to lifelong learning means Cheryl is always seeking out new opportunities to grow, learn and give. Whether through participation in her local community council discussing land use and zoning, or through volunteering in her daughter’s classroom, she constantly pursues engagement with the built environment. For years she has helped develop AIA Seattle’s active Women in Design Committee, while also being an active member of Committee on the Environment, Diversity Roundtable and Committee on Architecture for Education.
Design in Public Volunteer Award: Trevor Dykstra AIA
Trevor is an Architect at Lane Williams Architects. He was once a steel fabricator in Montana, a budding street photographer, and has been instrumental in designing, organizing and constructing the Seattle Design Festival’s outdoor programming from 2010 to present. As co-founder of the Seattle Design Nerds, an all volunteer force for design in Seattle’s urban spaces, he is passionate about contingent space, urban exploration, and experimental forms of architecture. Trevor’s volunteer leadership has been core to the sustained growth and success of the Seattle Design Festival, and his passion for design continues to inspire and drive the Festival to new and exciting places.
Committee Award Winner: Committee on Homelessness | Co-Chairs: Anton Dekom AIA and Alexander Froehlic Assoc. AIA
Established in 2018, the Committee on Homelessness (COHO) hit the ground running with their mission to mobilize architects to help our unsheltered neighbors through the areas of advocacy, education, and service. Throughout the year, COHO partners with community organizations including Union Gospel Mission, Rainier Beach Presbyterian Church and its tiny house, Seattle Community Law Center’s “Justice Bus,” and more, providing direct volunteer service and architectural expertise. For the public, COHO’s Understanding Homelessness Lecture Series invites homeless service providers to talk about their experiences working both with and for those in our community that are living without permanent shelter to humanize the issue for the design community. Last Fall, COHO partnered with Real Change for an interactive installation at Seattle Design Festival introducing street paper vendors directly to the community, and sharing their stories of homelessness in Seattle.
Thank you all for your incredible work and high level of leadership and involvement with AIA Seattle!
Join us May 7, 2019 to celebrate the Award Winners at the Annual Member Parti.
