Susan Jones, FAIA is an architect with over 30 years of experience and is founder of the award-winning architectural Seattle firm, atelierjones, which focuses primarily on designing and building lower-carbon, mass timber buildings. With eight completed mass timber projects, atelierjones is a national leader. atelierjones, a solely woman-owned and woman-led architectural firm, designs tall and mid-rise, multi-family mass timber housing, as well as mass timber institutional buildings and single-family homes. In 2023, atelierjones completed the new workforce housing tall mass timber 126-unit project, Heartwood in Seattle, the first Type IV-C building in the US.

Susan regularly partakes in local, national and international leadership-level collaborations to create change at scale and ensure rigor on multiple levels, from forest health to LCA studies, to fire testing, including a multi-year pro-bono commitment, representing AIA National to write and pass new national 2021/2024 ICC Tall Wood Building Codes. A third-generation native of the Pacific Northwest, Susan grew up in Bellingham, Washington, and has raised her family in Seattle. Susan earned her B.A from Stanford in Philosophy, and her M.Arch from the Harvard GSD. She is licensed in multiple states, has been a visiting design critic at numerous universities, and is Affiliate Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington. She was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2010. Using hyper-local forest management practices, Susan has spent the last five years managing her own family-owned 140-acre forest in the San Juan islands in Washington State.

Bill LaPatra FAIA, LEED AP is a design partner at Mithun with 40 years of experience leading higher education, civic, commercial, and corporate workplace projects. His diverse body of work includes the mixed-use Weyerhaeuser Headquarters in Seattle’s Pioneer Square; the Princeton University Meadows Graduate Student Housing, which is among the largest Passive House projects in the country; and the award-winning and LEED Platinum certified UC Irvine Mesa Court Towers living-learning community.

In particular, Bill is known for advancing the design for student life facilities nationally through holistic support for students’ academic and social development, deep green building performance and championship of design excellence within alternative delivery models (including design-build and P3 partnerships). He is a regular conference presenter, joining with housing professionals, contractors, engineers and developers to share lessons learned and exemplary models for design-forward collaboration within alternative delivery.

Emilia is an Associate Architect at Third Place Design Co-operative. As co-chair of Women in Design Seattle, she works to expand programming and continuing education for queer/trans AEC workers and designers of color. She has mentored Seattle female/non-binary youth and students at UW’s College of Built Environments; volunteers design services to a Latine-serving mutual aid group in Fremont; and advocates at national, regional, and county levels for wellbeing and safety related issues. They enjoy collaboration and endeavor to be supportive to design colleagues and students, particularly through transitions, and passionate about collaborative space-making with populations being served by design.