This Interview with Angela Brooks, FAIA was done during the AIA California Monterey Design Conference in 2019
As the Managing Principal at Brooks + Scarpa, Angie supervises all of the office operations and ensures that each project remains on time and on budget by enforcing project deadlines, coordinating communications between all parties, and rigorously tracking finances. Her hands-on involvement runs from schematic design through completion of construction and post-occupancy and she is a recognized leader in the field of environmental and sustainable design and construction. She has pioneered more holistic ways of delivering affordable housing, sustainable architecture and advances in social equity.
Angie has been practicing architecture since 1991 and is also responsible for firm development in the area of housing and policy, leading the firm’s sustainable initiatives and overall management. She was a peer reviewer for Global Green USA’s book Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing and was featured in the book Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design for her policy work with Livable Places and on Fuller Lofts, a sustainable mixed-use project designed to be a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization.
Angela received the National AIA Young Architects Award in 2009 and her firm has received more than twenty National AIA Awards, five Top Ten Green (COTE) Awards, the State of California and National AIA Architecture Firm of the Year Award in 2010 and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture in 2014.
Ms. Brooks was a co-founder and past President of Livable Places, Inc., a non-profit development company dedicated to building sustainable mixed-use housing in the city of Los Angeles on under-utilized and problematic parcels of land as a reaction against Southern California’s suburban sprawl. She has served as an advisor to the National Endowment of the Arts, Mayors Institute on City Design, the Advisory Board of Solar Santa Monica and currently is past-chair of the National AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Advisory Group, whose mission is to lead the profession’s involvement in environmental and design initiatives towards a more sustainable planet for all.
Angela is a powerful advocate for the rich, multivalent impact of good design. Ms. Brooks sees architecture as an instrument for the triple bottom line and the delivery vehicle for space that encourages occupants to flourish. She has pursued advancing ideas that promote larger societal well-being through policy organizations and her work in this area has garnered her mainstream recognition in print and media, such as Newsweek Magazine and her USA Network 2010 Character Approved Award.
Link to the blog:
https://inmawomanarchitect.blogspot.com/2019/12/aiacalif-mdc-1-interview-with-angela.html
Link to MGHarchitect: MIchele Grace Hottel, Architect website for scheduling and podcast sponsorship opportunities:
https://www.mgharchitect.com/