Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship Announces Class of 2013-2015

COLUMBIA, Md., Dec. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. (Enterprise) recently named Geoffrey Barton, Cesia Lopez-Angel, Joseph Kunkel and Emily Roush Elliott, four exceptional young professionals to the 2013-2015 class of its prestigious Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship. The highly competitive fellowship is the only national program that partners emerging architects with community developers for three years to unite a community-based approach to development with best practices in design.

"The Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship trains the next generation of leaders who will transform the community development field through design excellence, sustainability and community engagement," said Katie Swenson, Vice President, Design Initiatives, Enterprise. "These qualified and accomplished fellows are among the most talented emerging architects and bring fields of interest to the program. They will carry on our proud tradition of commitment toward securing the long-term viability of affordable housing."

Geoffrey Barton will return to North Carolina, where he will partner with Mountain Housing Opportunities and Asheville Design Center. Barton grew up in rural Kentucky with biology professor parents, which led to his awareness of civic ecosystems and to his interest in architecture and public interest design, and then studied science, liberal arts and architecture in North Carolina.

Collaborating with a team, Barton will work to design green affordable single-family house prototypes that are responsive to community needs and suitable for a variety of site conditions. His experience includes serving as a project designer for green, affordable, multi-family housing developments in San Francisco, Calif. Barton plans to put his green thumb to work again through his commitment to the growing urban agriculture movement to provide greater access to fresh, healthy foods in urban neighborhoods.

Cesia Lopez-Angel will begin her fellowship at the Little Tokyo Service Center and the Neighborhood Based CDC Coalition in her hometown of Los Angeles, Calif. Lopez-Angel brings a user-centered approach by involving community members in design through an effective
public dialogue. This community process thinking is a hallmark of her graduate work at Woodbury University's School of Architecture. Her research-driven thesis project focused on public space and the effects of water, a critical resource for any community, and looked at examples from three cities, both ancient and modern: Los Angeles, Rome and Istanbul. During her fellowship, Lopez-Angel will tackle the dual missions of creating affordable housing and a pedestrian-friendly, transit-accessible central city.

Joseph Kunkel spent six years as a staff designer on projects for major education facilities in the U.S. and abroad. Now with his Rose Fellowship in Santo Domingo, N.M., Kunkel will have the opportunity to combine his independent research and professional experience to explore the cultural implications of design in Native American communities. His work with tribes in Montana, New Mexico, Canada's Yukon and with native persons of La Paz, Bolivia, has prepared him to focus on what architecture and planning standards can aspire to be for First Nations communities. Kunkel co-taught a class at the University of Maryland's School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, his tribal home, and a community seriously affected by substandard housing and planning standards.

Emily Roush Elliott's fellowship will take her to the rural community of Greenwood, Miss. to work with the Greenwood-Leflore Economic Development Foundation and Carl Small Town Center. Her challenge to introduce the concept of sustainability will be a familiar one, after working on these issues with Village Life Outreach Project in rural Tanzania, Africa.

Her work in Greenwood will focus on revitalizing the Baptist Town neighborhood through a community center, improved infrastructure and rehabilitation residential construction. The project will allow public interest design to be more accessible to communities and emerging professionals in the Mississippi Delta area. Roush Elliott first became interested in the relationship between culture and architecture during an intensive six-month study at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a passion that was later fueled by time spent on the Gulf Coast rebuilding homes after Hurricane Katrina.

The Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship was created with the support of green urban solutions pioneer Jonathan Rose, an Enterprise trustee, in honor of his late father, Frederick P. Rose, the urban builder and philanthropist. Forty fellows to date have collectively produced or rehabilitated over 7,000 affordable, energy-efficient homes in urban and rural communities across the country, as well as designed more than 46 community buildings, including day care facilities, health clinics and mixed-use properties. 

Major supporters of National Design Initiatives include The Barr Foundation, Bullitt Foundation, California Community Foundation Capital One Foundation, Central Corridor Funders Collaborative/St. Paul Foundation, Cleveland Foundation, The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, The Davis Family Foundation, Deutsche Bank, Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Fledgling Fund, Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, HSBC Bank, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, The George Gund Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kendeda Fund, The Kresge Foundation, Lostand Foundation Inc, The McKnight Foundation, Neighborhood Progress, Inc., Frederick P. & Sandra P. Rose Foundation, and Saint Luke's Foundation.

About Enterprise

Enterprise is a leading provider of the development capital and expertise it takes to create decent, affordable homes and rebuild communities. For 30 years, Enterprise has introduced neighborhood solutions through public-private partnerships with financial institutions, governments, community organizations and others that share our vision. Enterprise has raised and invested more than $11.5 billion in equity, grants and loans to help build or preserve nearly 300,000 affordable rental and for-sale homes to create vital communities. Enterprise has invested $2.2 billion toward the creation of more than 37,000 affordable homes for seniors. Visit www.EnterpriseCommunity.org and www.EnterpriseCommunity.com to learn more about Enterprise's efforts to build communities and opportunity.

SOURCE Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.