Welcoming Andrew Kramer!

Andrew Kramer has been involved with the nonprofit community in Dallas for seven years, primarily as a fundraiser. His experience has ranged from working with Texas inmates on entrepreneurship and business planning to helping feed local communities at the North Texas Food Bank. Andrew comes to bcWORKSHOP with a strong interest in enabling communities to collaboratively work to solve local problems and improve their livability in changing conditions. Andrew graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin, and received a MBA from Texas Christian University. He is an Eagle Scout, and was awarded a full year scholarship to study in Germany as part of the Fulbright program. Andrew has been a lifelong volunteer working with a variety of organizations focusing on youth and adult literacy, homelessness and hunger issues. Andrew lives in North Oak Cliff with his family and three dogs.

Welcome Laura Bass!

Laura Bass is a Dallas native, having graduated from the Hockaday School in 2011. A student at Yale University, she is majoring in Environmental Engineering, with particular interest in renewable energy, water resources and sustainable development. At bcWorkshop, Laura is undertaking research for the Connected City project, an initiative of the City of Dallas CityDesign Studio, the Trinity Trust, Downtown Dallas Inc. and The Real Estate Council.

Welcome Ann Panopio!

Ann Panopio is the new Associate Director of our Houston office where she is working with bcFELLOW Ryan Campbell on DR2. Ann is returning to Texas after living in Chicago, Oregon and the San Francisco Bay Area for many years. She has a B.S in Environmental Design from the University of Houston and a Masters of Architecture from the University of Oregon. Her work in the intersection of design and social responsibility ranges in scale from a collaboration on creating furniture prototypes for a classroom for children with learning disabilities, affordable and supportive housing to examining how public transit can be used as a catalyst to “stitch” a neighborhood back together. During her time working at Pyatok Architects and Asian Neighborhood Design, her projects often incorporated how a culture can influence the design and use of a space while still reflecting the present day values of the surrounding environment. Generally, she finds that when she is invited to lead or facilitate a group, she learns many fascinating and surprising things from the participants, every single time. We are very excited to have Ann joining our team!

Welcome Lisa Neergaard!

Lisa Neergaard is returning home to Dallas county. As a native she has a deep appreciation for all that Dallas is, and an excitement for what it will become. Lisa's interest in neighborhoods and housing began while gaining her BA in American Studies from University of Massachusettes, Boston. She fell in love with the scale of the city, and its relationship to the Charles River. That passion for neighborhood lead her to pursue a Master in City and Regional Planning from the University of Texas, Arlington. In that time she worked with the City Design Studio as a policy and planning intern; working on project ranging from West Dallas Urban Structures to food truck regulations. She returns to Dallas after working on a variety of Theme Park design projects in Los Angeles, and is delighted to refocus her attention on projects that strengthen and grow local communities.

Welcome Hugo Colón Acevedo!

Hugo Colón Acevedo was born and raised in Puerto Rico where he received a Bachelor Degree in Environmental Design and a Master Degree in Architecture. His particular interest towards open space, landscape and hydrology drove him to pursue a second Master degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, from which he recently graduated. During his studies at Puerto Rico and the GSD he worked with several open space projects related to water infrastructure for communities in San Juan Puerto Rico, Lawrence Massachusetts and the Chilean Patagonia with a focus on the culture and identity of these communities. All of these experiences bring Hugo to bcWORSHOP as a Community Planner to contribute with the LUCHA and Colonias Public Space & Storm-water Low Impact Development projects for the Rio Grande Valley.

Welcome Ryan Campbell!

Ryan Campbell is a native Texan with a love for people, places, and cultures. He graduated from the E. Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas in 2012 and is passionate about architecture and its relation to the people and communities it affects. He believes that the architecture of the past tells a story of culture and its people and that contemporary projects today should do the same. When he can, he finds the time to draw, sketch, and paint the historic places he has visited, because he is fascinated with the principles they have to teach. In 2011 he received a grant fellowship to study the architecture of the southwestern United States in an effort to reinterpret the lessons of the past for today. In 2012 he was a part of a design-build project of a modern home in downtown Little Rock, AR. He has also spent time in Mexico and Africa studying existing urban relationships related to housing. Unrelated to architecture, Ryan loves life, spending time with his family, reading, hiking, camping, and climbing.

Welcome Jay Ranaweera!

Jay Ranaweera is a designer who has lived, worked and studied in a variety of cities throughout his life. Born and raised in Sri Lanka, he moved to the United States as a teenager, and studied architecture at the University of Maryland and Universidade Federal da Bahia in Salvador, Brazil. Most recently he lived in Seattle while completing his Master of Architecture degree at the University of Washington and focused his work on understanding how architecture can contribute to socially, culturally and economically empowered communities. In addition to his interest in community oriented design work, Jay also enjoys working on design-build projects and teaching architecture. At bcWORKSHOP, Jay hopes to carry his interest forward while making a valuable contribution to his new community.

Welcome Elaine Morales Díaz!

Elaine Morales, born and raised in Puerto Rico, obtained a Bachelor of Environmental Design, a Master of Architecture and an Urban Studies Certificate from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR); and a second Master on International Cooperation from the International University of Catalunya (UIC) in Barcelona, Spain. She has particular interest in community development in post-conflict and post-disaster contexts and how communities organize and design their own environments. She participated in the Post-Flood Sports Workshop with Architecture for Humanity in Brazil and worked as a research and needs assessment intern for the Risk Reduction and Rehabilitation branch of UN-HABITAT in Kenya. All of these experiences bring Elaine to bcWORKSHOP to contribute to Rapido and sustainABLEhouse efforts in the Rio Grande Valley.

Welcome Danielle Larsen!

Danielle Larsen, a Huntsville, AL native, recently graduated from Vanderbilt University with a BA in Psychology. She became interested in the benefits of a well designed community after she took a class on the history of the city of Copenhagen's design and plan during a semester abroad in Denmark. This one class planted the seed for a potential career path. Having spent four months in an extremely livable city and comparing that with her work with the homeless in her local community and across the country, she became interested in how the design of a city helps or inhibits the goals of its lower-income residents. These interests led her to bcWORKSHOP where she believes she can combine both her passions and her skills in the position of Office Manager.

Welcome Kate Medin!

Kate Medin is a designer who has a passion for working with community-oriented + humanitarian-based projects. She has a background working in architecture, construction and interiors; recently receiving her Masters in Architecture from the University of Kansas after completing her bachelors in Environmental Design. She grew up in what she calls “a Habitat family” volunteering for various projects via Habitat for Humanity and overseas work through Volunteers in Mission starting at the age of fourteen. She recently has been involved with the not-for-profit group Studio 804 designing + building a net zero research facility for alternative fuels. Though she is quite familiar with the traditional design rhetoric she is focusing her talents on pushing the field of design towards more sustainable / efficient solutions that can improve our landscape on a local and global scale. She also studied abroad in Japan, South Korea and China in an effort to learn how rapid growth can change ancient societies and how these two forces fuse together to create something entirely new + unique. She is incredibly excited to come work with bcWORKSHOP and eager to jump on board to continue the momentum while striving to enhance the community.

Welcome Nick Kunz!

Nicholas Hyeong Kunz, an urbanist from Scottsdale, AZ, is centrally focused on innovative development solutions by virtue of design, economics, technology, and community corroboration. As a Design Consultant, he was most widely known for his "microphasing" strategy, which was designed to increase the frequency and reduce the scale of traditional phased development to produce a robust stock of affordable housing absent of government grants or subsidies. Nick studied Housing + Community Development, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Design (Hons) degree, summa cum laude, from Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University in 2012. His honors thesis, "Realizing Interactive Architecture: A Driver of the Knowledge Economy" investigated the relatively unexplored economic ramifications of developing technologically driven architecture. Subsequent to his undergraduate education, Nick studied Urban Planning as a part of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design's Career Discovery program. Nick is beatified to be leveraging his development expertise with bcWORKSHOP to serve the public.

Welcome Isaac Cohen!

Isaac Cohen just graduated from Masters of Landscape Architecture program at the University of Virginia where his work ranges across the ecological, social, and infrastructural - always combining a passion for community, art, and public space.  These passions were born from his undergraduate degree in Studio Art from Vassar College and six years spent working in Seattle to build parks and public spaces with communities across the city.  His practice explores the overlapping and hidden processes of the city, revealing how urban forms can be utilized in multiple, divergent ways by communities and individuals to create vibrant cities.  He is looking forward to exploring Dallas through its public spaces, parks, and food.

Welcome TJ Bogan!

T.J. Bogan was born and raised in Marietta, GA, playing on the rivers and the ivory.  He left the Chattahoochee for the Mississippi just prior to Katrina's landfall and earned his M.Arch from Tulane University, School of Architecture in 2011.  New Orleans taught him how space, story, and neighborhood are interdependent.  Participating in the URBANbuild studio, partnered with Make It Right, he and his peers tested new sustainable methods and materials through the construction of affordable housing in the Lower Ninth Ward.  In 2011, T.J. was awarded a fellowship for travel to Vietnam to study the floating markets of the Mekong River delta.  There, he observed an intricately choreographed layering of natural and built infrastructure and a culture of multifaceted characters.  Throughout his studies, T.J. collaborated with local ensemble theater to design and construct innovative sets for imaginative new work.  Consequently, his graduate thesis addressed street theater and its propensity toward mapping, identifying, activating and exploiting patterns of movement and habitation in search of a stage.  Most recently having worked on the rehabilitation and reprogramming of a historic landmark building in Manhattan, T.J. is becoming aware of the politics of space and is excited to contribute to a critical practice.

Welcome Maria Bergh!

Maria Bergh is a designer and maker who believes that a community is a union of people, place, ecology and infrastructure, and that each of those elements has a role in sustaining and restoring the whole. She recently graduated at the top of the University of Cincinnati’s Masters of Architecture and Masters of Community Planning programs where she built practical experience in architecture through cooperative education internships all over the country. She is grateful and excited to join bcWORKSHOP to collectively learn and build a more just, robust, and engaging city for today and tomorrow.

Welcome Katharine Dike!

Katharine Brookes Dike is a designer who believes architecture lives, reacts, and is shaped by the social, environmental, and economic systems in the world. Born and raised in Memphis, TN, she graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2011 with degrees in Architecture and Global Studies. As a student she juggled the differences in an education in design versus an education in global change. This unique perspective allowed her to see the potential of design in its best sense: positive social and environmental change. Two projects she helped lead, a New Norris House and the Haiti Project allowed her to experience and reaffirmed her passion for the implementation of architecture that has a greater impact. After graduating, Katharine continued to work with these two projects, and helped manage and operate the Design| Build Fabrication Laboratory at the College of Architecture + Design. She finds construction documents beautiful, people fascinating, and problems inspiring. Furthermore, she is extremely excited to work for the bcWORKSHOP, and get to know the city of Dallas, TX.

Welcome Leslie Nepveux!

Leslie Nepveux is a designer whose early life experiences in Africa shaped a deep passion to work with and bring quality design to the underserved. She graduated from Oklahoma State University in 2005 with a professional Bachelors of Architecture. For the past seven years Leslie has worked in architectural firms in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Kansas on a variety of project types and scales including: religious, university, university housing, multi-family housing, commercial, retail, and single-family residential. Most recently she has led a pro-bono design effort for several primary school and clinic projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She enjoys sewing and has used this craft to fundraise several trips to Africa. Leslie is eager to participate with bcWORKSHOP and learn from this adventure of public interest design.

Welcome Craig Weflen!

Craig Weflen studied Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he completed his Master of Architecture. His graduate thesis project focused on building and deployment strategies for displaced communities, with a specific emphasis on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a nation which has been engaged in civil war for the past 15 years. The project underscores the need to improve the basic tent provided to people upon their initial displacement. Instead of simply being a tent that provides basic shelter, why can’t it also collect water from the roof for the occupant to drink, thereby cutting costs for the relief organization? Why not design the structure so that the packaging is reused as a vital part of the building, thereby eliminating waste? Instead of designing a one size fits all model, why not design the tent to be modular, enabling it to fit different size families? As Buckminster Fuller once said, “it is highly feasible to take care of all of humanity at a higher standard of living than anybody has ever experienced or dreamt of.” With this belief at heart, Craig knows that the only thing standing in our way is inaction, and is excited to get to work.