David Koch

Browning Court of Appeals, San Francisco, CA

JANE LEHMAN, Architect, LEED AP (B.Arch. ‘82)

For the past 17 years, I’ve been the Regional Historic Preservation Officer at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in its Pacific Rim Region. I’m a licensed architect. I spent the first 10 years of my career in private architectural practice doing custom residential design work. My federal career began after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco when I started doing disaster recovery work for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). After 12 years with FEMA, I moved to the National Park Service at Golden Gate National Recreation Area where I was the historical architect for Alcatraz, the former island prison in the San Francisco Bay. One of my favorite projects on Alcatraz was the seismic retrofit of the main cell block. Thousands of visitors each day wander through the historic prison without being aware of, or seeing, the massive concrete tie beams that connect the cell blocks to the island bedrock. As the owner’s representative during this construction, I was responsible for balancing the needs of all the project components and stakeholders, which included the construction contractor, the historic buildings, the daily visitors, and the thousands of nesting seabirds that make

Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, CA 20222022 the island their home.

GSA’s Pacific Rim Region has a wonderful collection of historic buildings. From the Beaux Arts masterpiece Browning Court of Appeals, which survived San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake, to the Art Deco U.S. Courthouse at 312 N. Spring Street in Los Angeles that played a key role in the history of school desegregation, to the midcentury modern architec-

The buildings that we studied in the 1970s when I was an architecture student are now old enough to be considered historic. We can look back on them to see how they’ve withstood the test of time.

ture that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s. A historic building is like a layer cake, rich and satisfying. Historic preservation work starts with research, but you keep digging in and you learn more and more about a building and its history. Buildings may or may not look the same as they did when originally constructed, because buildings must move forward with us, or they won’t get preserved. Most buildings are not preserved just for preservation’s sake, they must function well and meet modern safety and accessibility standards, too. Preservation work is just like good architectural design, if it’s done well, most people don’t notice, they just appreciate the spaces. Jane Lehman

Regional Historic Preservation Officer, Pacific Rim Region United States General Services Administration (GSA)

I’ll never know what my g r e a t e s t p r o f e s s i o n a l accomplishment is because my work involves preserving historic places for future generations. I like to think that 50 years, or 100 years, or 200 years from now, people will be appreciating something that I participated in preserving, just the same way that I appreciate the architecture and other historic places saved for me. Or maybe they’ll be thinking, “I can’t believe how much c o n c r e t e t h e y d u m p e d underneath the cell block, this thing’s not going anywhere!”

U.S. Courthouse, Los Angeles, CA My two passions have always been buildings and history. I’m fortunate to be able to take my two favorite pastimes and make a wonderful career out of them. Ever since I was young, I’ve loved buildings and I always knew I was going t o b e a n a r c h i t e c t . Architecture is not just a choice one makes in college, it’s a calling.

Community College of Philadelphia, PA

ROBERT McNAMARA, RA, PP (B.Arch. ‘82)

Most of my work has been in large commercial architectural firms, primarily in New Jersey. I have worked on a variety of building types, including Education, Healthcare, Governmental, and Hospitality. I did for a time work for a Construction Management firm, recruited while working on a high-rise hotel in Manhattan. It was an interesting and educational experience. Seeing the construction process from a different perspective was enlightening, and increased my respect for all members of the building community. You learn to appreciate that construction is a collaborative effort. That appreciation is now helping me on a Design-Build project for a new courthouse our architectural firm is designing in Jersey City, NJ. I have always felt the best designs are created when all parties have input, expanding that concept to include subcontractors as well as engineers is very exciting.

While I have worked on several large-scale commercial projects, two of my most satisfying projects were those where we addressed real-world issues for client groups in low-income communities. One of them was a replacement school in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Camden, NJ. As I began the pro-

Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy, Camden, New Jersey 20222022

Rutgers University Residence Halls, New Brunswick, NJ Learning from history without copying it … was one of Lou Inserra’s biggest mantras. And one that I have carried forward to consider and inspire my own creative design work. Robert McNamara

Di re ctor / S eni or Proj ec t M ana ger N et t a A r chi t e ct s

Lou Inserra’s great enthusiasm and love of architecture was infectious. He especially wanted his students to look at precedents to inspire and create spaces that are meaningful reflections of our time and place.

gramming effort, one of the comments from both teachers and students was that we needed to address the width of our hallways to the existing school, a single corridor handled all of the circulation. During class changes, this hallway became too crowded, leading to conflicts and even fights. I was determined to solve this problem. At the same time, we were restricted by State guidelines on Net-to-Gross square footages. We became advocates for those students, convincing the State reviewers with some leeway we could create a circulation loop, guaranteeing less congestion, and still deliver an efficient design that was cost effective. With the loop we were able to create a inner courtyard that becomes a nice quiet protected space for the students. As an added bonus we situated the Art Classroom right off the courtyard. I was particularly pleased that the school was selected as the district’s Creative Arts High School.

Simpson Pavilion, Community Health Center, Bronx, NY In the South Bronx, I worked with a great community-based healthcare provider, Urban Health. In this area of the city, there is no local hospital, and my client has stepped forward to provide an extensive array of services. For their new building, our team worked within a predetermined footprint and a tight budget, we squeezed as much program as my into the floor plans, so this non-profit could fulfill their mission in this under-served community. After opening, seeing the amount of patients using the building, and knowing that we helped our client realize their worthwhile goal is really what I cherish about our profession.