Rethinking Urban Design for a Sustainable Future

Join the Sustainability Committee of the French-American of Commerce of California SF-LA and AIASF – American Institute of Architects in SF in partnership with MerciSF for an insightful conference on Sustainable Urban Design, featuring a panel of esteemed San Francisco-based experts in architecture and design:

Anne Fougeron, Principal, Fougeron Architecture
Ben Grant, Senior Planner, SITELAB Urban Studio
Blaine Merker, Partner, Director and Head of Climate Action at Gehl Studio

This event will delve into the latest innovations, strategies, and solutions driving the future of urban spaces in response to climate change, population growth, and technological progress.

Focusing on creating greener, more resilient cities, the panelists will share cutting-edge approaches to sustainable architecture, urban planning, and environmental design that enhance ecological responsibility and improve community well-being. Speakers will showcase a range of completed and future projects that illustrate these forward-thinking concepts.

The discussion will also be the opportunity to explore the intersection of European and American practices, offering a unique cross-cultural perspective on sustainable urban development.

Meet the speakers:

Anne Fougeron, Principal, Fougeron Architecture

The firm’s decidedly modernist attitude is the result of founder Anne Fougeron‘s vision to create a practice dedicated to finding the perfect alignment between architectural idea and built form. Her work can be defined by three basic tenets:

Architectural space is modulated by the quality and character of natural light.
Innovative use of structure becomes the architectural ornament.
Exploration into the visual and tactile nature of materials enhances how people engage a building.

Ben Grant, Senior Planner, SITELAB Urban Studio

Benjamin Grant is a city planner, urban designer, curator and teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. He helps lead Sitelab’s work on the Port of San Francisco’s Waterfront Resiliency Program. He spent over a decade at SPUR, the urban policy research organization, where he served as Urban Design Policy Director, leading research on physical planning, public space and urban design.

He is the author of numerous reports and studies on subjects that include retrofitting suburbs for walkability, the innovation-sector workplace, accommodating regional growth, and managing public open space. He led the development and implementation of the Ocean Beach Master Plan, an award-winning climate adaptation strategy for San Francisco’s open coast.

He has curated numerous exhibitions for the SPUR Urban Center, and as co-founder of city|space, a nonprofit cultural organization. He has taught urban history and design at UC Berkeley, San José State University, and the San Francisco Art Institute.

Blaine Merker, Partner, Director and Head of Climate Action at Gehl

Blaine Merker is a partner at Gehl, an urban design and strategy consultancy based in Copenhagen, New York and San Francisco, dedicated to making “cities for people and planet”.

For two decades, Blaine has focused on public space design, spanning the spectrum from tactical implementation to long-term visions. In 2006, he co-founded the California-based studio Rebar, best known for projects like Park(ing) Day and pioneering the idea of tactical urbanism that put street transformation on the global urban agenda. In 2014, he joined Gehl to lead their practice in the Americas. He currently heads Gehl’s climate action initiative, advocating for the role of urban design in simultaneously addressing decarbonization while improving health, equity and quality of life. He holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s from Reed College. He is a planning commissioner in Berkeley, where he lives with his partner and two kids.

Meet the moderator:

Charlie Stott, Principal at Stott Architects San Francisco

Charlie Stott, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB leads Stott Architects in San Francisco.

He designs environments that embrace sustainability and resilience, enhance the history of place, and reveal the craft of construction. His project experience ranges from adaptive reuse of historic structures to ground-up multi-story buildings. Charlie has led the design of academic buildings, single and multi-family housing, and community and institutional projects—many achieving awards recognition from the American Institute of Architects, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the US Green Building Council. Charlie is active with the American Institute of Architecture, and currently co-chairs the AIA San Francisco Committee on the Environment (COTE).

Don’t miss this exceptional opportunity to learn about the latest trends and strategies shaping the design of greener and more resilient cities.