In this presentation,  Five College Associate Professor of Sustainable Architecture Naomi Darling will share the design process used for the recently completed Phoenix at 0 Park Street on the periphery of the Mount Holyoke College campus. Faced with the choice of trying to save the building or demolishing it, the College chose to undertake an adaptive reuse of the building, which was once home to the MHC fire brigade, the nation’s first brigade made up entirely of women. Over the course of a year, six students worked on the design process, which included archival research and embodied carbon analysis, to determine the best pathway forward. 

Darling’s architecture is a confluence of complementary disciplines, including science, engineering, art and architecture. She believes passionately in the role of design to make life more beautiful and equitable, and she employs a playful pragmatism to do more with less. She also believes architecture is a collaborative process that gives form to vision, celebrates culture and place, and imagines and builds the future that we dream of individually and collectively. For Darling, design is a creative act of optimism toward a more sustainable future. 

Darling is a partner at Ko-LAB Architecture, principal of Naomi Darling Architecture and Five College Associate Professor of Sustainable Architecture. At Mount Holyoke, she teaches design studio courses that focus on sustainable design at the intersection of climate, culture and materiality.

Learn more about Professor Darling on her website, or follow her on Instagram at @naomidarling_architecture.