United States
Roberta Feldman is an architectural activist, researcher and educator committed to socially just design. Her work is grounded in the conviction that high quality design is a meaningful and necessary component of an equitable and sustainable society. Feldman sustained working relationships with leaders in over 50 community non-profit corporations in Chicago’s metro-region’s low-income neighborhoods to address revitalizing and preserving these communities’ designed environments. Feldman initiated numerous advocacy projects - forums, summits, exhibits, and websites, to raise awareness of design’s potential to serve the public’s interest. Feldman has received over 50 federal and local government and foundation competitive grants for this work. Feldman’s research has focused on affordable and public housing design including: author with Susan Stall, The Dignity of Resistance: Women Residents Activism in Chicago Public Housing, Cambridge University Press, 2004; editor, Design Matters: Best Practices in Affordable Housing; curator, “Out of the Box: Design Innovations in Manufactured Housing” exhibit, Field Museum, 2005; consultant to the Cabrini Green Local Advisory Council in the HOPE VI redevelopment, 2002-2007; and editor with Jim Wheaton, The Chicago Greystone in Historic North Lawndale, distributed by University of Chicago Press, 2007. Feldman’s expertise in public interest design has been recognized nationally and internationally including: the 2011 FAIA Latrobe Prize with Bryan Bell, Sergio Palleroni and David Perkes; 2011 ACSA Service Award; 2008 AIA Chapter Distinguished Service Award; for projects she directed at the City Design Center, the 2008 EDRA/Places/Metropolis Award for Research, 2008 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award, 2005 EDRA/Places Research Award, and 2001 Association for Community Design Award for Excellence; and most recently she was received the 2014 EDRA Career Award and inclusion in the Inaugural Public Interest Design 100. Feldman serves on several non-profit boards, having recently rolled off of the AIA Chicago Foundation. Currently she is Vice Chair Emerita of the Chicago Women in Architecture Foundation. Feldman is currently a Professor Emerita, retired from the University of Illinois School of Architecture.
The AIA Chicago Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to supporting activities that benefit the Chicago-area architecture community. In particular, the Foundation provides grants, travel scholarships and awards for activities that promote the profession and the larger architecture and design community.
HOUSE OF CARDS:Rebuilding is an exhibit on housing insecurity and homelessness in Chicago. The exhibit was produced by ART WORKS Projects, Chicago in collaboration with the National Public Housing Museum.
The National Public Housing Museum is a place of stories that mine the vastly complex history of public and publicly subsidized housing in America. The Museum creates a living cultural experience on social justice and human rights that creatively re-imagine the future of our community, our society, and our spaces.