press release

February 15, 2007

VMDO Architects sponsors keynote speaker at VEFP

Yale professor Stephen R. Kellert to address conference

The annual Virginia Education Facility Planners (VEFP) conference will be held at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in Roanoke, Virginia, on February 26 and February 27, 2007. The two-day event is a workshop to benefit school facility planners, school administrators, architects and engineers, school board members, supervisors, and anyone involved in the planning, design, and construction of schools.

This year's keynote speaker is Dr. Stephen R. Kellert, Tweedy Ordway Professor of Social Ecology at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Much of Professor Kellert’s work focuses on understanding the connection between human and natural systems. He has authored more than 100 publications, including The Good in Nature and Humanity: Connecting Science, Religion, and Spirituality with the Natural World (edited with T. Farnham, Island Press, 2002), and Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Development (Island Press, 1997). Professor Kellert recently completed a book manuscript, Ordinary Nature: Understanding and Designing Connections Between the Natural and Human Built Environments.

Dr. Kellert's presentation will suggest that true and lasting sustainability in the built environment requires both a low environmental impact design approach and a biophilic design strategy that enhances human health and well-being. He will also discuss the means for achieving a more cost effective restorative environmental design.

VMDO Architects is pleased to sponsor Dr. Kellert's presentation.

For more information about the upcoming Virginia Educational Facility Planners conference, click here.

VMDO Architects was founded in 1976 and is the youngest firm to receive the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Virginia Architecture Award, the most prestigious honor given by the Virginia Society of American Institute of Architects.

For further information, interview, and photography opportunities in reference to this project and VMDO Architects, please contact William Bishop at 434.296.5684, email at bishop@vmdo.com.