Our Team
Stuart Cowan, Ph.D.
Partner
Strategy, Research, Systems Modeling, Regenerative Finance
Stuart grew up in the magnificent coastal temperate rainforests of Vancouver Island, and maintains a life-long passion to understand and sustain living systems. He is fundamentally committed to the flourishing of both biological and cultural diversity, seeing in each a deep expression of the creativity and playfulness of the universe. His work has consistently woven together science, design, community, and ecological economics, creating innovative projects with significant impact. He is catalytic and collaborative, creating new value for project teams through his ability to generate effective strategies that integrate scientific knowledge, multi-scale design, and new models of ownership and finance. He also has a proven ability to undertake long-term transdisciplinary research initiatives.
Stuart served as a Transaction Manager and founding team member with Portland Family of Funds, an innovative sustainable community fund. He played a key role in its successful effort to obtain multiple allocations of federal New Markets Tax Credits for the Portland Development Commission and external clients to deploy on green real estate development and ecological forestry projects. He helped develop a triple bottom line investment strategy for Portland Family of Funds and its national affiliate, United Fund Advisors, LLC, which have together closed $2 billion in transactions, generating 18,000 jobs.
He served as Conservation Economy Research Director at Ecotrust, an innovative sustainability non-profit in Portland. He led the development of the Reliable Prosperity framework for a carbon neutral bioregion. This framework provides a fractal integration of patterns of natural, social, and economic capital, and has been used internationally for strategic planning purposes. While at Portland Family of Funds, he helped Ecotrust secure its first $50 million allocation of federal New Markets Tax Credits for ecological forestry projects.
He is the co-author with Sim Van der Ryn of Ecological Design (Island Press, 1996/2007), a visionary overview of the whole systems integration of ecology and architecture, land-use planning, and product design that has been translated into three languages and was reissued in a special Tenth Anniversary second edition. This book has become a standard reference on creating a restorative built environment, used in universities and design practices around the world. Stuart is currently working on a second book about the breakthrough solutions driving the massive transition underway towards a post-carbon, restorative economy.
He received his doctorate in complex systems from U.C. Berkeley, with a particular emphasis in ecological economics. He has taught ecological design, sustainability, and complex systems at a wide range of universities, including the sustainable MBA program at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, U.C. Berkeley, Portland State University, and Naropa University. He serves on the Board of the Regenerative Design Institute.
Partner
Strategy, Research, Systems Modeling, Regenerative Finance
Stuart grew up in the magnificent coastal temperate rainforests of Vancouver Island, and maintains a life-long passion to understand and sustain living systems. He is fundamentally committed to the flourishing of both biological and cultural diversity, seeing in each a deep expression of the creativity and playfulness of the universe. His work has consistently woven together science, design, community, and ecological economics, creating innovative projects with significant impact. He is catalytic and collaborative, creating new value for project teams through his ability to generate effective strategies that integrate scientific knowledge, multi-scale design, and new models of ownership and finance. He also has a proven ability to undertake long-term transdisciplinary research initiatives.
Stuart served as a Transaction Manager and founding team member with Portland Family of Funds, an innovative sustainable community fund. He played a key role in its successful effort to obtain multiple allocations of federal New Markets Tax Credits for the Portland Development Commission and external clients to deploy on green real estate development and ecological forestry projects. He helped develop a triple bottom line investment strategy for Portland Family of Funds and its national affiliate, United Fund Advisors, LLC, which have together closed $2 billion in transactions, generating 18,000 jobs.
He served as Conservation Economy Research Director at Ecotrust, an innovative sustainability non-profit in Portland. He led the development of the Reliable Prosperity framework for a carbon neutral bioregion. This framework provides a fractal integration of patterns of natural, social, and economic capital, and has been used internationally for strategic planning purposes. While at Portland Family of Funds, he helped Ecotrust secure its first $50 million allocation of federal New Markets Tax Credits for ecological forestry projects.
He is the co-author with Sim Van der Ryn of Ecological Design (Island Press, 1996/2007), a visionary overview of the whole systems integration of ecology and architecture, land-use planning, and product design that has been translated into three languages and was reissued in a special Tenth Anniversary second edition. This book has become a standard reference on creating a restorative built environment, used in universities and design practices around the world. Stuart is currently working on a second book about the breakthrough solutions driving the massive transition underway towards a post-carbon, restorative economy.
He received his doctorate in complex systems from U.C. Berkeley, with a particular emphasis in ecological economics. He has taught ecological design, sustainability, and complex systems at a wide range of universities, including the sustainable MBA program at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, U.C. Berkeley, Portland State University, and Naropa University. He serves on the Board of the Regenerative Design Institute.
Kathryn Langstaff, M.Arch., Associate AIA
Partner
Design Principal, Strategy, Research
Kathryn's work as a designer emerges from understanding the inherent structure of a system and connecting it to the living fabric of our world. She has enjoyed working within a wide range of disciplines including building design, planning, development, education (Pre-K through graduate level), strategic planning, organizational learning, project management, research, photography, and play. Collaborative design and participatory design have also been at the root of her work, as well as a sustained twenty year inquiry into generative design and beauty.
Kathryn is currently a co-founder of Innovation Ecology i.e. which builds new bridges, catalyzes wise actions and customizes community interfaces. i.e. sees design as a participatory practice informed by collective intelligence and links culture design and software design to increase community capability, literacy and wealth.
Always searching for ways to design with local materials and harmony with living systems, Kathryn pioneered the use of leichlehmbau (light-straw clay) in North America in 2002, serving as sustainable designer and project manager for The Fruehauf House and Hai Shan Clinic in Corbett, Oregon. She was part of an innovative USDA RAC grant design team integrating leichlehmbau, roundwood, and other regional materials for the Klamath Siskiyou Arts Center in Happy Camp, California. She designed the Ryzwear Headquarters and Niski Acupunture Clinic and contributed design and sustainable strategies for the Left Bank Project.
Her teaching includes the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s MFA in Collaborative Design program where she led a multidisciplinary cohort of students in an exploration of design thinking as a tool for civic collaboration and solving complex problems. At U.C. Berkeley and the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, Katy taught courses on Designing Sustainable Systems and The Nature of Order, and design studios on Autonomous Urban Villages and Ecological Design. While working with the Ecological Design Institute, she laid the groundwork for a Pre K-12 eco-literacy program at San Domenico School, in San Anselmo, CA which won the Green Ribbon Schools Award from the US Department of Education for excellence in sustainability practices in 2014.
With development experience beginning in the late 1980s in San Francisco, Kathryn worked as the Assistant Construction Manager for Mitsui Fudosan, USA and completed the base building contracts and managed the tenant improvements for 505 Montgomery, a $125 million Class A office building. She researched international loft projects and helped Mitsui Fudosan, USA to invest in the Clock Tower, the first loft conversion South of Market in San Francisco. In 1990, she worked on Phase I of the Shops at Fourth Street in Berkeley with Abrams/Millikan & Associates.
Kathryn has been fortunate to have many collaborators and mentors in her work, including Christopher Alexander, Sim Van der Ryn, Professor Hui Liu, Bill McDonough, John Todd, and David Yarbrough. One of her greatest teachers was her father. His love of life, and the way he shared his gift with the world for the joy of others, has been a great inspiration to her. Jazz piano was his craft. Improvisation, play, creating together, being something more when working with others, sharing the emergence of being, transforming emotion, and helping others find their rhythm were the qualities he bestowed that Katy now employs when engaging with clients.
Kathryn received a Masters in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was awarded the John K. Branner Traveling Fellowship in 1993-1994 to study ecological design and community development.
Partner
Design Principal, Strategy, Research
Kathryn's work as a designer emerges from understanding the inherent structure of a system and connecting it to the living fabric of our world. She has enjoyed working within a wide range of disciplines including building design, planning, development, education (Pre-K through graduate level), strategic planning, organizational learning, project management, research, photography, and play. Collaborative design and participatory design have also been at the root of her work, as well as a sustained twenty year inquiry into generative design and beauty.
Kathryn is currently a co-founder of Innovation Ecology i.e. which builds new bridges, catalyzes wise actions and customizes community interfaces. i.e. sees design as a participatory practice informed by collective intelligence and links culture design and software design to increase community capability, literacy and wealth.
Always searching for ways to design with local materials and harmony with living systems, Kathryn pioneered the use of leichlehmbau (light-straw clay) in North America in 2002, serving as sustainable designer and project manager for The Fruehauf House and Hai Shan Clinic in Corbett, Oregon. She was part of an innovative USDA RAC grant design team integrating leichlehmbau, roundwood, and other regional materials for the Klamath Siskiyou Arts Center in Happy Camp, California. She designed the Ryzwear Headquarters and Niski Acupunture Clinic and contributed design and sustainable strategies for the Left Bank Project.
Her teaching includes the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s MFA in Collaborative Design program where she led a multidisciplinary cohort of students in an exploration of design thinking as a tool for civic collaboration and solving complex problems. At U.C. Berkeley and the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, Katy taught courses on Designing Sustainable Systems and The Nature of Order, and design studios on Autonomous Urban Villages and Ecological Design. While working with the Ecological Design Institute, she laid the groundwork for a Pre K-12 eco-literacy program at San Domenico School, in San Anselmo, CA which won the Green Ribbon Schools Award from the US Department of Education for excellence in sustainability practices in 2014.
With development experience beginning in the late 1980s in San Francisco, Kathryn worked as the Assistant Construction Manager for Mitsui Fudosan, USA and completed the base building contracts and managed the tenant improvements for 505 Montgomery, a $125 million Class A office building. She researched international loft projects and helped Mitsui Fudosan, USA to invest in the Clock Tower, the first loft conversion South of Market in San Francisco. In 1990, she worked on Phase I of the Shops at Fourth Street in Berkeley with Abrams/Millikan & Associates.
Kathryn has been fortunate to have many collaborators and mentors in her work, including Christopher Alexander, Sim Van der Ryn, Professor Hui Liu, Bill McDonough, John Todd, and David Yarbrough. One of her greatest teachers was her father. His love of life, and the way he shared his gift with the world for the joy of others, has been a great inspiration to her. Jazz piano was his craft. Improvisation, play, creating together, being something more when working with others, sharing the emergence of being, transforming emotion, and helping others find their rhythm were the qualities he bestowed that Katy now employs when engaging with clients.
Kathryn received a Masters in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was awarded the John K. Branner Traveling Fellowship in 1993-1994 to study ecological design and community development.