Dorgan Architecture & Planning provides participatory design services that contribute to creating sustainable communities of choice and justice.
Kathleen Dorgan, FAIA, LEED-AP, principal of Dorgan Architecture & Planning in Storrs CT is a practitioner of comprehensive sustainable community development. Trained in architecture (Rensselaer) and urban planning (Pratt), she contributes to the development of incremental strategies for neighborhood-renewal and community-building. She co-edited Cityscpe: University-Based Reconstruction Projects Responding to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and was a member of the technical assistance team for the ACSA/ Iowa State Symposium on Affordable Housing and Disaster Resiliance. Her projects are featured in Good Neighbors: Affordable Family Housing, The Design Advisor, and Design Matters and the National Building Museum’s exhibit Affordable Housing: Designing an American Asset. Chair of the 2013 AIA Housing and AIA/HUD Secretary’s Award juries she is past chair of the AIA Housing Knowledge Community and a past president of the Association for Community Design. She is a member of the UMASS’ Architecture + Design Advisory Council, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Multi-family Retrofit Scheme Committee and the faculty of the Virginia Tech/AIA Sustainable Housing and Design continuing education travel program. Her areas of expertise include participatory and green design.
During a Loeb Fellowship Ms. Dorgan conducted research on community design and hosted the conference Community Design: Now or Never. As a HUD Community Builder Fellow she coordinated Livability, University Partnerships, Homeownership, Healthy Homes, Brownfield Redevelopment and Smart Growth Initiatives in Connecticut and contributed to national design and sustainability initiatives. During her tenure as Executive Director of the Capitol Hill Improvement Corporation in Albany NY over 1500 buildings were renovated or constructed and a rich variety of programs for area residents and merchants were developed including design services, home repair, housing counseling, streetscape improvements and green initiatives. Ms. Dorgan is active in volunteer groups and is a frequent speaker, instructor and writer about design and community renewal.