About us

 

TEAM LARS  (Linda Alex Russ & Sam)

    

Linda Hallgren

 

Linda was born in Seattle, WA, but moved soon after to Olympia, WA.  Linda attended Pacific Lutheran University and the Evergreen State College where she recieved her bachelor degree in liberal arts.  After graduating and moving to Seattle, she worked at becoming an artist, as well as trying real estate sales, escrow, and property management.  After taking the summer course "Introduction to Architecture" at University of Washington, Linda got on the architectural track. She worked for 2 different design build general contractors doing design, drafting, estimating, and meeting with subcontractors and customers. Linda is now in her second year, as a graduate student, working towards her master's degree in architecture.  Outside of her studies, Linda enjoys playing the guitar, singing, participating in her church, and volunteering.

 

   (A momentum of sustainability)

Alex  Miller 

Alex was born and raised in portland oregon.  He has moved 13 times within the city limits, as well as to New Mexico for a couple of months.  He lived in Quebec this summer, working as a landscaper and house painter.  He got to visit Montreal and Quebec City.  When he was a teenager, Alex went on Price is Right.  He didn't get to go on stage, but was a member of the audience.  Alex has also lived off the grid for several years as a teen.  He likes to play basketball, and watch tennis.  He has two siblings, a 31-year old brother, and 33-year old sister both of whom are married.  He has visited both Greece and Turkey.  He knows how to juggle, and is excited to learn how to juggle with fire.  His group-learning experience came 2 years ago while he worked in a construction company.  All employees were from different countries, so communication was vital to the success of any project.

 

     community

Russ Harmon

Russ is an Oregon native, having grown up in Corvallis and recently moved to Eugene, which he now considers home.  He is enthusiastic about soccer, electric guitar, art and of course, architecture.  This past summer he traveled to Alberta to fish with his dad and also worked on a roofing crew.  It took all of them working together to keep the site safe for everyone.  He is glad to be going back to school this fall.

 

Samantha Rusek 

Sam is a graduate student at the U of O. She grew up in Ohio and has lived in Wisconsin, Michigan, West Africa, Florida and California before moving to Oregon.   While traveling and studying in Ghana as an undergraduate of Anthropology, Sam became very interested in how different cultures live and pass on traditions.  While living in Florida, environmental and cultural conservation became a subject of great interest to her.  These two experiences contributed greatly to Sam's current studies in architecture.    

 

    Sam is currently focusing a lot of her time working on CASL (the Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Living), a project to create a sustainable demonstration house where students will also live near the U of O.  She is also still trying to figure out how to see a lot of music, silkscreen, put in a garden and still have time to learn software to create a righteous Co-Housing project with her group. 

 

 

TEAM CCCP (Caitlin, Colony, Colin & Peter)

 

Caitlin Whitham

Caitlin is from Golden, Colorado where, as she likes to claim, the mountains are a lot bigger and better than those in Oregon.  She narrowed down her career options at a very early age, hoping to become a professional soccer player, or perhaps an architect.  While still in high school, she made a trip to Eugene to visit the University and was immediately enamored with all the trees, the outstanding architecture program, but most of all the chance for a real test of her snowboarding skills on mountains with less forgiving snow.  Caitlin has now spent three years as an undergrad at U of O, all in the architecture department.  Living in a sorority, she quickly learned the importance of respecting others opinions and the need to share responsibilities.  The experience of living in a house with 54 others has given Caitlin some real insight into an example of “Extreme Co-Housing”.

 

Colony

 

Colin Dean

 

TEAM SyNeRJy (Scott, Nathan, Robert, Jackie)

 

Scott Rasmussen

Scott was born in Seattle, and from early on, he knew that he wanted to both be an architect and go to the U of O. In high school, Scott was on the Baseball team, and this group activity taught him many life lessons, such as "outgoing people get away with more," and "driven people are more apt to blame others for their failures."  In college, Scott developed a major interest in snow boarding.  He goes whenever possible.  He also loves to travel, mainly on road trips.  He's road-tripped all over the US and thus seen a lot of the country.

 

         

Nathan Majeski

Nathan is from Ashland, OR but attended Tufts University in Boston. While in school he took an internship with Goldmen Reindorf Architects. After graduating he was offered a job with the small firm and worked there for a year and an a half. Through his experience working with the firm he learned an open working environment encourages communication, which was necessary because everyone worked on the same projects. Nathan also realized that group work is more difficult when individuals pursue their own agendas.  After working for Goldmen Reindorf, Nathan decided to return to school and was attracted to the University of Oregon's "Green" program as well as the wonderful environment in Oregon. 

 

Robert Wendt

 

 

Robert is originally from San Jose and did his undergraduate at the University of Puget Sound. While in Washington he completed his degrees in art and math. Now he is a graduate student with us here in Oregon. Aside from Robo’s changes in school, he has two hampsters, Elizabeth and Jack. One of Robert’s group encounters that he learned from was his past ECS II group. He noted that it is successful to have people in your group that have background knowledge in what you are trying to accomplish. Namely, power tools. Some of the group’s failures were do impracticality that took time to negotiate other away from. Decisions were made when someone stepped up and made them for the group sometimes regardless of popular opinion. The group had laid back personalities which was the source sometimes for procrastination.

 

    

Jackie Jenzen

Originally from San Jose California, Jackie Jenzen is now attending her 5th year at the University of Oregon. She intended on studying business, but soon discovered the wonderful splendors of architecture. Her parents are both accountants and her dad enjoys swinging the hammer around the house. She has an older brother who recieved an engineering degree from LMA located in Los Angeles. When she was a senior in high school, her parents adopted a 3-year old boy from Kazakstan and adopted another soon after. They are 4 and 9 years old now. Over the Summer, Jackie worked at Varvitsiosis (I hope I spelled it right) building models for 40 hours a week. She continues to work there during the school year. Living with 6 other people, Jackie has had a lot of experience in groups. For example, one day the entire house decided to work on their backyard which had become horribly overgrown. Each person did a specific job and in no time the yard looked good as new. Jackie also is a crazy gypsy.

 

THE STREET TEAM (Chris, Matt, Nick)

 

 

Chris Iverson

Chris is originally from Beverton, Oregon. He chose to pursue architecture after taking computer drafting and art classes in high school. Also, while in high school Chris played baseball and soccer. Currently he is the vice president of his fraternity. In one group activity, a team member let the whole group down by not pulling their own weight. This negative experience had a profound impact on how Chris deals with unproductive group members.

 

 Reliability-Leadership

Nick Lopez

Nick grew up in the bay area of california.  He gained a strong background in construction through his contractor father.  He has worked several summers for his father's construction company, and decided that he is interested in the deesign aspect of building. The all-american sports of baseball and football hold particular interest for Nick.  He played football for his highschool team, and had a great season.  It was important for the team members to function cohesively as a team not just a bunch on individuals.  Trust was a key part of this teamwork.

 

  (Security)

Matt Dreska

Born in Scottsdale Arizona, Matt moved at a young age to Bend, OR. Matt grew up in Bend doing all the fun things that central Oregon people do, snowboard, hike, outdoor things. Although that changed for one year when Matt and his family lived in Eugene. They decided that Eugene just wasn't mountain enought for them, so they moved back to Bend. At a young age Matt took up the talent of playing the trumpet. He realized that the school band he played in sounded better when they all played together instead of separate solos. Unfortunately, the group dibanded and Matt hasn't heard from any of his fellow band memebers for quite some time. There has been popular support for a band reunion, but things just aren't meant to be. Matt credits his musical skills to being half Latvian. He visited his homeland and several other eastern European countries like Estonia and Lithuania. There he joined a local Roma (gypsy) orchestra and toured the region while acquiring a taste for intramural soccer. He's trying out this year for the soccer team, and we hall hope he succeeds. Matt has one sister, who he is close in age to.

 

Instructor

Nancy Cheng

Nancy has been teaching architectural design studios and media classes at UO since 1996.  She studies how tools, methods and teams shape the design process. Nancy grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, the third daughter of Chinese immigrants who came to the U.S. as students.  She lived in New England from 1978-1993, going to college at Yale, working in Boston architectural firms and then getting a graduate degree at Harvard.  (Her father had found going to Tsinghua University in Beijing from a small city to be a pivotal experience, so he pushed his kids to study hard and the family scrimped to save for tuition.)  On a lark she applied to teach at the University of Hong Kong and has enjoyed the chance to be in school again.  Nancy enjoys traveling to conferences, reading novels and bicycling.   More info is on her old website. 

 

Visionary Guides

Chuck Rusch

Professor Emeritus Chuck Rusch has a passion for self-sustaining communities.  He formerly headed the UO Department of Architecture, leading some of the first Macintosh-based design studios in the nation and teaching eco-design courses before they were fashionable.  He served  from 2001-2005 on the Eugene Planning Commission, "a consistent advocate for long-range comprehensive planning, holding firm on the Urban Growth Boundary, and handling growth through infill construction and higher densities.  His holds an A.B. from Harvard and a B.Arch. and M.Arch. from U.C. Berkeley.

 

Diana Fischetti  

Diana has been studying cohousing communities as a UO candidate for a double master's degree in Environmental Studies and Geography.  She has been meeting with the Bend co-housing group because she is curious about joining it after graduation.  She recently spent two weeks at Ithaca Ecovillage, collecting information for her master's thesis.  Diana is concurrently pursuing a certificate degree from the Planning, Public Policy & Management department.She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies in 2000 from the University of Colorado at Boulder and then worked as a ski patroller, EMT, and structural and wildland firefighter, while living in Nederland, Colorado and Bend, Oregon.  Her current academic research involves the examination of the geographic concept of sense of place, and its role in the formation of personal identity.