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FRESH BREW | HOUSING SERIES
AIA Member: $10 | General: $15 | Student: $5  

In this year’s final segment of “Fresh Brew”, we’ll discuss the City’s current and future housing initiatives and how San Francisco’s down-zoning has left vestiges of a more “liberal” urban design. Join us as we continue with themes from our recent “Fresh Brew: In Conversation with Rich Hillis” and the “2020 AIASF Housing Symposium: Cracking the Code” as it applies to “7×7”, the approximately 49-square miles that make up the City and County of San Francisco.

Speakers: (Moderator) Rudabeh Pakravan, Principal, Sidell Pakravan Architects; Laura Foote, Executive Director, YIMBY Action; Sonja Trauss, President/Founder, Yes In My Back Yard

SPEAKER BIOS

(Moderator) Rudabeh Pakravan, Principal, Sidell Pakravan Architects
Sidell Pakravan is a design intensive architecture studio. The two principals, Kristen Sidell and Rudabeh Pakravan, met during their graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Following graduation, they headed to locations as diverse as Paris, Denver, and Los Angeles where they worked on civic, commercial, and residential architecture. When they found themselves both back in the Bay Area and working in academia, they were excited to found a design oriented firm focused on critical thinking intrinsic to academia and real world building. Since 2014, Sidell Pakravan has continued to explore critical ideas in architecture through speculative projects and test these ideas in buildings across Northern California.

Laura Foote, Executive Director, YIMBY Action
Laura is a pro-housing community organizer, focused on the chronic housing shortage driving up prices and pushing out longtime residents. She is the founder and Executive Director of YIMBY Action, a network of pro-housing activists fighting for more inclusive housing policies. With over 2500 members, YIMBY Action drives policy change to increase the supply of housing at all levels and bring down the cost of living in opportunity-rich cities and towns. As a nationally recognized leader in the YIMBY movement, Laura helped grow the fledgling pro-housing movement into a political force, successfully passing legislation at the state and local levels and helping to elect housing champions. YIMBY fights for an integrated society where every person has access to a safe, affordable home near jobs, services, and opportunity.

Sonja Trauss, President/Founder, Yes In My Back Yard
Sonja has been organizing pro-housing renters since 2014 when she founded SF Bay Area Renters Federation. Her story, among others, is featured in Golden Gates, by NYTimes reporter Conor Dougherty. She is the co-founder and director of YIMBY Law which enforces state housing law by filing lawsuits and educating advocates, bureaucrats, and elected and appointed officials on the requirements of CA state housing laws.