Each year the design firm of HGOR in Atlanta funds a lecture or panel at the UGA College of Environment and Design, a presentation meant to engage practitioners and students in cutting edge environmental design discussion.
HGOR’s founding partner and principal, Robert Hughes, who is a 1977 UGA alumnus, will moderate this year’s panel discussion on Oct. 17. Open free to the public, the panel discussion will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Room 123 of the Jackson Street Building.
The topic will be affordable housing in the 21st century. Included on the panel will be Casey Dawkins, John Goff, Cecil Phillips, Matt Samuelson and Denise Starling. Using Atlanta as a case study, the panel will explore local and national implications for affordable housing in challenging urban growth areas.
Dawkins is a professor at the University of Maryland and a research associate at the National Center for Smart Growth there. Goff is chair of Atlanta’s Urban Land Institute, Livable Communities Council, and his focus will be on transit-oriented design. Phillips, who has a housing development background and is former chair of the Atlanta Housing Authority, will provide current thinking about changing needs and how affordability is approached from a design, construction and a demographic standpoint. Starling is currently head of Livable Buckhead, which is undergoing a study focused on affordability versus mobility in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. She will speak to the challenges of tackling affordability in a part of the city with great wealth and one of the largest concentrations of employment. Samuelson has a development and construction background in public-private mixed use. He will address challenges he has encountered across the country, including financing and construction of affordable housing.
