Rachel Minnery FAIA

Rachel Minnery FAIA (BArch Ball State) has transformed the work and public perception of the profession through her disaster and design activism:  supporting communities in crisis worldwide by inspiring, preparing and leading individuals, teams and organizations of contributing design professionals, and advancing innovative practice and service models for disaster recovery and resilience. 

 As an AIA Seattle activist beginning with response to the Nisqually earthquake of 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rachel Minnery has played a major volunteer role in mobilizing and organizing the AIA’s Disaster Preparedness & Resilience programs.  This has resulted in effective emergency assistance delivered by AIA and AIA members in numerous sites around the world, with such community-saving public service widely shared in professional and public media.

Rachel has delivered her own and other design professionals’ service to disaster-damaged communities worldwide, expanding the AIA’s disaster outreach capability and visibility 2005-present.  Her effort began in September 2005, when she organized and led a multi-disciplinary design team on the AIA Seattle “Mississippi Mission” within weeks of Hurricane Katrina.  Her work went to the AIA national level beginning in 2007 and continuing, as a member of the AIA Disaster Assistance committee and Chair 2008-11.  With her AIA and staff committee colleagues, Rachel has crafted and helped mobilize the AIA’s disaster outreach program, over a decade directing and coordinating missions assessing and addressing hurricane, tornado, and earthquake damage in communities throughout the US, and to Haiti and Japan with Rachel as leader.  Notably, as Regional Program Manager for Hurricane Sandy Reconstruction following October 2012 devastation to New York City, she spearheaded and led the award-winning Sandy Design Help Desk, a public-private partnership that trained hundreds of designers and architects in disaster-resilient design to provide pro bono design services to more than 500 families and small businesses impacted by the super-storm.

Rachel has educated AIA members and related professionals as a speaker, educator, and writer.  She has addressed the AIA Convention regularly, in 2014 as a keynote speaker on disaster resilience; and previously as a Continuing Education seminar leader (with recordings widely circulated) introducing innovative approaches to disaster resilience – an emerging and growing field offering broad opportunities for design professional engagement.  Other professional organizations throughout the US and abroad host her in delivering similar information to their members, such as the Japan Institute of Architects and the International Union of Architects in 2014.  Extensive publications by and about Rachel’s endeavors have appeared in a range of public and professional media:  USA Today, AIArchitect, Architectural Record, chapters in The Architects Handbook of Professional Practice 2014 edition, in numerous professional journals and local newspapers, and elsewhere.

Rachel’s advocacy engages architects, engineers, and building officials in disaster resilience, as she proactively shares the cumulative knowledge gained from each disaster she has responded to, via the AIA and related organizations.  Rachel has voluntarily consulted, trained or otherwise provided resources or support to dozens of AIA components and leaders assisting their communities affected by or in preparation for natural disasters.  Her instruction of more than 50 disaster response training sessions has produced several hundred certified volunteers.  She now multiplies the field via her giving of “Train the Trainer” coursework, which she also helped design.  As founding member and later chair of the AIA’s Disaster Assistance Program, Rachel co-created the first comprehensive guide, toolkit, training curriculum, and overall system for disaster preparedness and response for use by AIA components and members nationwide.  More than half of all states nationwide now boast a Disaster Assistance Coordinator.

In practice, Rachel has served in leadership roles in widely-recognized nonprofit community design centers (Environmental Works in Seattle, Architecture for Humanity in New York) and firms, designing and managing housing, education, and healthcare architecture, crafting projects in the public and private sectors with clients including institutions, tribal governments, affordable housing providers, and other non-profit organizations.

As former chair of the national AIA Disaster Assistance Committee and the originator of Architects Without Borders Seattle, Rachel advocates for and organizes architects to contribute volunteer design services to communities in great need. She has led groups of volunteer architects to disaster-stricken places, particularly Washington, Mississippi and Haiti, responding to floods, hurricanes and earthquakes.  Rachel frequently speaks and writes on issues in the built environment related to natural disasters, resilience, and public-interest design.

In 2013, AIA honored Rachel with the Young Architects Award.  In 2014 she began employment at AIA as the Director of Built Environment Policy, overseeing the Institute’s programs for codes & standards, disaster, resilience, and community development.  In 2021 she became Risk & Resilience Manager at Amazon Web Services in Seattle.

References:
*8/28/13 Architect Magazine:  "The Next Files:  A young architect tackles the issues of disaster preparedness & resilient design"
*8/04/15 Architect Magazine:  "Resilience to Adaptation:  The crucible for an ethical practice in architecture"