Sharon Egretta Sutton FAIA

2014 AIA Seattle Medal recipient Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton FAIA (born 1941) holds degrees in architecture (Columbia MArch 1973), music, philosophy, and psychology.  For 3 years in the early 1960s, she played the French horn in a New York production of "Man of La Mancha," before pursuing interior design studies at Pratt Institute and then architecture at Columbia University.  She began her career as an architecture educator in 1975, and has held positions at Pratt Institute, Columbia University, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Michigan where she became the first African American woman in the US promoted to full professor in an accredited professional degree program in architecture.  Her 1996 book, Weaving a Tapestry of Resistance: The Places, Power, and Poetry of a Sustainable Society, derives from a K-12 urban design program she founded while at the University of Michigan.

She came to the University of Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning in 1998 as a Professor of Architecture, and Director of the Center for Environment, Education, and Design Studies (CEEDS) -- which among other programs administered the Denice Hunt K-12 Internship, endowed by the AIA Seattle Diversity Roundtable.

At UW until her 2016 departure to return to NYC (where she serves on the Columbia faculty), Dr. Sutton held a joint appointment in Urban Design and Planning, an adjunct appointment in Landscape Architecture, and served on the doctoral faculty in the School of Social Work.  Her teaching at UW included a design studio, a thesis seminar, and a seminar on the ethics of professional practice; she also advised doctoral students, and assisted teachers and prospective teachers to utilize design processes in K-12 education.  In Spring 2000, CEEDS assumed leadership of the Architecture Department's annual spring charrettes, reorganizing them as interdisciplinary, intergenerational events serving communities in the Seattle area.

Dr. Sutton's research, focused on youth participation in community development, has received funding from the Aspen Institute, the National Endowment for the Arts, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Tukwila School District, University of Michigan, the University of Washington, and the Ford Foundation.  Formerly a Kellogg National Fellow and a Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), in 1997-1998 she served as President of the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).  She has also served as a member of the Seattle Design Commission and on the Board of Directors of the Seattle Parks Foundation.

Professor Sutton frequently lectures at colleges and universities internationally, and keynotes professional conferences in several disciplines –- architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, planning, and psychology.  She has developed experiential workshops for several AIA components as well as national gatherings, including among others the AIA Diversity Conference.  In 1994 Dr. Sutton offered keynote remarks at the AIA Convention, and in 2006 she presented the AIA Grassroots keynote address, "Diversity Matters".   Her fine art has appeared in galleries and museums, and in the collections of business enterprises as well as colleges and universities. 

2020 Update:   As a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Architecture at Parsons School of Design, Dr. Sutton teaches graduate studios emphasizing collaboration and a graduate housing seminar, and serves on a campus-wide committee to implement recommendations from a climate assessment of equity, diversity, and inclusion.  Fordham University Press has contracted with her for a new book, Youth Activists Transforming Injustice: Toward an Equitable and Inclusive Commons, due 2021.

In 2011, AIA honored Dr. Sutton with the Whitney Young Award.
In 2014, AIA Seattle presented her with the AIA Seattle Medal of Honor.
In 2017, AIA New York presented her with the AIA New York Medal of Honor.
In 2018, UW CBE honored her among 10 recipients of the new Distinguished Faculty Award for Lifetime Achievement.
in 2023, AIA/ACSA honored Dr. Sutton with the Topaz Medallion for Architectural Education (more here); and Architectural Record recognized her with its Women in Architecture Award.

Publications by & about Dr. Sutton:
* Weaving a Tapestry of Resistance: The Places, Power, and Poetry of a Sustainable Society (1996)
* The Paradox of Urban Space:  Inequality and Transformation in Marginalized Communities (2011)
* When Ivory Towers Were Black (2017)
* Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons: Pursuing Democracy’s Promise through Place-Based Activism (Fordham University Press, 2022)

2/9/2003 Seattle P-I  "Designing Diversity"
2/9/2006 AIArchitect "Diversity Matters"
3/30/2009 AIA Architect  "Faces of AIA Diversity:  The Educators"
9/22/2015 KUOW  "Out With Tents: UW Architecture Students Tackle Ballard Homeless Sites"
4/4/2017 Metropolis  "How to get more minority students in architecture? Look to 1968"
4/6/2017 LA Times  "Challenging the whiteness of American architecture, in the 1960s and today"
5/19/2017 City Lab  "Behind the Black Architectural Resistance: black architectural insurgency in the Trump era"
5/8/2018 Architecture "Sharon Sutton on Whitney Young's Speech"
5/30/18 Curry Stone Foundation  "Can Design Education Support Social Justice? Design School as a Site of Insurrection, Then and Now"
10/6/2019 Parlour  "In Conversation ... Sharon Egretta Sutton"
11/6/2019 Architecture AU  "Rebellion, Revolution, and Disruption"
6/5/2020 Architecture  "Envisioning a Communitarian World House"
2/24/2021 Johnston Architects  "Black & African American Women Architects of Today"
2/24/21 Madame Architect  "Teacher and Coach:  Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton on Discipline, Intellectual Leadership, and Being the First"
9/18/21 Design Intelligence  "Threading the Needle of Opportunity"
10/31/23 Architectural Record Women in Architecture Award