Airenne Buffum, Interim Chair
After graduating late in life from the University of Oregon with the science equivalent of a liberal arts degree, Airenne’s work brought her to Portland where she found an amazing assortment of minimum wage employment opportunities. She fell in love with the area and decided to stay on, choosing to focus her awesome organizational skills on the local Girl Scout council, where she rules with an iron petty cash box. She eventually purchased a home near Rocky Butte and became active in her community through placemaking. She found her place in the VBC core of volunteers when her talent for feeding 200 people for $50 was discovered.
Kate Bemesderfer, Secretary
Adam Nashban, Treasurer
Marjorie Munson, Director
Bios and images coming soon!
Sarah Frances Micaelson Lakeman
Frances has loved building things since she was a kid helping her dad around the house. She loves space and material, loves picking things up and feeling the heft and texture of them in her hands. She began a building company, BabaYagaBuilds; in 2012 and has been creating structure with friends ever since. Frances also has an unyielding passion for stories and for the wonder that comes when humans create together. The past few years she has been the City Repair VBC Natural Building Coordinator. The superhero power this task evokes in her life is the one of Creative Purpose, the thrill and gratitude for life that comes when one is doing something 100% worthwhile and fulfilling.
Todd Ferry
Todd Ferry is a Research Associate at the Center for Public Interest Design within the School of Architecture at Portland State University. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from the University of Georgia and a Master of Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin. Before pursuing architecture, Todd worked for over a decade in the nonprofit field, including founding KIU ART, a service-learning organization working with a small community in Mwanza, Tanzania to build classrooms and exchange ideas. His background and interest in working with underserved populations led him to seek opportunities to apply his skills as a designer toward public interest design efforts. To that end, he has been active in leading and participating in progressive design-build projects around the world. Todd is currently involved in many projects at the Center for Public Interest Design, including the SAGE Green Modular Classroom, design-build work for the Montesinos Orphanage and Environmental Technical School in Haiti, and ongoing community outreach in Portland. He has a diverse range of interests in architecture that usually center around the intersection of theory and practice. He has been awarded a number of travel fellowships to pursue research topics in this area, including the work of Rudolf Steiner in Dornach, Switzerland, the evolution of museum typology in Oxford, England, and the Spomenik Monuments of the former Yugoslavia. His current research with the Center for Public Interest Design is focused on developing new models of working with underserved populations by leveraging available technology in those communities.
Mark (Mocean) Michaelson Lakeman
Mark is a national leader in the development of sustainable public places. In the last decade he has directed, facilitated, or inspired designs for more than three hundred new community-generated public places in Portland, Oregon alone.
Through his leadership in Communitecture, Inc., and it’s various affiliates such as the The City Repair Project (501(c)3), The Village Building Convergence, and the Planet Repair Institute, he has also been instrumental in the development of dozens of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. Mark works with governmental leaders, community organizations, and educational institutions in many diverse communities.