Renowned architect, author, and educator Lance Hosey, FAIA, died unexpectedly on Aug. 27. Most recently the chief impact officer and a civic practice leader at HMC Architects, in San Diego, Hosey advocated for design excellence and sustainability—in its comprehensive form, as encompassing the “integration of social, economic, and environmental value,” he wrote in 2019 in ARCHITECT, to which he was a longtime contributor.
One of an estimated 30 people in the world to hold the distinctions of being a Fellow of AIA and a LEED Fellow, by the U.S. Green Building Council, Hosey ardently spoke and wrote about expanding the notion of holistic design to consider physical parameters, aesthetic qualities, performance, and impact on the health of occupants and of the surrounding community. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Graham Foundation Grant in 2001 and AIA|DC’s Sarah Booth Conroy Prize in 2018; a frequent public speaker, featured at events by ARCHITECT, SXSW, and TED; and an educator, teaching at several institutions, including Yale University and the University of Virginia.
Hosey was active in the AIA Committee on the Environment. He helped lead the update of AIA COTE’s Measures of Sustainable Design into more clear, practical, and inclusive guidelines, which he discussed in his 2016 ARCHITECT article “Redefining Sustainable Design: AIA COTE Overhauls Its Top Ten Awards Criteria.” The Top Ten Measures would be adopted as AIA’s Framework for Design Excellence in 2019 as being relevant objectives for projects of all scales, types, and budgets. Moreover, Hosey valued data and accountability, researching and distilling takeaways from firms that consistently produce high-performance, aesthetic projects in the hopes that more architects would embrace his belief that design and performance go hand in hand.
Born on Sept. 11, 1964, in Houston, Hosey studied jazz saxophone in high school before earning his B.A. in architecture at Columbia University and then his M.Arch. at Yale University. His penchant for performance would later pay off as he became a visible and unabashedly outspoken architect, unafraid to decry greenwashing or promote the necessity of sustainable design when it was still considered extraneous by many in the AEC profession.
His long career included positions at Rafael Viñoly Architects and Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects (now Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman Architects); a nearly decadelong stint as a design director at William McDonough + Partners; the role of chief sustainability officer at RTKL Associates (now CallisonRTKL) and then Perkins Eastman, both in Washington, D.C.; the chair of design excellence at Harley Ellis Devereaux, in San Diego; and a principal, design director, and global co-leader of design resilience at Gensler, in Austin, Texas.
When I asked him about his transition to HMC last summer, he responded that he planned to “broaden the conversation beyond what is often perceived (or misperceived) to be the narrower concerns of sustainability (i.e., resource conservation).”
And the firm felt his impact during his short tenure. “Lance’s time with us at HMC was ephemeral. His impact, monumental,” the firm wrote in its tribute to Hosey. “In just 14 months, he showed us a fleeting glimpse of what the future looked like. And it was epic.”
At HMC, his projects include leading the design of a zero-carbon concept community in Lagos, Nigeria, and the Honeybee Discovery Center in Orland, Calif., which is aiming to become “one of world’s smartest buildings,” according to the firm. Other projects in Hosey’s career included the LEED Gold–certified American University School of International Service, in Washington, designed with William McDonough + Partners, and several planning and design concepts.
Hosey was a longtime contributor to ARCHITECT magazine, penning his regular column “Ecology” from early 2007—about six months after the magazine’s launch—until 2010. I first met Hosey when he was at RTKL, in Washington, and I was struck by his command not only of design principles but also of marketing and business. He knew how to synthesize and present his ideas with conviction and in a high-level—but detailed if pressed—manner. These are skills possessed by few people, across disciplines.
I edited Hosey when he wrote for ARCHITECT between 2016 and 2019 and valued his expertise as a reliable and engaging source for other articles. He was a meticulous writer, the rare combination of architect and consummate copy editor. His most recent book, The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design (Island Press, 2012), had topped the charts on Amazon as the bestseller in the sustainability and green design category, a point of pride for him.
According to a tribute published on his personal website, Hosey “focused on propelling the architecture, engineering, and construction industry forward on a broad, unified understanding of design that includes sustainability, equity, and health.”
In his 2013 TedCity2.0 talk, Hosey asked, “What is the purpose of design?” He goes on to dispel the tired notion of the lone-wolf architect portrayed famously in The Fountainhead (Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1943) and then argues for the integration of more data and research in architecture. “Imagine if every designer understood more about the emerging science of desire, the mechanics of attraction,” he said. “Then all of design, from houses to whole cities, could become not just good-looking, but good for you. What we consider good about design could become less about what we designers like and more about what makes us all healthier and happier.”
