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GEOFREY COLLINS
Architect, SCO Studio
In the 1980’s Geofrey Collins attended the University of Cincinnati architecture program. During this time, he worked for a variety of architectural firms, but the most impactful was the 2 summers working with Mike Reynolds building earthship solar housing in Taos New Mexico. It was theses self sustainable houses that molded Geofrey’s green thinking.
 In 1990 Geofrey left the firm Skidmore. Owings and Merrill in LA to attend SCI-Arc. After receiving his second degree in Architecture, he worked for Frank Gehry on many projects including the Disney Concert Hall. He started SCO Studio with a partner and began a career of multidisciplinary design, including film sets, furniture and architecture.
The first decade of the new millennium has focused on healthy, sustainable architecture. Geofrey is currently designing about a dozen houses and offices that incorporate conscious planning and design. The firm is working on multi family housing, introducing communal architecture to the growing demand for Green Housing. He is also working on the design of a youth empowerment center in South Africa for the NextAid organization.
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JOSEPH GABRIEL
Architect, San Francisco
View Joseph's children's home design
Joseph Gabriel is a designer, shutterbug, and all around creative
busy-body. Born and raised on the East Coast, schooled in Texas, and having also lived in Kansas, Paris, and currently California, he
brings an eclectic approach to design. This includes work on  projects as diverse as an international airport, a city's Summer Olympics bid, a community pool, and now, a sustainable building program.
Joseph graduated from Rice University majoring in Art History and Architecture, and he expects to receive his architecture license this winter. He currently works in a San Francisco architectural practice focused on public and nonprofit projects. Joseph has a fondness for high tech, but appreciates the simplicity of lo-tech solutions. He is digitally adept but grounded in the analog. He believes that complexity can be solved with minimalism. Architecture and design allow him to pursue these divergent paths, with NextAid being no exception.
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JERRY GREER
 Jerry Greer graduated with honors in 2002 from Chandler-Gilbert Community College with an Associate Degree in General Studies. Fueled by his passion for building and the desire to challenge his creativity he continued on to Arizona State University (ASU) where he graduated Cum Laude in 2006, with a Bachelor of Science in Design Architectural Studies. Jerry excelled in the Design program and was awarded multiple Design Excellence acknowledgements by the faculty. During his junior year, Jerry became inspired by the stories and pictures of his friend Nick Lemire, who had participated in the development of a community center for Aids orphans in Dennilton, South Africa. The two began developing Integral Shelter, a not for profit organization that would provide a path for them to assist struggling communities. In 2005, Integral Shelter was awarded start up funding, office space, and advisement from the Edson Student Enterepreneur Initiative at ASU. That same year Jerry traveled to Dennilton, South Africa where he collaborated with NextAid and others to teach community members some basic principles of sustainable design. Along with the workshop Jerry collaborated with the group to build a straw bale home that would house the community center’s first family of orphans. Integral Shelter’s efforts in South Africa were acknowledged by the College Times and the President of ASU Michael Crow. In July of 2006 Jerry was selected to represent ASU at Ghost 8, a summer design build program run by Brian Mckay Lyons in Nova Scotia. Jerry spent his internship at DFD Cornoyer-Hedrick in construction administration where he learned the importance of a good set of construction documents and detailing. In May 2006, Jerry began working at Morfeld Ray Architects in Tempe, Arizona. In less than a year Jerry became a lead designer and project manager for several of the firm’s larger projects. Over the years, Jerry has donated his design services to City of Hope, Nick & Kelly Children’s Heart Fund, and Next Aid. Jerry will continue to seek out opportunities to assist organizations and people who share the same desire to help the less fortunate.
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RICHARD GREGORY
View Richard's children's home design
Richard became involved with NextAid through a dance music event he co-produced with close friend, Andrew Casden. With his interest in music events and djing, combined with a career in the field of architecture, finding NextAid completely by accident would turn out to be serendipitous.  That summer, he and his wife, Dee, frantically fundraised enough to join the Fall 2006 workshop in South Africa. Since then he has been working on a design for a children's residence, as well as scheming up fundraising ideas to strip some of the wealth from his native Napa Valley.
Richard was born & raised in the Napa Valley of California, where his father has been an architect in the area for more than 35 years. Richard grew up working in his father’s office since he was about 10 years old. At age 20, he travelled to Egypt as a volunteer where he spent a year teaching English at a boarding school for students from Upper Egypt in an area near Cairo. After returning, he studied fine art for a year before entering the architecture program at the California College of Arts & Crafts where he received his Bachelor of Architecture degree.
Richard has a passion for avant-garde and underground design movements that can lead to positive social change. His skills were honed in the traditional practice of architecture and he has a passion for hand-craft, yet his interests lean toward the modern, minimal, and digital. His greatest area of interest lies in what he calls "middle-class modernism," a belief that in this age of digital design and production we now have an opportunity to provide unique, personalized, and culturally-relevant living spaces for the masses. In a world where every object we interact with has been carefully designed to appeal to senses and uniquely suit our personalities, could not our living spaces be designed in the same way?
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CHRIS HARNISH
Architecture for Humanity Fellow
He comes to NextAid after years of journeying through building and environmental interests. Following an undergrad degree from Denison Univ., where he studied Environmental Studies and English literature, he ventured west to Montana to follow his favorite environmental crisis, the timber industry. Working for the Center for Resourceful Building Technology in Missoula, he worked on the annual Guide to Resource Efficient Building Materials (the first of its kind publication), and wrote pamphlets on Strawbale Construction and Job Site Recycling and Resource Efficiency. Chris later enrolled in a Masters of Architecture program at the environmentally focused University of Oregon. There he gained a desire for simple, site responsive design appropriate to the user, the culture and the environment. Chris now lives and works in New York City for Deborah Berke and Partners Architects, a firm strongly committed to rational and responsive design. In addition to New York City, Chris has a fondness for southern Africa where he has traveled and worked on two other occasions.
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LOUISE S. LAKIER
Architect/Engineer
Throughout her architecture and construction career, LEED ® -certified project engineer and designer Louise Lakier has focused  on sustainable design. Her extensive background and skills in architectural design and green building bring depth, conceptual perspective and enhanced performance to our construction team in both preconstruction and execution phases, specifically with site planning, finish details and waste management. For her graduate thesis project, Louise converted a cement plant into a recycling center and museum, and that was just the beginning of a lifelong advocacy and practice of sustainable building principles. Louise has since earned her green credentials as a member of the Northwest Eco-Building Guild, co-chair of AIA/Seattle's "What Makes It Green" event and volunteer work building an eco-village in Africa. Louise offers our clients an eclectic skill set and variety of relevant experiences, from running her own residential architectural design practice to high-end residential architecture and construction projects for both construction and architectural firms.
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NICK LEMIRE
Nick Lemire is an Arizona State University architectural student pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Design. Influenced by the humanitarianism of Architecture for Humanity, Nick developed an interest in cultural, social, and humanitarian design. In 2004, Nick received design excellence from the school of architecture and was the winning recipient of the Sean Murphy Travel Scholarship.
 In 2005, he used the scholarship funding to spend five weeks in South Africa working with NextAid, Village Renaissance, Builders Without Borders, and Youth With A Vision to help build a child care center in Dennilton, South Africa. This experience provided valuable knowledge and skills toward sustainable development and established an awareness of Dennilton's needs. While in Dennilton, Nick served as a peer mediator for PEP/LA in an HIV/AIDS awareness workshop. Nick continues to volunteer time toward site planning and designing with eco-architect Joseph Kennedy on Youth With A Vision's Child Support Center. The Scottsdale Tribune, acknowledge Nick's efforts in September of 2005 by publishing an article focusing on his humanitarian work with the local Dennilton community. In March 2006, he is a scheduled lecturer on sustainable development for the school of architecture at Arizona State University. He is currently employed at Peterson Architecture and Associates. Nick has attended an Edson-sponsored training session in preparation for this application .
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MARK MAZZIOTTI
 Mark Mazziotti is a natural builder trapped in a graphic designer's body. He has worked for Public Media Center in San Francisco for 14 years. But these days he's as likely to be found in the mud as at a computer. He apprenticed with Michael Smith and Darryl Berlin at Emerald Earth and has experience working with straw bale, cob and earth plasters. Mark wants to prodigiously thank Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer for writing the book on earthbag building without which the workshop in Dennilton might not have gone so well.
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JOHN VAN DYK
Bio Coming Soon
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