Mar 20, 2019
Heather Holdridge is the Sustainability Director at Lake|Flato Architects. Leveraging her mechanical engineering background, she directs all Lake|Flato teams in establishing and achieving sustainability goals by devising strategies and systems under programs such as LEED, the 2030 Challenge, and the Living Building Challenge. Heather works closely with teams to evaluate passive systems and performs energy modeling throughout the design process. As an active Board Member for the United States Green Building Council, Heather has been instrumental in establishing LEED standards and is Co-Chair of the San Antonio AIA Committee on the Environment.
Early in Heather’s Career
Heather is a native Texan, growing up in Houston. She studied mechanical engineering at the University of Texas in Austin. Heather pursued mechanical engineering knowing it would give her the opportunity to deal and have an impact with energy and water and other resources when it came to sustainability.
“I was pretty lucky that my first job out of college was with a sustainable architecture and consulting firm in San Antonio. So it was a multidisciplinary consulting group and I got to see how all kinds of building professionals work and how their design and work processes.” - Heather Holdridge
Sustainability Minded
Heather’s interest in sustainability was a slow evolution. As a teenager she was curious about how buildings were constructed. Then as a young adult Heather observed how inefficient the process was.
“I consider myself to be sustainability minded and environmental steward, but I think that it grew out of just a love for efficiency and elegance and how we construct more than anything else.” - Heather Holdridge
Proudest Achievement
Heather has many achievements while working on building projects at Lake Flato Architects. Her proudest accomplishment is the San Antonio 2030 districts which is a district in downtown San Antonio. The district is established of property owners and managers that are committed to reducing water, energy and transportation impacts.
“I started working on this about six years ago with a really small group of people in San Antonio. The 2030 district in San Antonio now has 80 member buildings representing 9 million square feet. I'm actively participating. So this year the San Antonio district is getting established as its own 501c3. So that's a really exciting milestone in our progression.” - Heather Holdridge
Book Recommendations
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Tune into this podcast to listen to the rest of Heather Holdridge’s amazing journey in this podcast hosted by Charlie.
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