Chad Hamilton AIA LEED AP BD+C ALEP – Principal, Hamilton + Aitken Architects has made design for education his focus for over twenty-five years. He is fascinated by the way different people learn, which motivates him as he leads diverse clients and user groups through the complexities of designing facilities for 21st-century learning. In addition to leading the design of educational facilities at Hamilton + Aitken Architects, Chad has served on advisory boards for the Collaborative for High Performing Schools and the California Division of the State Architect, and advised on the development of the California Green Building Code. He is an Accredited Learning Environments Planner of the Association for Learning Environments, and accredited by the United States Green Building Council in sustainable building design and construction. With his firm, he has won numerous design awards, including an AIA Honor award for the design of the Maritime Center, a charter school.

Amy Fisher AIA LEED AP BD+C ALEP, Architect, Hamilton + Aitken Architects Everyone knows that education is central to a better future. What requires more thought is how to design the educational system to ensure a better future. As a designer, planner, and architect, Amy focuses her work on understanding how the built educational environment can support curriculum delivery as part of the emerging 21st-century educational system. Her work includes a $27 million dollar middle school modernization that focuses on maximizing the collaborative educational space within the building envelope. Amy has recently led the faculty and staff through a stakeholder engagement process for programming and planning a series of lecture halls, auditoriums and a mock court at UC Berkeley. Previously, she has spoken about strategies to transition existing school buildings to zero net energy as part of the Division of the Start Architects 7x7x7 discussion series.