Resilience can mean a lot of different things, from one person’s ability to withstand adversity to overcoming a major region-wide disaster like the 1993 flood or even addressing the long term impacts of climate change. The current pandemic is a test case of resilience at all of those levels, and one that exposes the vast inequities of impacts on the most vulnerable populations. This talk will focus on the wonderful power of community to strengthen resilience so that the St. Louis region can survive, adapt and thrive in the face of a changing future.

Consuming Kinetics Dance Company – Human Disturbance

Performance immediately following the keynote address (beginning at minute 58:00).

Mary Ann is an architect with over 40 years of experience who serves as a consultant with the Cameron MacAllister Group  to help design firms accelerate sustainable and resilient design outcomes in the built environment.    She served as Firmwide Director of Sustainable Design at HOK for a decade and is one of the founders of that firm’s sustainable design initiative. In addition, Mary Ann recently was the Resident Fellow on Sustainability at the American Institute of Architects and authored the AIA’s Sustainability Leadership Opportunity Scan addressing how architects can expand their impact through sustainability.  She is a co-author of the seminal HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design, 2^nd Edition.

A longtime St. Louis City resident, Mary Ann has been active locally and nationally in the green building movement for over two decades as an author, lecturer, community advocate, and volunteer. She served as 2017 Chair of the AIA’s Committee on the Environment Advisory Group. She also sits on the USGBC Missouri Gateway Chapter Board and served as Chair in 2019.

Mary Ann is an Adjunct Faculty at Washington University in St. Louis and is the Coordinator for the Sustainability Program at WashU’s University College.

Consuming Kinetics Dance Company

Human Disturbance is an interrogation of humankind’s impact on Earth. Through the medium of contemporary dance, Human Disturbance explores topics including climate change, material resource consumption, wildlife preservation, and natural disaster. Our choreographers investigate many of the challenges we face on our planet today while also proposing approaches to address these concerns. In Human Disturbance, we acknowledge the duality of humankind’s destructive and creative impact on the planet; we hold loss, chaos, and apocalypse together with abundance, possibility, and regeneration.