Raphael Sperry

Raphael Sperry is the National President of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) and a green building consultant at Simon & Associates in San Francisco. He is a licensed architect, accredited by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), and he consults on a wide range of projects, from office towers to institutional and residential buildings and the occasional transportation facility.

He was the lead author of the 2004 San Mateo Countywide Guide to Sustainable Building and serves as the public member of the city of San Francisco's municipal green building task force. He also contributes to green-building public interest work as the subcommittee chair of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association's (SPUR) sustainable development committee, where he took the lead in implementing a streamlined approval process for solar panel installations in San Francisco in 2003–4. Previously, Raphael was the project manager for Best Builders, the city of Berkeley's first green building program. In 2000 he was the architectural project manager for the 17,000-square-foot straw-bale Ridge Vineyards winery in Healdsburg, California—at the time, the largest straw-bale building in the country.

While at the Yale School of Architecture in 1998–99, Raphael assisted with the creation and teaching of green building and building systems classes.

As a social justice advocate, Raphael conceived and now directs ADPSR's prison design boycott campaign, calling on architects to pledge not to design prisons. He strongly believes that architects have a special responsibility to create a built environment that embodies the values of environmental harmony and social justice. He attempts to share with students his expertise in building systems as well as his vision of an activist and engaged architectural profession.