Katherine Lambert

Katherine Lambert, AIA, is a founding principal of Metropolitan Architectural Practice (MAP) in San Francisco. For the past two decades the areas of ecological and sustainable design and community engagement have been a primary focus of her practice. Currently she is designing a private residence on a 1,000-acre parcel in Sonoma, California, that will advance innovative and sustainable building concepts.

Prior to launching MAP, Katherine was a founding partner of FACE, an architectural firm producing award-winning projects for the private and public sectors. As a principal, she led several key projects, including the design and development of the 300-acre Thornton Ranch agricultural compound in Sonoma. This project spanned a decade (from 1988 to 1998) and employed pioneering construction methods in rammed earth, straw bale, and reclaimed lumber. Additional development on this working ranch included several outbuildings, indigenous plant restoration, organic gardens, olive groves, and vineyards. These types of projects were so new at the time that her firm literally helped write the building codes in Sonoma for structural rammed earth. She authored "Dirt Manifesto" in 1993, which was published in Architecture magazine in 1997 as a call to the architectural profession to make green design a priority!

Her projects have been widely published in journals and periodicals such as Architecture, Progressive Architecture, Architectural Record, ID, Metropolis, and Interior Design. Her work resides in the collections of the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada; the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Quebec City; the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York; Dia Foundation, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Katherine has served on the boards of trustees of the San Francisco Art Institute and Project Artaud Theater, San Francisco.