Duluth, Minn. (May 14, 2010) –The 2010 Jury of Fellows from The American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Washington, D.C., elevated LHB’s Senior Vice President, Rick Carter, to its prestigious College of Fellows. Since his time with LHB, Carter has made significant contributions to the architecture profession. Becoming a Fellow is a great honor; fewer than two percent of all registered architects in the United States are elected to fellowship in the AIA. Carter was one of 134 national recipients to achieve this recognition.
As a principal at LHB, Carter designed Habitat for Humanity’s first-ever home for new construction in 1989. LHB then began developing affordable designs for healthy homes and was commissioned by the American Lung Association (ALA) to design the nation’s first Health House, which the ALA certified nationwide. In 2008, the ALA declared Health House a success, citing the program’s influence on sustainable design guidelines including the Builder’s Challenge, Energy Star, LEED®, Environments for Living, and EarthCraft. Social responsibility in the form of healthy, low cost, and energy efficient housing has been fundamental to Carter’s career and a core value of LHB.
In addition to affordable and healthy homes, Carter was recognized for his participation and continual development of LHB's philosophy to maintain accountability through sustainable design with measurable outcomes. Carter developed LHB’s Performance Metrics™ system that determines actual returns on investments for clients interested in sustainable design. Carter has been integral on many of LHB's projects that have significantly advanced sustainable design in the region including two, National AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top Ten award projects in the same year. He is now leading LHB's effort to create case studies for the Minnesota Sustainable 2030 policy, a cutting edge, national, model working towards designing zero carbon buildings.
