John DeForest, AIA
John DeForest received architectural degrees from Yale and Harvard then gained experience working for firms in San Francisco and Seattle and on the East Coast before starting his own practice in 1999. DeForest Architects is recognized for making the design process more engaging and inclusive and has projects in eight states ranging from 15 to 15,000 square feet. John co-founded CORA NW, a peer network and discussion forum for residential architects in the Pacific Northwest then helped launch AIA Seattle’s Small Practice and Residential Committee (SPARC) in 2016. He currently serves on the Executive Committee for CRAN, the AIA’s Custom Residential Architect Network. Most recently, John served on the jury for the AIA National Housing Awards.
Sheri Olson, FAIA, LEED AP
Sheri is an award-winning architect and architectural journalist. She earned a Masters in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, where she received design and traveling scholarship awards. Her undergraduate education was a five-year Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Arizona. Her teaching experience includes design studios at several universities, including the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Washington.
She began contributing to Architectural Record in 1994 and was their Northwest-based contributing editor until 2004. She was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s architecture critic and a frequent contributor to The Seattle Times. Her publications include the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, as well as national design publications.
She is the author of several books, including The Miller/Hull Partnership (Princeton Architectural Press), Cutler Anderson Architects (Rockport), and upcoming The Architecture of Niceness. Her contributions to Modernism at Mid-Century: The Architecture of the United States Air Force Academy won a 1995 Federal Design Achievement Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2004 she founded Seattle-based Sheri Olson Architecture, and The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest Magazine, Inhabit, and Seattle Met have featured the firm’s work. In 2004, the American Institute of Architects elected her to the College of Fellows.
Thomas Lawrence, AIA
Tom Lawrence has lived and worked in Seattle for almost 40 years, focusing on single-family projects. Prior to starting his own practice in 1995, he worked for some great firms in Seattle, North Carolina, Maryland, and Florida before, during, and after study at NC State University and the University of Washington. Tom has been an active member of AIA Seattle: Residential Design Forum organizing task force since 2002 (Chair 2003-2006); Future Shack residential awards program organizing committee 2009-2012; Small Practice and Residential Committee since 2016 (co-chair 2017-2020), and AIA Seattle Honor Awards Committee since 1989 (chair 1994). He is currently the Washington State representative for the AIA Small Firm Exchange working to facilitate the flow of information between small firms. Tom lives in a 100-year-old home that he and his wife who is also an architect remodeled twenty years ago.
