Kim Bahnsen McCarron brings over 15 years of experience to her architectural career, building a diverse portfolio that encompasses university buildings, cultural institutions, historic districts, and private residences. Her projects reflect a deep commitment to understanding the built environment and reimagining existing structures to meet the demands of the modern world.
With a strong foundation in both architecture and historic preservation, Kim has dedicated her career to uncovering the narratives within buildings and using them to guide their transformation. Her early travels to her mother’s native Mexico and family trips to Europe instilled in her a profound appreciation for the ways cities evolve over time while preserving their historic integrity.
Kim earned her Bachelor in Architecture from the University of Washington, during which she studied abroad in Rome and explored the city’s rich architectural layering. She went on to complete her Master of Architecture and a Certificate in Heritage Conservation at the University of Southern California, where she integrated contemporary design principles with preservation-focused coursework.
Her professional experience spans large, multidisciplinary firms as well as boutique studios, enabling her to balance architectural design with preservation planning. Kim’s diverse project types have all contributed to her depth of expertise such as conducting architectural surveys to identify regional patterns, developing design guidelines to shape communities, and breathing new life into deteriorated buildings. Her work is rooted in a holistic approach that prioritizes honoring a structure’s historical significance while ensuring its functionality and sustainability for future generations.
Whether managing a small residential project or a large cultural landmark, Kim thrives on revealing the hidden stories within buildings and showcasing their value to the communities they serve. Her work reflects a passion for design that bridges the past and future, ensuring that every project contributes meaningfully to its surroundings.
Heather Goers is an architectural and landscape historian with over a decade of experience in the field of historic preservation. Goers was educated at the University of Chicago, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Humanities, and at the University of Southern California, where she received a master’s degree in historic preservation. At Chicago, she was a recipient of the Jeff Metcalf Fellowship for Summer Study, supporting her research at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House. At USC, she developed her master’s thesis on Howard Oshiyama, a Japanese American landscape contractor known for his collaboration with architects Buff and Hensman.
In 2013, Goers joined a Southern California-based preservation consulting firm, where she spent a decade developing cultural landscape reports, historic context statements, historic designation nominations, historic structure reports, and environmental master plans. Her contributions extended to some of Southern California’s most significant historic properties, including the Ennis House, the Freeman House, the Gamble House, and Hollyhock House. During her tenure, Goers cultivated a mastery of archival research, specializing in synthesizing and interpreting complex development histories and historic contexts for various properties and landscapes. She also successfully authored historic designation nominations for a diverse array of properties, including one of the finest examples of Japanese-style gardens in the United States, the earliest extant example of the work of Arthur and Nina Zwebell, the first corporate high-rise to be designated in Los Angeles, pivotal entertainment venues in the history of popular music, and Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Goers launched her own preservation consulting practice in 2023. Her latest project involved the designation of Marilyn Monroe’s Los Angeles residence as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
Luke Leuschner (b. 2002) is a California-based historian focused on the state’s architecture, urbanism, and identity, with a particular interest on the state’s desert regions. Born and raised in Palm Desert, CA, he developed an affinity for the city’s forgotten and undocumented modern architecture. The interest led him to the Historical Society of Palm Desert, where he worked (and continues to work) on a multi-year endeavor to document and archive the city’s built environment. Since then, he has worked and consulted on a number of architectural history and archive projects in the Coachella Valley and beyond. Leuschner’s research seeks not only to focus on architecture, but the way in which the idealized “wasteland” desert is perceived and utilized in the built environment. His current project is a book on the work of the modernist architect Rudolph Schindler in the California desert, and takes a deep dive into the kinds of the people who have historically called its arid regions home. Aside from his research, he sits on the City of Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission and is a board member of the California Garden and Landscape History Society. Leuschner holds a degree from the University of California, Berkeley entitled “Adaptive Reuse and the American City,” a combination of the city planning and architectural history disciplines.
Madelene Dailey (she/her) is an Urban Planner from Florida, working primarily with the state of Florida on projects related to community infrastructure planning, public transportation, and federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation. Her professional experience includes assisting local and national non-profit organizations, as well as state and federal agencies, in grant writing/funding, daily operations, volunteer outreach, community design workshops, and public support campaigns. Madelene also volunteers her time on pro bono and community enrichment development, and has worked with local non-profit organizations in Los Angeles on justice-driven civil design projects. She serves as a Director of Architecture + Advocacy, a USC student-founded startup working to address spatial justice through design and architecture. She is co-president of the USC National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMAS) Chapter and is a USC Architectural Guild Board member. She received her Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies and Visual Arts from Eckerd College in 2018. She will graduate from the University of Southern California with a Master’s in Architecture in the spring of 2024. During her studies her work will focus on intersecting equitable urban planning with sustainable design, she aims to earn a certificate in sustainable architecture as well.
The Radical Practice of James H. Garrott: Civil Rights Activist and Modernist Architect
Anthony Fontenot is a Professor at Woodbury University School of Architecture. He holds a professional Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Louisiana, a Master of Architecture degree from Southern California Institute of Architecture, and a Ph.D. in the history and theory of architecture at Princeton University. He was a recipient in 2009 and 2010 of the Fellowship of the Society of Woodrow Wilson Scholars at Princeton University and was awarded a Getty Fellowship for 2010-2011. He is the author of numerous publications including New Orleans Under Reconstruction: The Crisis of Planning (Verso, 2014), “Gregory Ain and Cooperative Housing in a Time of Major Crisis” in Making A Case (Princeton Architectural Press, 2012) and the forthcoming books Non-Design and the Non-Planned City (Chicago University Press, 2017) and Gregory Ain: Low-Cost Modern Housing and the Construction of a Social Landscape (UR Books, 2017). Fontenot’s interdisciplinary work has been exhibited at various venues including the Architecture Biennial in Venice, Documenta, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, and A + D Museum. He was a co-curator of the exhibition “Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X – 197X” (2007), and co-curator of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennial in South Korea. Fontenot has organized many international exhibitions and symposia, including Exposing New Orleans (Princeton University, 2006), “Sustainable Dialogues” (Bangkok, Panama, Los Angeles, 2007-2008), and “Questioning the Standard: New Narratives of Art in Los Angeles” (2011) at the Getty Research Institute.
Jackson has a background in urban planning, historic preservation, and urban history. His research focuses on intangible heritage, difficult history, and social justice. He earned his Bachelor of Arts with majors in History and German Studies from the University of Florida in 2014 and completed a dual master’s degree program at the University of Southern California in planning and historic preservation in January of 2020. His masters’ thesis discussed the shortcomings of preservation in handling Los Angeles’ history of racial violence.
Jackson has worked as a staffer in the City of West Hollywood’s Current Planning Division, an architectural historian at ICF, and an historic preservation specialist at Joshua Tree National Park. He currently works for the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing as their Policy Coordinator. Jackson also served as a scholar-in-residence at the Gamble House in Pasadena, a National Historic Landmark, between 2019 and 2021.
Christopher Smith is a design practitioner with wide-ranging interests and connections across the creative landscape of the greater Los Angeles region. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design in 2003 he went to work for Morphosis Architects as a graphic designer and media liaison which exposed him to a world of architecture that cemented a lifelong interest in design process, theory and practice. After those first few years freelancing and finding contract work he went on to a brief stint at Gehry Partners while working nights documenting the cornfield adjacent to LA’s Chinatown for Metabolic Studio. Each of these events were chances to learn and grow in powerful creative practices that eventually led to the formation of a small office producing all manner of visual material along with recent residential design commissions.
In 2021 he completed the Graduate program in Architecture (March 1) from the College of Environmental Design at California Polytechnic University Pomona to pursue architecture on a professional level, with the desire to tie-in graphic and product design to form a cohesive set of references and experiences that will inform future projects.
Rafael Fontes is an urban planning professional currently working for the city of Los Angeles. In addition to work experience in architectural design, drafting, and project management, time spent volunteering abroad proved formative. Above all, he seeks to combine a professional commitment to the built environment with a love of history. He has both a Master of Heritage Conservation from the USC School of Architecture and a Master of Planning from the Price School of Public Policy at USC. Rafael recently completed his graduate thesis, Gaining a Foothold: Conserving Los Angeles’ Queer Eden(dale).
The House that Mary Built: The 1936 California House and Garden Exposition
Dr. Andrea Thabet is a historian, writer, researcher, and historic preservation consultant specializing in Los Angeles, urban, and public history. She is currently a Lecturer in American History at Caltech, where she teaches courses on the Civil Rights Movement, and America in the 20th century. She also co-coordinates an urban history seminar series, the LA History & Metro Studies Group, for the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. Dr. Thabet holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in U.S. History from UC Santa Barbara, and a B.A. in History with an Art History minor from Loyola Marymount University. Prior to earning her PhD, she worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Skirball Cultural Center and Museum in Los Angeles and at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. She has consulted on a number of historic preservation projects, which include a successful Historic-Cultural Monument nomination for the Hawk House designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris (2019). Dr. Thabet’s published works on Los Angeles and urban history have appeared in both academic and popular journals, in print and digital formats. Her article, “‘From Sagebrush to Symphony’: Negotiating the Hollywood Bowl and the Future of Los Angeles, 1918-1926,” appeared in the Pacific Historical Review in Fall 2020. She also authored the report “Space to Lead: A Century of Civic Leadership in Los Angeles” for Future of Cities: Los Angeles, with Shawn Landres and William Deverell. Dr. Thabet is currently completing a book manuscript, “Culture as Urban Renewal: Remaking Public Space in Postwar Los Angeles” which examines the critical role cultural and leisure spaces played in shaping the built environment and urban economy of Los Angeles through federal and local urban renewal policy after World War II.
In the City was a Garden: South Los Angeles Garden Apartments
Liz Falletta is a licensed architect teaching design across disciplines to urban planning, real estate development and public administration students at the Price School of Public Policy at USC. She has two masters degrees, one in architecture from SCI-Arc and another in real estate development from USC and nearly 20 years of teaching experience. In addition, she serves on the city’s Zoning Advisory Committee for their new zoning code, developed one of the early small lot subdivisions in Los Angeles and recently published a book studying important housing design precedents in Los Angeles and their related development types.
