Shelly Pottorf

Shelly Pottorf, AIA, CPHC, LEED AP BD+C, is the Principal of Architend, an architecture firm committed to catalyzing a living future through architecture, community design, sustainable consulting, and research. A native of Houston, Shelly’s work through the AIA Houston Committee on the Environment, Phius Alliance, and Houston Regional Resilience Collaborative established her as a go-to leader on sustainability and social justice efforts in her hometown.

Shelly’s work focuses on place-based regenerative design while incorporating reach standards such as passive house and the Living Building Challenge (LBC), which led her to spearhead the first project in Texas to seek LBC Certification. Shelly often speaks on these topics at international conferences such as the Living Future unConference, PhiusCon (formerly North American Passive House Conference), and the International Forum on Urbanism.

At Middlebury, Shelly serves as a professor for the Architectural Studies/Environmental Studies joint degree, with a focus on preparing students to become leaders in the pursuit of social-ecological wellbeing utilizing design thinking. In this capacity, she supports not only coursework, but also independent student research and outreach such as advocating for the adoption of LBC standards on campus as well as collaborating with the MIT Sustainable Design Lab to produce an urban building energy model for the town of Middlebury.

Her professional outreach includes being a member of the Vermont Green Building Network Board of Directors, serving on the Addison County Climate Action Plan Committee, and advocating for the establishment of a Regenerative Practitioners Cohort in Vermont.