Building Tradition

It's good to know that there are traditional designers and urban planners who are addressing the housing affordability crisis. Torti Gallas + Partners makes new neighborhoods better. As such, the firm is the recent recipient of the 2026 Gindroz Award for Affordable Housing.

We spoke with Torti Gallas + Partners principal Stephanie Farrell who leads the Urban Studio for her Washington, D.C. firm, creating infill, mixed-use places, which apply classical design principles to architecture and urban plans. Stephanie was one of several speakers at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art's Gindroz Symposium where she presented her firm's solutions for providing affordable, dignified, and pedestrian-scale neighborhoods that serve the "missing middle" of the housing market.

"HUD policy in the 1950s created isolated neighborhoods and monolithic high-rise apartment buildings for the poor that had no relationship to their place," Farrell explains. "Today, aided by HUD's Choice program, the firm designs community-driven places with attractive public spaces and compact low-rise, traditional buildings that are affordable."

Listen as Stephanie Farrell of Torti Gallas + Partners talks about smart, cost-efficient, and classically inspired multi-housing design that is within the reach of all income levels

Neela Wickremesinghe is the director of restoration and preservation for the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Neela manages a crew that maintains, preserves, and restores the mausoleums and statuary that dot these 478 bucolic acres. There are 580,000 “inhabitants” in the cemetery, including family plots adorned with marble, granite, and brownstone grave markers.

Neela earned her B.A. in architecture and urbanism from Smith College and her M.S. in historic preservation from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Right out of school, she worked for an environmental review company, doing research for National Register nominations.

She then combined her architectural history and historic preservation advocacy experience with hands-on training in the building arts, including a stint at Evergreen Architectural Arts, where she learned how to gild, paint, restore murals, clean stone, and do plasterwork.

“At Green-Wood, joy comes from working on something new every day,” Neela tells us. “We might be resetting a marble angel knocked over by a fallen tree or cleaning the soot off a stone mausoleum. I am also teaching young craftspeople their building arts skills.”

Green-Wood Cemetery created the Bridge to Crafts program to train students and emerging professionals in masonry restoration—stone cleaning, repair, and repointing. Many Bridge to Crafts graduates move on to preserve other important historic buildings and monuments in New York City. Neela exclaims, “We’ve had students who’ve gone on to clean the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Green-Wood’s apprenticeship program embraces people who want to work with their hands—young people, mostly, who are curious and want to learn by doing alongside a veteran craftsperson.

“This is a different type of program that allows a young person to figure out what they might want the rest of their life to look like.”

Listen in on an inspiring conversation with Neela Wickremesinghe of the historic Green-Wood Cemetery restoration crew.

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews Steve Ballenger of Zepsa Industries. They discuss Ballenger's career in the building arts, his own learning trajectory and the opportunity for others to be craftspeople.

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews Lauren Barnes of Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects. They discuss Barnes' career trajectory, her job description, the Hoerr Schaudt company training program, the craft of horticulture and garden design that delights.

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews husband-and-wife team Alan Stein and Nancy Vitris of Tanglewood Conservatories. They discuss the intersection of crafting by hand and machine, how they launched a craftsmanship training program in their local high schools and how this was the foundation for their own in-house apprentice program for Tanglewood Conservatories craftspeople.

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews architect Thomas Kligerman, who is widely recognized for residential architecture that conveys a sense of place, is finely crafted, and has an emotional connection to landscape and memory. Listen in to a conversation about modern traditional architecture, coastal cottages, and "summers by the sea."

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews Steve Hendricks of Historic Doors who, with his team of skilled millwork building artisans, makes period authentic exterior doors as well as interior moldings.

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews Doug Bracken of Wiemann Metalcraft, a blacksmith and metal fabricator of ornamental metals. Listen in as they discuss combining heritage trade skills with modern technology to produce ornamental metalwork of enduring beauty.

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews Chris Pelletieri, renowned stone carver and teacher. Listen in as they discuss Pelletieri's traditional analog craft. His notable works include St Rita's Catholic church in Alexandria Virginia and the neo-Gothic Cathedral of Saint Divine on the Upper East side of New York City.

Host Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA interviews award winning interior designer Barbara Eberlein, and Jerry Wind, author and professor. Listen in as they discuss how integrating AI into the creative process can help architects and designers do their best work.