LOS ANGELES, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- For nearly 10 years, the Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship has trained and empowered young designers to make a difference with sustainable architecture in communities across the nation. Enterprise Community Partners today announced the newest class of fellows as they embark on the unique opportunity to use their design skills in real-life situations to create housing that is fit, affordable and environmentally responsive.

Through the Rose Fellowship, recent graduates and young professionals are able to fine tune environmentally-conscious design principles and apply them to real life situations. Each fellow will spend three years on-site with a host organization to create community driven solutions that meet three core principles of the fellowship: participatory planning, holistic design process and green building. Created by real estate developer and Enterprise Community Partners Trustee Jonathan Rose in honor of his father, the program's 29 fellows have collectively produced nearly 5,000 units of housing in projects that range from creating permanent farm worker housing in Oregon to rehabbing and designing housing that was destroyed by the hurricanes in the Gulf Coast.

"The fellows come to the program with a fresh sense of the importance of how the built environment can positively affect the lives of people living with low incomes" said Katie Swenson, senior director of the Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship and former fellow. "When they leave the program three years later, they have developed the tangible skills required to in design, development, construction, finance and policy, and the deep experience of working in partnership with community members to design their own future"

The 2008 fellows are based in Biloxi, Miss., Minneapolis, Minn. and San Francisco:

Seth Welty, MA in Architecture, Tulane University, is working in Biloxi, Miss. with the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio an arm of the Mississippi State University's College of Architecture, Art + Design that provides design assistance to low income households that need help to rebuild in the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Abigail Loosen, MA in Architecture, University of Minnesota, is working in Minneapolis with the Project for Pride in Living, a non profit that assists lower-income people and families in the Twin Cities metro area to work towards self-sufficiency through housing, employment training and education.

Laura Shipman, MA in Architecture in Urban Design (Candidate 2008), Harvard Graduate School of Design, is working in San Francisco with the Community Housing Partnership, a nonprofit that develops and operates permanent housing with on-site support services for formerly homeless people.

The Rose Fellowship is an important part of the Enterprise Green Communities (R) initiative, an Enterprise program started in 2004 which has created 12,500 energy efficient, healthy homes for low income families nationwide. Funding for the 2008-2011 fellows was supplied by the McKnight Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund and an anonymous donor.

Enterprise is a leading provider of the development capital and expertise it takes to create decent, affordable homes and rebuild communities. For more than 25 years, Enterprise has pioneered neighborhood solutions through public-private partnerships with financial institutions, governments, community organizations and others that share our vision. Enterprise has raised and invested more than $9 billion in equity, grants and loans to help build or preserve more than 240,000 affordable rental and for-sale homes to create vital communities. Enterprise is currently investing in communities at a rate of $1 billion a year. Visit www.enterprisecommunity.org
and www.enterprisecommunity.com
to learn more about Enterprise's efforts to build communities and opportunity.

Enterprise Community Partners

Enterprise Community Partners

Enterprise Community Partners is a leading provider of the development capital and expertise it takes to create decent, affordable homes and rebuild communities. For more than two decades, Enterprise has pioneered neighborhood solutions through public-private partnerships with financial institutions, governments, community organizations and others that share our vision. Enterprise has raised and invested $7 billion in equity, grants and loans and is currently investing in communities at a rate of $1 billion a year. Visit www.enterprisecommunity.org to learn more about Enterprise's efforts to build communities and opportunity, and to meet some of the half a million people we have helped.

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