ENVD announces 2023 alumni award recipients
The University of Colorado Boulder Program in Environmental Design has announced the recipients of the 2023 Environmental Design Alumni Awards. This year’s honoree for the Distinguished Alumni Award is Nancy Blackwood and the Young Designer Award recipient is Thomas Hoffmann.
The Environmental Design Alumni Awards honor individuals who have demonstrated leadership and made significant contributions to the design and architectural professions.
Celebrate the 2023 Alumni Award winners on Wednesday, Nov. 1, from 5-6:30 p.m. at the Environmental Design Building.
Schedule of events:
5-5:30 p.m. – Pre-ceremony hors d'oeuvres reception
5:30-6:30 p.m. – Presentation of awards
Distinguished Alumni Awardee:
Nancy Blackwood, winner of the 2023 ENVD Distinguished Alumni Award, came to Boulder from suburban Detroit in 1970 to attend what was the new Environmental Design Program at CU. She graduated from ENVD in 1974, the first graduating class, and has lived and worked in Boulder for the past 49 years, including 15 years at DTJ Design (Downing-Leach and Associates), 15 years with OZ Architecture, and a cumulative 19 years as a private Urban Planning Consultant.
Her work over the years has encompassed both public and private urban mixed-use developments, land use planning for large-scale residential/commercial developments, urban planning, design guidelines, downtown redevelopment plans, corridor master planning and streetscape design concepts for projects in communities across the country. A notable project was the Master Planning and Design Guidelines for a new 5,000 acre sustainable/off-the-grid city outside Nairobi, Kenya. She has also served on urban design review teams in multiple Colorado municipalities.
Nancy has been a long-standing member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and has served the Boulder community extensively. She has been the president of the University Hill Neighborhood Association Executive Committee for the past eight years and served on the Historic Boulder Inc. Board of Directors for 17 years.
Highlights of Nancy’s time at ENVD in the early 1970’s include: Buckminster Fuller’s visit to the campus and the opportunity to build a geodesic dome in the Norlan Quad; the wide range of projects the classes tackled (from designing a play toy to an entire city); staying up night after night upstairs on the 3rd floor to finish a project; making long-lasting friendships and playing flag football on the “green” to the west of the building (now filled in with a building). She was pretty good for a girl.
Young Designer Awardee:
Thomas Hoffmann, the Environmental Design 2023 Young Designer Award recipient, graduated with his Bachelor Degree in ENVD in 2017. During his time at ENVD he focused on design studies which offered an interdisciplinary approach to design. Currently, Thomas is a young entrepreneur and instructor in the ENVD program who is constantly building upon his education. From his early days at Ҵýƽ, Thomas was captivated by design's multifaceted nature. Informed by ENVD courses in communication, history, and policy, he recognized that design wasn't solely about aesthetics but also its impact on cultures, communities, and individual lives.
Thomas established Campworks in 2019 where he created the NS-1 adventure trailer. The NS-1 is a micro-architectural product that interacts with landscapes while incorporating technical innovation, sustainable design, and environmental ethos. Building Campworks and the NS-1 represents Thomas's life's work, and he is grateful to only be 29 and on this journey. Thomas's ambitions transcend product design, as he aims to create a world where humans live in harmony with nature, and sustainability isn’t an afterthought but ingrained into our lifestyles.