William Doran, BArch alum and former LSU architecture professional in residence, was awarded support by The Deborah J. Norden Fund 2020 for the project “Sheltered: Evaluating the Potential for Design to Shape Policy Toward the Goal of Inclusive, Intentional Communities for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities.” With colleague Chris Starkey, Doran will visit and study enclave communities for adults with Intellectual and developmental disabilities across the country.

“I’m excited to share that we won a travel grant through the Architectural League of New York to study spaces for adults with disabilities across the US!” Doran said; he works for Duvall Decker Architects. “We’ve been working with a non-profit that provides housing and services to adults with mental disabilities, to execute their master plan. We’re currently building some of the houses laid out in the plan and made the grant proposal to support our work with further research.”

Doran and Starkey will document and study spaces for individuals with IDDs across the United States – both privately and publicly-funded enclave communities and their “in-community” counterparts. The team has spent the last four years working with the Baddour Center on the creation and execution of their master plan, and, through this work, has discovered a rich set of common issues across the care provider network. Though urban design and architecture play a major role in policy, there is a paucity of architectural research on the impact of the federal definition of HCBS settings and deinstitutionalization. A study of these policies and places is a starting point for an important cross-disciplinary dialogue.

“Well-merited honor and great opportunity,” said Alkis Tsolakis, dean of the College of Art & Design.

The Deborah J. Norden Fund, a program of The Architectural League of New York, was established in 1995 in memory of architect and arts administrator Deborah Norden. The competition awards travel grants of up to $5,000 to students and recent graduates in the fields of architecture, architectural history, and urban studies.