Amanda Loper

Biography: Amanda Loper is a Principal at David Baker Architects, an award-winning architecture and interiors firm in San Francisco that is known for combining social concern with a signature design character. In 2012, DBA was selected as the AIA California Council’s Distinguished Practice. For the past decade at DBA, Amanda has collaboratively designed a diverse range of projects throughout the San Francisco Bay Area—ranging from housing for the formerly homeless to market-rate communities to custom retail spaces. Inspired by her tenure at Rural Studio in 2002, Amanda works to bring social awareness to issues of housing and density within the urban setting. Amanda has a particular interest in designing the ground level for an active, organic public realm and in making a place for people. She writes, presents, and curates panels for SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research) focused on density, housing solutions, and urban vitality. For two years, she has served as a board member for the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition (SFHAC), where she chairs the project review committee. She has also contributed her thoughts at several American Institute of Architects (AIA) panels and conferences. Amanda has recently lead the research, design development, and community outreach for San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Bonus Program, a comprehensive density study establishing City density guidelines. An exhibit based on some of her work developing design principles that build and bolster community is set to be included in an upcoming exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. Amanda continues to work on large and small projects, including a series of café and roastery spaces for Saint Frank Coffee; boutique hotels in California Wine Country; and the first 100% affordable housing project in more than a decade in the Mission District, the center of San Francisco’s housing crisis.