Terry Phelan is our Founder and Project Lead. A self taught architect, she has been in the home design and building industry since 1977. Never being one to take the most traveled path, she apprenticed for many years, rather than going the college route, before taking the licensing board exams to become a registered architect.

Terry was born and raised in Washington, and has lived and worked on projects in both sides of the state. Her awards and recognition vary from Street of Dreams homes in the 1980′s to pioneering the ecological design and business practices that have characterized our work since the mid 1990’s.

Terry is passionate about incorporating healthy and joyful elements into a dance of personal spaces our clients love to live in. She stays on top of new developments in the best choices in building through activity in the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, Cascadia Green Building Council, and the AIA Committee on the Environment.

Terry developed an educational branch of Living Shelter to teach workshops and speak at public events to increase the knowledge and understanding of some of the most healthy and energy efficient options we have for building and design. “The Living Shelter Cafe”, “Living Shelter Design Radio” and “The Eco-Logical Home” – interview format radio and podcast talk-shows – are all renditions of one of her educational outreach projects. You can listen to the latest programs on The Eco-Logical Home website, and on Port Townsend community radio station KPTZ.

Terry lives with her husband in a 1930′s Issaquah bungalow, which is a restoration and energy retrofit project in process.  She enjoys spending time in her garden growing food, cooking for small and large groups, dancing, bicycling around town for errands, and finds solace hiking in the deep woods of the Cascade and Olympic mountains.