Speakers

Margaret (O’Donoghue) Castillo is the Chief Architect of the New York City Department of Design and Construction. A first for the agency, the Office of the Chief Architect was created to assure that the ideas of Design and Construction Excellence factor into all DDC projects. She also works across multiple agencies in collaboration to advance design excellence in equity, sustainability, resiliency, and health. Currently, she is working on the new Active Design Guidelines 2.0 with DOHMH and other city agencies.

Margaret served as 2011 President of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and was 2016 President of AIA New York State. An expert on energy policy, she organized Buildings = Energy exhibition at the Center for Architecture and brought its case studies to Tokyo in 2011 as well as presented PlaNYC at UN-Habitat World Urban Forum (WUF5) in Rio de Janeiro in 2010. In previous private practice, Margaret specialized in sustainable design and historic preservation projects and was responsible for the design of many public buildings, including libraries and schools. She has been on the Board of Directors for various institutions such as the Fine Arts Federation, the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization, and New York Building Congress.