Elizabeth Roettger

B.S. Arch 1997 University of Virginia, M.Arch 2000 University of Virginia

Lecturer / Assistant to the Chair

After working in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, Betsy Roettger returned to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia in 2004. Ms. Roettger teaches the fundamentals of design in the second year and third year undergraduate architecture studios. She stresses the importance of abstracting, diagramming, and re-presenting information as a way to design interventions integrated with their sites. Betsy prepares students to develop their own design methodology by establishing and using a thesis or argument as a way to make design decisions from the scale of the region to the detail. Roettger also works in the departmental administration on many projects involving both faculty and students.

Ms. Roettger’s research interests lie in the collaboration between the design disciplines, community development, and politics. Growing up in West Virginia and briefly outside New Orleans on the Mississippi Coast, she is very interested in promoting more effective planning and building practices as a way to preserve local culture and ecologies in traditionally underserved populations.

An active volunteer at the Charlottesville Community Design Center, Betsy helped secure the grant money for the 2005 Urban Habitats Competition, in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity. The competition solicited sustainable proposals for redeveloping a trailer park into affordable medium density housing without displacing current residents. Working with a different set of constituents, Ms. Roettger recently served as a facilitator for Charlottesville’s Neighborhood Design Day to involve citizens in the strategic planning for the city. Recently, she joined an interdisciplinary team to design proposals for the City’s renovation of a neighborhood park.

Prior to her return to UVA, Betsy worked in Boston and Cambridge, MA while teaching at the Boston Architectural Center. Her most recent work at the Gund Partnership, the renovation and addition to the main Ohio State University Library and the Kenyon College master plan, addressed the role of architect as facilitator in a complex and diverse client and community group. While her professional design experience has been institutional work, Betsy hopes to take on work at a larger community scale while innovating at a smaller residential scale. As a practitioner, Betsy, is balancing teaching with the designing and building a house near downtown Charlottesville.

Currently, Ms. Roettger is editing a publication on the school of architecture’s design and service work done to promote innovative approaches to the re-building of the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. She led a service trip of 20 students for a week in January 2006 to assess the damage and find potential partners for future design and building projects.