Susan Park President's Award for Excellence: Jean Carroon and Goody Clancy

Jean Carroon is a preservation architect, author, educator, and a tireless advocate for the stewardship of existing buildings. Over two decades, she has shaped a robust preservation practice at Goody Clancy, a Boston-based education design firm committed to sustainability, resilient design, and renewal of campus buildings nationwide.

Jean earned a B.A. and an M. Arch. from the University of Oregon, where she embraced the reuse and greening of our biggest objects as essential to creating a healthy world. Jean says, “Other people reuse grocery bags, I reuse buildings. Our consumption-based culture is damaging the planet. It’s absolutely essential that we value what already exists.” Jean moved to Boston where she worked at several award-winning firms before opening Jean Carroon Architect in 1994 and joining Goody Clancy in 2000.

Throughout her career, Jean has significantly increased awareness across the country of the importance of, and potential for the integration of, sustainable design and the stewardship of historic buildings. She has testified about energy conservation before the United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, lectured at numerous universities, and taught for many years with the National Preservation Institute. Authoring countless articles about building renewal, preservation, sustainability, and resilience, her book Sustainable Preservation: Greening Existing Buildings was published in 2010.

Jean’s portfolio includes preservation, renovation, and adaptive reuse of a dozen National Historic Landmarks and other significant structures, including Trinity Church, Bunker Hill Monument, King’s Chapel, McCormack Courthouse and Post Office, and the Massachusetts State House, to name just a few notable Boston examples. Her projects have been praised for their sustainability and design excellence, with many receiving LEED Platinum and Gold certifications, and four have been recognized with National Preservation Honor Awards. Jean is a founding member of the Technical Committee for Sustainability in the Association for Preservation Technology and helped draft the Pocantico Proclamation on Sustainability and Historic Preservation. She served as the president of the BSA in 2019 — a tenure dubbed the “year of carbon” — during which she helped shine a light on architects’ roles in driving down operational and embodied carbon. Jean currently represents MA in the AIA Strategic Council where she chairs the Climate Action Study Group.

Jean and her husband, also an architect, have lived in the same house in Somerville for 33 years. There they raised three now-grown children, with whom they enjoy traveling the world; a recent trip took the family to the Galapagos. When not writing her own books and articles, Jean is an equally prolific reader.

“With an impressive career in historic preservation and sustainability, Jean Carroon honors the past by protecting our planet,” says Alison Frazee, Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance. “Jean is a champion for adaptive reuse and the many ways that preservation is one of our most critical climate action tools. The Alliance is honored to recognize the inspiring efforts of Jean Carroon and Goody Clancy with our 2024 Susan Park President’s Award for Excellence.”