Jesse JW Selman, AIA, CPHC
Partner
Since 2006, Jesse has brought to C&H a passion to restore, re-build, and improve the built environment of the Northeast. He has a collaborative spirit and a deep respect for all the stakeholders at the table – clients, colleagues, tradespeople, and the larger community. Trained as a sociologist, environmental educator, and farmer Jesse is, by nature, a holistic thinker. This path has led him to lead place-based projects that require the careful integration of people, systems, access, & space. His breadth of practice includes deep-energy retrofits of beloved historic buildings, integrated structures for campus food systems, grid-independent homesteads, and everything in between. Whether meeting with trustees about a 200-year-old program or back-of-house staff for a new working building, Jesse brings a keen ear and design leadership to deliver buildings that work.
Beyond architecture, Jesse has remained active in the community working with emerging professionals, local boards and committees, and supporting student work. He currently is chair of the Western Mass AIA COTE committee.
Before his twenty years at C&H, Jesse created a design-build firm focused on mission-based projects merging green-building and sustainable agriculture principles. His clients included nonprofits, small farms, businesses, and individuals whom he engaged in pedagogical building experiences. During this time, he completed a wide range of projects from root cellars to pigsties to full farm master plans and a net-zero housing co-op.
After undergrad, Jesse completed a year of service with AmeriCorps. He then co-managed a 200 acre, non-profit / educational farm in the Hudson Valley of New York where he oversaw the creation of a regional food/farm infrastructure, housing and community space coupled with educational programs to meet the needs of a changing society.
After graduating from Vassar College where he studied rural sociology with a focus on the interplay between the natural and built environment, he worked as an environmental educator and land steward in the Hudson Valley.
Jesse grew up in Massachusetts where he spent his summers farming and working for his high-school buildings & grounds department. He currently lives in Amherst where he is regularly humbled by his children, small family homestead, and building projects.