Allan is a licensed architect and community development professional with nearly fifteen years of deep experience in architecture and development. His career has centered on implementing and managing community-engaged design and urban development projects that focus on racial and economic inequality through affordable housing, public space, and community planning work. Allan brings expertise in delivering high-quality projects by leveraging inclusive community engagement strategies to drive local buy-in while meeting financial, programming, and design goals by layering financial tools with best practices and innovation in architecture and construction management.
Before joining Hester Street, Allan served as Project Manager of Design and Construction at Breaking Ground, NYC’s eminent affordable housing developer and the country’s largest provider of supportive housing for the formerly homeless. In this role, he managed the construction and delivery of over 1000 completed and future units of affordable housing throughout the city, building partnerships with broad coalitions of stakeholders, including design and construction teams, building management, service providers, community organizations, and end-users. From 2016 to 2018, Allan was awarded an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship for work in community engagement and affordable housing development and was named a 2020 Next City Vanguard. Allan holds a Master of Science in Architecture History and Theory from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University.