Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
IIDA Names Barnett-Griffith Austin City Center Director
September 12,
2013 by in Designer Weekly 
Barnett-Griffith has a 13-year career in high quality design, healthy interior environments, and environmentally responsible practices. Having previously served as the Sustainability Chair of IIDA’s Austin City Center, Barnett-Griffith initiated such notable sustainability projects such as the ZeroLandfill initiative, which supported local artists while diverting 90,000 pounds of waste since 2011.
She is an associate at Perkins+Will and leads the Green Team in the Austin practice. She is an advocate of eliminating the toxic substances found in many building materials that will in turn lead to healthier buildings and, therefore, healthier people. As Austin City Center Director, Barnett-Griffith intends to continue to educate local designer’s knowledge of toxic substances for the health and wellbeing of the citizens of Austin and the surrounding areas.
IIDA has long provided a forum for design professionals to demonstrate a positive impact on the health, safety and well-being of the public. The State of Texas recently changed both licensing and continuing education requirements for Interior Designers. As City Center director, Barnett-Griffith intends to support local interior designers in this transition with new continuing education programs to promote high quality design that also reduces interior toxins and promotes environmental responsibility.
“Sustainable design is a result of a creative process that is not only collaborative, but multi-disciplined,” said Barnett-Griffith. “A large goal of mine this year will be to focus on empowering local designers to educate our community on healthy sustainable design and how interior designers play a large part in refining the impact of the built environment on human and ecological health. With programs such as IIDA’s Austin City Center Zerolandfill, we can start to bridge the gap with our design community and the public.”
As Barnett-Griffith continues to share Perkins+Will’s interdisciplinary approach to transform lives through design, she will also help pave the way for members of IIDA’s Texas Oklahoma Chapter to become the next generation of interior design innovators.