Having grown up in New York City, spending four months in Europe studying architecture during her undergraduate studies, earning her degree in architecture from Pratt University and her master’s degree from Columbia University, Robin Andrade considers herself an advocate of small houses and small spaces. A true believer in and practitioner of sustainable design and use of recycled materials, Andrade incorporates these concepts into her every project--including her own home, which recently underwent a kitchen renovation. Andrade loves the city of Kingston because of the reusable building stock which she also advocates. “We were involved in a lot of restorations and renovations down in [New York] city.” She believes in using common sense strategies to make sustainable buildings, such as better insulation, orientation of the structure, and manipulating the structure. Her studies in Denmark allowed her to see how designing in clusters could help with sustainability and saving as much green space as possible. Andrade feels her greatest contribution to sustainable architecture is her ability to take an existing structure, such as an old townhouse in Harlem, and reuse as much of the materials as possible to make the building more well thought out. Currently, Andrade is working on a residential project and renovating the home to make it as sustainable as possible by adding a high efficiency boiler, new insulation, making the home nearly 100 percent solar powered, and adding LED lighting. She is also helping Habitat for Humanity use LEED principles for an upcoming project.