Architectural Record news:
http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/060718delia.asp
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Sandy D’Elia, Architecture Marketing Innovator, Dies at 59
July 18, 2006
Sandy D’Elia, an influential marketer and business strategist for planning
and design firms, died June 3. He was 59. D’Elia had worked as director of
development for EDAW and wrote the 1989 book Advanced Marketing Techniques
for Architecture and Engineering Firms, which remains a definitive book on
the topic. According to Herb McLaughlin, a principal at Kaplan McLaughlin
Diaz, D’Elia moved firms beyond responding to RFQs to actively marketing
themselves as designers.
“He was so marvelously open and friendly,” McLaughlin adds, “that people,
after meeting with him and conversing with him, felt that architecture and
design could have the same qualities.”
D’Elia earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University,
and his architecture degree from the University of Idaho in 1976. He
practiced architecture from 1978 to 1990 at Childs Bertman Tseckares,
Hornberger and Worstell, and KMD before joining EDAW. D’Elia was also a
member of the Society of College and University Planners, and published
numerous articles on campus planning and design. According to a tribute
prepared by EDAW, he worked on several community and campus master plans
with “an abiding interest in the ways in which places help to define and
shape experiences.”
A memorial service was held on July 9 in Spring Lake, New Jersey, and a
separate celebration of D’Elia’s life is planned for August 11 at the
Golden Gate Club in San Francisco.