Laquida “Q” Landford
Executive Director & Lead Visionary
Laquida Landford is a community researcher, community health worker, and the lead visionary and Executive Director of AfroVillage PDX. She created AfroVillage PDX as a grassroots movement to build community, reduce social isolation, and support the needs of Black women, people of the African Diaspora, and others impacted by systems of oppression and systemic racism. LaQuida uses her strengths in community organizing, advocacy, and civic engagement, to lead projects that are racial equity focused and community informed. Her work aims to restore dignity, create access and transform communities through housing justice, food justice, and community healing and economic empowerment.
Marta Petteni
Program Co-Director & Project Manager
Marta Petteni is a U.S. based, Italian licensed Architect and the Co-Founder Studio Petteni- a Portland-based practice that merges research, engagement, and design to help address the social-environmental needs of the most vulnerable communities in Oregon and worldwide. Marta's decade-long experience lies at the intersection of design justice, post-disaster scenarios, climate change, and community resilience.
Marta is also the Co-Director & Project Manager of the AfroFuturism Oasis project and has been awarded the 2024 Van Evera Bailey Fellowship from the Architecture Foundation of Oregon to expand this work.
Kirk Rea
Finance Manager & Placemaking Specialist
Kirk has worked in affordable housing, in the reuse sector, and for 10 years for a placemaking nonprofit, City Repair, with a focus on technical advising, volunteer coordination, convening multi-partner initiatives, and administration. Trained in and passionate about fine art and art as social practice, Kirk has worked to create safe space and opportunity for creatives to exhibit or perform their work, including with Latino Art Now! and Not Enough! - a Queer and Trans Art and Music Festival.
When not kicking it at Afro Village, Kirk works as a street art lead and crew leader at SymbiOp, a landscaping services and garden shop cooperative centered on regenerative ecology.
Kyhetica “Ky” Lattin
Lead Designer & Sustainability Coordinator
Kyhetica is a designer focused on climate justice, community engagement, and social justice. She is a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC) and LEED Green Associate, with experience in urban planning and small design build projects built for houseless and underserved communities. She holds both an undergraduate degree and masters degree in Architecture focused on sustainable planning, building science, and studied how comfortable people feel in built spaces. Her passion is in regenerative communities and co-housing that is resilience, empathetic, and beautiful. In her free time, Kyhetica spends her time volunteering with kids, making art, reading and attending art/community events throughout the city.
Edward Benote Hill
Board Member
Edward “Eddie” is an community and neighborhood scale urban planner, designer and community food systems currently serving as Director of the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition and Community Food Systems Navigator at Oregon State University’s Community Food Systems Program. Hill brings a directness and sincerity to his work advancing environmental and social justice through food systems, climate impact management, and economic development in vulnerable, historically marginalized, and undercapitalized communities.
Sarut “Jung” Choothian
Designer
Jung is an architecture enthusiast with a Master in Architecture (2019) and Urban Design Certificate from Portland State University in Oregon. He is originally from Thailand, and he currently resides in Portland since 2007. He is working on his second masters degree from Portland State in Urban Studies. Through his research and industry experience, Jung has found a strong passion for designing creative spaces that reflect social issues through thoughtful architecture and urban design. Additionally, he also likes to take street photography with his compact mirrorless camera as they are painting emotional responses to people and space.
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