Aaron Whitney was an owner and principal of two design-build firms before joining ECO in 2010. His first venture, the Western Environmental Design Integration Group (WEDIG), began in 1995 with two co-graduates from the University of Oregon School of Architecture. The collaboration was a way to apply Aaron’s past construction experience to the newly acquired design education, and he became a better, more efficient designer and builder in the process. WEDIG’s work was primarily residential, with an emphasis on passive solar design and locally sourced sustainable building materials.

Aaron’s interest in natural areas led him to further examine the relationships between buildings and their environment and brought him to the landscape architecture firm Habitats in 2000. Habitats’ focus on sustainable landscapes and ecological restoration married well with Aaron’s talents, and he headed the new building design and construction division. Soon after, Habitats designed and built the Stormwater Management Demonstration home, which featured Eugene’s first permitted vegetated roof on a residential building, 100% on-site stormwater management, passive solar design, heat recovery systems and repurposed building materials. Shortly after that, light commercial and public projects such as the SeQuential Biofuel Station came, though Aaron remained focused on designing well thought out energy, material and resource efficient residential buildings for the next ten years.

Aaron’s current role at ECO is to provide custom design and construction management services that allow ECO’s clients to fully explore the range of sustainable design and building strategies available to them. Aaron is dedicated to developing lasting relationships between buildings, their landscapes, and the surrounding environment.