Roberta Watts
Email: roberta (at) jsrassociates.net
Roberta has a M.A. in Architecture from the University of Maryland at College Park’s School of Architecture and a B.A. in Fine Arts from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. A recipient of the Peterson Printmaking Prize in college, Roberta continued to work with fine arts on paper for the MFA in Boston and eventually studied under an art conservator in the Boston area.
In 1997 she left Boston and backpacked around the world with her husband for 15 months. What started as a journey became a pilgrimage to some of the finest architectural wonders and urban settings of the world. When she returned to the US, her focus had shifted dramatically from the two dimensional arts to architecture. This culminated in her attaining her Masters Degree at the University of Maryland, where she honed her designing and research skills and completed her thesis on a proposal for a community center in Washington Village (otherwise known as Pigtown—near the B&O museum in Baltimore). The complex programmatic challenges inherent to a multi-generational community center combined with the argument that an investment in the urban setting can give back to the community drove her design and motivates her even now.
Roberta continued her community-focused design work with the Neighborhood Design Center (neighborhood evaluations) and Anne Arundel County Planning Department’s Small Area Planning Committee for Lake Shore. In 2007, she was hired by JSR Associates, Inc. to assist in the design of senior living facilities and healing environments.