MEET OUR TEAM

April is a pioneer in the advancement of Healthy Buildings. She is an Architect, small business owner, Executive Director, and Adjunct Professor; April has been a keynote speaker and presenter to many organizations and universities over the past decade. She has sat on multiple boards and municipal committees in advisory roles. She currently serves as the southeastern co-lead for the US Hemp Building Association. 

April has been a Charleston County resident since 2004 and has devoted her career to the advancement of sustainable architecture and healthy buildings. From 2004 – 2011 she worked for several Charleston architecture firms, gaining experience in numerous project types: historic renovations, high-end residential, multi-family housing, civic and federal buildings, and more.   In 2011 she acted on her passion and founded Root Down Designs, a women-led architecture firm dedicated to sustainable architecture. April and her team have designed a diverse range of projects, from custom, high-end residential, to multi-family affordable housing, breweries, mixed-use commercial projects, and off-grid eco-resorts. She has pioneered several carbon-negative and alternative housing prototypes, such as Rammed-Earth and Compressed Earth Block homes, and is currently working extensively with hemp-based materials and methods. Natural aesthetics, beauty, and highly-efficient designs are incorporated into all designs.

April also teaches community-style building workshops and has curated women-centered building events.  April has led over 4 dozen community-building workshops and courses across the southeast. Her passion for sustainable architecture and community-building workshops was noticed by The American College of the Building Arts, and she began serving as an Adjunct Professor of Sustainable Materials in 2018. 

Always seeking avenues to bring high-quality design to more people, she founded the Root Down House Plan Co. (founded 2020), which has a collection of 20 pre-designed house plans, specific to the south, focused on efficient design, and including many ADU plans, and most recently adding in the Hempstead Living House Plans!

After an incredibly successful ‘Charleston Hemp-Building Workshop’ in 2022 with over 100 participants, April created the latest chapter and now also serves as the Executive Director of the Root Down Building Collective, a 501c3 grassroots organization whose mission is ‘To Advance Regional, Climate-Smart, & Equitable Housing Solutions.’  She is a true visionary for resilient and healthy buildings for a healthy future! 

Download April Magill_CV

Gina has been an interior designer and architectural draftsman in Charleston, SC for over 10 years. She joined Root Down Designs in 2018 to re-introduce alternative building materials + advocate for affordable healthy housing. 

Over the past 5 years, Gina has been studying scientific research and journals on redlist chemicals, VOCs, and other toxic materials commonly found in North American homes. Her focus was to understand how these compounds interact with our hot and humid Southeastern climate, leading to poor indoor air quality. With this information as a driving force, her designs are geared towards providing materials and fixtures that promote healthier living and encourage a better world through ethical manufacturing. In 2023, she earned a certificate from Parsons School of Design for ‘Healthier Materials and Sustainable Building.

In Spring 2024, Gina launched our Healthy Homes Package; a 600-page e-catalog, which showcases healthier alternatives for your home’s interior. Following her guide to finishes and fixtures can notably decrease your exposure to harmful Red List materials, VOCs, and other harmful chemicals that affect human and environmental well-being. See more details here: Healthy Homes — Root Down House Plan Co.

In her free time, Gina makes sentimental keepsakes and memorial jewelry with human hair. Following patterns from the mid-1800s, she taught herself the ancient technique of weaving strands of hair into intricate and durable jewelry to keep close to the heart.  Check out her work!   

Not too long after graduating from a small college in New England, Tim was offered a job building custom timber frames for the company Great Northern Joiners.  For years, Tim had been nursing a keen interest in boat building and went back to school to study naval architecture, after which he landed a job with Sunward Yachts in Wilmington, NC, where he spent 10 years designing and building custom and semi-custom blue-water sailboats ranging in size from 48-65 feet in length. 

After battling health issues due to chemical sensitivities in his work, he began to  re-evaluate the nature and methods of his work, which ultimately moved him in the direction of natural building. In 2003, Tim started a general contracting business in residential and commercial construction and developing design/build projects. 

 In 2005, Tim co-authored the book “Building Green”. Tim designed and built the first permitted hempcrete house in the country, the Nauhaus Prototype; aiming to make it the most energy-efficient house he could conceive, using Passivhaus as a performance metric. 

Since then, Tim has designed another 10 hempcrete residences and consulted on projects across  Europe and the Americas, which has allowed for the ongoing refinement of detailing and methods of implementation. Tim worked with the team that developed the Hemp-Lime appendix for the IRC and presented our work to the ICC in Rochester , NY in 2022. 

Tim also provides training in hempcrete installation, and has conducted many workshops over the years for both building professionals and the general public. This year, Tim received certification for the application of sprayed-in hempcrete with the Ereasy Hempcrete system. 

Tim worked with the R. L. Mace Universal Design Institute and collaborated with them on their book on integrating universal design principles into new and existing structures. He is currently working on a technical book for builders, architects, and engineers on designing and detailing with hempcrete, to be published in October.  

Tim also is an active board member of the Root Down Building Collective and has co-developed a collection of Hempcrete House Plans (Hempstead Living) with the Root down Team.

Tim is not only a leader and pioneer in the hemp-building industry, he is one of the most seasoned and experienced professionals in the US working with hemp-based materials; Tim is a huge asset to any project he is involved in.