2025 Scholarship recipients have been annnounced!
Lewis W. Butler believed in the power of education and mentorship to transform the lives of young people. As co-founder of Butler Armsden Architects, he was a supportive boss and advisor to a diverse group of design professionals in various stages of their careers. The Lewis W. Butler Foundation honors his commitment to promoting education and expanding opportunities in architecture and design.
The Lewis W. Butler Foundation provides scholarships, mentors, and internship opportunities to architecture and design students at the beginning of their college careers. We prioritize students with limited financial resources and those from groups that are underrepresented in design including people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities. By supporting these students as they study design and prepare to enter the workforce, we hope to increase diversity in design professions.
About Lewis W. Butler
Lewis W. Butler, AIA, was born in San Francisco in 1957 and lived a life characterized by his joie de vivre, independent spirit, and hard work. Lewis studied Civil Engineering at Stanford University, graduating in 1979. After working for a year at internationally recognized William Turnbull Associates in San Francisco, Lewis completed his master’s in architecture at Harvard, where he met his wife, Catherine Armsden. Lewis and Catherine cofounded Butler Armsden in 1985, landing jobs with Lewis’s ever-optimistic mantra, “Yes, we can do that!”
Our Board
Chandra Campbell
Treasurer and Founding Director, CEO and CFO of Butler Armsden Architects
Chandra was born in Massachusetts but moved to San Francisco in elementary school, and has always felt a pull between both coasts. She earned her BA in Industrial Design from San Francisco State University. She has worked at Butler Armsden Architects since 1999. Coming from a family of both artists and entrepreneurs, she enjoys being surrounded by creative people, art and design, and running small businesses comes naturally and intuitively. When she’s not crunching numbers, Chandra enjoys exploring the beauty of California with her husband and two sons.
Tobias Butler
Secretary, Tech Lead, and Founding Director
Tobias grew up in San Francisco and attended Wesleyan University where he studied Music and Computer Science. After graduating, he worked at small San Francisco startups, cementing his coding skills while learning practices of entrepreneurship and design thinking. This culminated in a tenure leading software engineering at Louder, which was acquired by Change.org in 2015. Tobias worked at Change.org for six years, focusing on making the website more accessible and faster to use around the world. He is now the founder of Tuneshine, a hardware company combining his love of music with his skills in software. Tobias remains an active musician and often relaxes by playing classical piano. Tobias is the son of Lewis Butler and Catherine Armsden.
Catherine Armsden
Founding Director; Co-Founder of Butler Armsden Architects
Catherine Armsden grew up in coastal Maine. She attended Brown University, where she received her degree in studio art and art history. After a year at Seattle’s Office of Urban Conservation and two at Ann Beha Architects in Boston, Catherine attended Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where she met Lewis Butler. They were married and received their Masters in Architecture from Harvard in 1984. A year later, they founded Butler Armsden Architects in San Francisco. Catherine was not actively involved with the firm after the turn of the century because she became possessed by an idea for a book that was inspired by her work with Butler Armsden’s residential clients. Dream House: A Novel was published in 2015. Currently, Catherine is working on a nonfiction project that will be published in 2023.
David Gonzalez
Managing Partner, Sozo Design; Assistant Chair of Industrial Design, CCA
David Gonzalez was born in Nicaragua and raised in California and is a Managing Partner at Sozo Design LLC and the Assistant Chair of the Industrial Design Program at California College of the Arts. He has been responsible for leading and managing efforts in consumer electronics, medical devices, lifestyle products, toys, and sports equipment. He has worked for industry leaders including HP, Fujitsu, Nike, and Samsung. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design from San Jose State University as well as a Technical Arts and Graphics Associate of Art degree from The College of San Mateo. He has been recognized with awards from the Industrial Designers Society of America, Business Week, ID Magazine, iLounge, and the Consumer Electronics Show. David brings to LWBF his expertise as an industrial designer and as an educator.
Janet Hunter
Founder, UCSF Friends of the Breast Care Center
Janet Hunter has been a long-time fundraiser, event planner and community leader for San Francisco not-for-profit organizations. She served on the Board of Trustees of the Hamlin School for 13 years and of San Francisco University High School for 6 years. She founded the volunteer Friends of the Breast Care Center at UCSF in 2004 and continues as its chair. For Larkin Street Youth Services, she cofounded its signature fundraising event Paving the Way. Janet chaired fundraisers for the public charter One Purpose School in the Bayview District. She has also served as a pro-bono consultant to numerous other organizations. Janet holds an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA, and attended Stanford University and the University of South Dakota as an undergraduate.
Elena Butler
President and Founding Director
Elena grew up in San Francisco and is a resident physician at UCSF, where she works across the city’s hospitals and in primary care clinic. She graduated from Harvard College and later earned her MD from the University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from The Wharton School. Her work has focused on improving care delivery for underserved populations, including roles with Boston Medical Center and the Penn Center for Community Health Workers. Her writing on healthcare reform has appeared in Harvard Business Review and NEJM Catalyst. In addition to her clinical work, she enjoys advising healthcare startups that are focused on building more accessible, patient-centered models of care.
Elena is the daughter of Lewis Butler and Catherine Armsden and lives in San Francisco with her husband, Matt, and their two sons, Leo and Cal. While not a trained designer, she loves seeing LWBF students’ work and dabbles in design through knitting, sewing, and rearranging furniture.
Help us grow our Board of Directors
We are building a diverse board of Bay Area leaders in design, nonprofit management, and education. To suggest a potential board member, please contact elena@lewiswbutlerfoundation.org.
The Lewis W. Butler Foundation is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation with tax-exempt status as a public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal tax ID 85-3518439.