Jeffrey deVito

Born and raised in New York City, Jeffrey schooled first at Boston University (B.A. English Lit, Minor in Clinical Psychology, 1985), then Columbia University (M.A. Applied Linguistics, Education & Pedagogy Design, 1991) where he studied learning theory & practice, technological design & literacy. This area of study and research focuses on how humans interact with, remember and communicate information through oral, literate and technological modalities. Jeffrey rounded out the cerebral and educational with the practical and terrestrial in graduate studies in ecology, sustainable environmental systems design and policy management, leading to an M.S. at UC Berkeley through 1996.

Over the past two and a half decades, Jeffrey based himself outside of the U.S. for extended periods of time, learning languages, cultures and housing/permaculture design within contexts of human and uninhabited ecosystems. He is a practitioner, student and teacher of design and energy systems in private, professional and academic environs. To date he has traveled in 63 countries, on all but 1 continent.

In the mid 1980's he worked as a Montessori school teacher in Spain, moving later to university level instruction and into freelance consulting in Spain (Citibank, Extebank, Museos de Espana), Germany (Deutschtelecom, National Green Party), and finally in Tokyo. There he worked for two years as a partner in a consulting group, writing, teaching & training people in western communication, mass media and public information design. Jeffrey was a member of the volunteer team running the English-side of the Friends of the Earth office during Japan's implementation of national recycling, pollution control / energy efficiency, as well as in public awareness / lobbying campaigns to raise public awareness and action, influence policy makers and legislators and encourage divestment in private multinationals profiting in the destruction of offshore rainforests form Borneo to Brazil.

In between years of graduate school through the early 1990's, Jeffrey commercial fished and worked off-season as a field researcher for the Department of Fish and Wildlife in Prince Williams Sound, Alaska, documenting the ecological (genetic, migratory and populational) impact of the 1999 Exxon Valdez Oil Tanker Catastrophe.

San Francisco based from the early 90's through 2000, Jeffrey re-designed and re-built turn-of-the century Berkeley craftsmen-style houses and worked as a garden & landscape designer, studying under the late, great Karl Lin. He was a design and creative consultant as well as writer/editor with the NovoMetrix and Modo Futoro media groups, and consulted widely in the physical and retail design for public launches and media events for organizations, brands and the plethora of dotcom firms, some actually still in business. From 1992 - 1998, he taught English, Contemporary American Short Fiction and lectured in Environmental Studies (Natural Resouces, Energy Systems, Sustainable Tourism and Indigenous Peoples) and as an adjunct faculty member at University of California, Berkeley while working on a second Masters.

Jeffrey's field work includes:

1. Research, documentation and policy proposals for International and NGO Funding for National Parks, Forests and Indigenous Peoples in Panama, Central America (Panama Canal River Gap) as Smithsonian research fellow working with Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty, and in Cameroun, West Africa, again working with Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty
2. Consulting worldwide in eco-tourism and sustainable consumption, development & resource usage to national, regional and local governments as well as private NGO & tourism groups.
3. Founding partner of TreeTops Exploration (TTE) , Inc. in 1994, a Berkeley-based design, conservation and education organization. TTE designed & built static and dynamic tree platforms, bridges and dwellings, as well as created cirricula for rainforest education "canopy" tours, and neo-tropical bird and mammal migration documentation for extinction and genetic diversity and conservation work.

Over the two year span of 2000 - 2002, Jeffrey single-handed the '42 sailing sloop S/V Venus Rising from the east coast of the US, down towards the Panama canal and back again, navigating through the Central American Caribbean, observing first hand and documenting ecological & human crisis and triumphs, researching locations and communities for ongoing publications on sustainable practices in design, food and materials production, tourism and the environment, consumerism, and local sustainable market economies.

Terrestrially based since 2002 in his native New York City and recently Paris France, Pürspace is a design & sustainable consulting group as well as design/build colabortion which grew organically out of California, NYC and European development and renovation projects.

1. Built without Guilt - a simple guide to green design and renovation (PeachPit Press, forthcoming, fall 2002)
2. High Heeled TV sets & other domestic disturbaces - Urban & Pre-war Sound Installation Primer: Web-published guide & distributed, fall, 2006
3. How 2 B a Buddhist Builder: Consider everyone and everything - article published & distributed online, fall 2006