Partners

Arthur A. Klipfel III

Arthur Klipfel is one of the founding Partners of Oaktree Green. He oversees project acquisition, and as a licensed architect, the design and engineering aspects of project development. He has a strong financial background, and plays a major role in controlling project budgets, and structuring joint ventures and partnerships.

Mr. Klipfel has a Masters Degree from Yale University in Architecture, and a Bachelors Degree from Cornell in Economics. He has also completed graduate work at Harvard in Architecture.. After becoming licensed, he perfected a patented factory built housing system, and completed a successful IPO under the name Unihab, Inc. Unihab’s mission was to design and develop efficient and affordable housing, utilizing factory built technology when possible. Mr. Klipfel served as President of Unihab during the 1970’s and 1980’s when Unihab completed the design and development on urban in-fill sites of over 50 residential projects marketed primarily to young professionals. In the 1990’s Mr. Klipfel played a primary role in reorganizing Unihab as a Partnership committed to sustainable design and development. The new Partnership was re-named Oaktree Green.

Mr. Klipfel won the Paris Prize in architecture after graduating from Yale, and spent a year studying in Europe. He has won two design competitions, one designing a museum for Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and the second a State competition for Senior housing in Chelmsford.

Gwendolen G. Noyes

Gwen Noyes has been a partner of Oaktree Green and its predecessor, Unihab Inc, since 1973. Her work in these multi-family housing development companies has been focused to date in Cambridge and several metropolitan Boston cities. Trained as an architect, she has been the designer and partner in charge of many complete renovations and new communities totaling several hundred units. She also searches out potential urban sites and does zoning feasibility analyses. Frequently working in neighborhoods that are apprehensive or resistant to change, Ms Noyes has gained substantial experience in successfully permitting Oaktree’s projects. She helps neighborhoods to envision the contribution that an Oaktree community will bring. She also led in the sociologically complex formation and development of the Cambridge Cohousing community, an award winning, nationally acclaimed example of environmentally responsible design.

Ms Noyes has a Master of Architecture degree (honors) from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College. She has lived and worked in Cambridge, MA for thirty years, though she enjoyed brief working stints earlier in Japan, Denmark, and NYC. She has traveled extensively and served as an officer and President of the Board for the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. She has also served as a founding trustee on the City of Cambridge’s Affordable Housing Trust, and is a member of Cambridge Friends' Meeting, where her childhood and farm-rooted concern for the environment has grown and been supported.

Dr. Ling Yi Liu

Dr. Liu has been in the real-estate business for over six years. Prior to his switch into real-estate, Dr. Liu spent over 5 years as a laser/photonics research scientist at Sony Central Research Center (Tokyo, Japan) and IBM T. J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, NY). Before that, he did his doctoral research on short laser pulse production (“Additive Pulse Modelocking”), receiving his doctorate from M.I.T.’s Electrical Engineering department in 1990.

Since joining Oaktree Green three years ago, Dr. Liu oversees finances and operations and also focuses on how technology can further differentiate Oaktree multi-family housing from the rest of the market. In particular, Dr. Liu has been the driving force behind HomePrime™, an innovative web-based service-oriented residential interface/infrastructure package that Oaktree is implementing in its housing projects.

William G. Reed

Bill Reed has been a practicing for architect for 25 years and is an internationally recognized specialist in issues related to green design. A graduate of Cornell University, he extends his expertise regularly to conferences, forums, and design-workshops demonstrating that green architecture makes economic as well as environmental sense. This work includes design, consulting and facilitation of the whole-system design process for government organizations, developers and architects. He is involved in education and research on the subject of whole system, or integrated, design emphasizing beneficial alternatives to conventional design, construction and management of our environment. His commitment is to the design of buildings and management systems to not only improve, but regenerate, natural environment health in concert with the social, economic and spiritual fabric of our communities. As a Partner of Oaktree Green, Mr. Reed is able to put his philosophy and experience directly into the building development process.

Bill brings expertise gained as principal of the strategic environmental planning firm, Natural Logic. He consults to and is a former Board Member of the US Green Building Council, is a past member of the national executive committee of the AIA Committee On The Environment, and serves as an advisor to the international environmental consulting firm International Resource Group. Recently he has been a consultant to the U.S.Green Building Council and the Department of Energy for the launch of the LEED green building rating system; he has also been working with the Public Facilities Department of New York City so that the above standards can be incorporated into all that city's public buildings.