Geoffrey Wooding

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, Mass. - Geoffrey Wooding died on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 at the age of 55, after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

He grew up in Connecticut and graduated from the Choate School in 1972. After attending the Architectural Association, London he completed his B. Arch. at Syracuse University's School of Architecture.

The most important thing to Geoff was his family – Margit, his wife of 35 years, and their sons Maximilian and Sebastian. They shared the love of many activities together: traveling, skiing, sailing, wind surfing, playing on the beach. He brought passion and commitment to his family, always giving his all too every facet of life at home. He had been a ski instructor in Europe in the years after architecture school, and continued to teach at Stratton Mountain, Vt., for more than 25 years, including coaching his sons on racing teams. He also spent many years coaching local youth soccer teams and serving as a director of the Manchester Soccer Club.

He spent the first six years of his career working for prominent architects in Austria, Germany and the U.S., including Robert Krier, O.M. Ungers, Richard Meier and Partners, and Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects. In 1985, Geoff joined Goody Clancy Associates in Boston, Mass., where he spent the next 25 years establishing himself as a talented and passionate designer of significant college and university buildings, mixed-income housing developments and award-winning student residential complexes. As a Principal of the firm and one of its design leaders, he helped Goody Clancy expand its New England regional practice to become a nationally-respected architecture, planning and preservation firm. Among his projects are the Tent City apartment complex in Copley Square; two graduate-student living/learning complexes for the Tuck School at Dartmouth College; the Village at 115 for Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland); and the Undercroft at Trinity Church in the City of Boston.
Geoff brought a level of intense commitment to creating spaces-both in door and out-that bring people together and foster community. His colleagues knew him as a restless designer, never fully satisfied with his work and always striving for more elegance, economy of means, celebration of materials, technology and craft, and for a sense of place.

In addition to his immediate family, he is survived by his brother, Terry and wife, Janice, step-brother, John Wooding and wife, Michelle, step-sister, Patricia Pattison and husband, Richard, nephew, Keith Wooding and wife, Kamila, and nephews, Christopher, Dylan, Casey and Corey and niece Ashley, all of Wallingford.

A memorial service will be held at the Trinity Church Undercroft in Boston, Mass., at 11 a.m. on Feb. 13. Relatives and friends are invited to attend. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in his memory to Hospice of the North Shore, 75 Sylvan St., Suite B-102,Danvers, MA 01923. Arrangements are under the direction of Campbell – Lee, Moody, Russell Funeral Home, 525 Cabot St., Beverly, Mass. Information, condolences at www.campbellfuneral.com