People in the Field of Universal Design

Cynthia Leibrock

She had the career many young designers dream about…a firm of her own, designing homes for people for whom money was no object. In her own words, universal designer Cynthia Leibrock, MA, ASID, Hon. IIDA, now an award winning author and international lecturer, spent the first decade of her career “making rich people, look richer.” But instead of feeling successful, she felt empty. “I didn’t find eternal satisfaction in doing that. I didn’t feel like I had much purpose,” she says. So she fired her dozen employees, shut down her firm and went on a quest to find a purpose for her life. A simple invitation by one of her fired employees to attend a Bible study class led her to discover her life’s work.
“I grew up with a brother with a mental disability. One of the reasons that I ended up doing high end work was that it was as far away from disability as I could get,” she said. But her spiritual journey brought her full circle. “I found that I wanted to improve the lives of older people and people with disabilities by design,” says Leibrock. With certain deliberateness, she works toward that goal in her many and varied projects and endeavors.

David Capozi