A Sioux Falls architect picked for a national honor to help earthquake victims in Haiti will tap into her deeper instincts to work alongside people in need.

Stacey McMahan, a partner at Koch Hazard Architects, has left her mark as a designer on many of Sioux Falls' signature buildings, including Cherapa Place, Courthouse Square and the Museum of Visual Materials.

In August, she flies to Port-au-Prince for a one-year assignment of a different sort. She'll help Haiti rebuild after the January quake killed 300,000 people, leveled a quarter-million homes and left what the United Nations calls the world's largest urban humanitarian crisis.

She'll join thousands of relief workers already on the Caribbean island.

"One person can always make a difference," said Paul Mendelsohn, a spokesman for the American Institute of Architects, one of the groups sending her.

But more important to her is that she'll join Haitian people. She hopes to help them with a specific project, perhaps a new school, and to teach them about sustainable building methods that reduce risk in the event of another disaster. The science is basic. It's the human element that intrigues her.

"My greatest fear is that I'll be changed forever and not be able to come back to my life as I know it," she said. "My greatest excitement is the very same thing."

Those ahead of her say that's precisely what she'll find.

"The amazing thing about Haiti is that in the devastating poverty is the unbelievable kindness and generosity of the people. It almost seems the two shouldn't go together, but the people are so warm and giving," said Avera Health Vice President Daryl Thuringer, who was part of a previous relief effort.

McMahan, 45, is a local force in the eco-friendly green revolution, no small element in Architecture for Humanity choosing her for the fellowship. Two other organizations, the AIA and the U.S. Green Building Council, are covering her costs. She said she'll receive $2,000 a month.

She's not sure what awaits her in Port-au-Prince, except that work will be on a new scale.

"If we build a school, it will be a rectangle with a metal roof, with no insulation, with lots of natural light, with fans to move air around," she said. "It might cost $20,000. There's a tremendous amount of benefit that can be gained for such little investment."

The timing is right for all this, McMahan said. Her younger son just finished high school, "and the economy is slow, so we have less work," she said. But there is more to it. McMahan traces it to growing up in a mission-minded Mennonite area in Kansas, and more recently a talk by Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity this spring in the Washington Pavilion. In between, there had been a change.

"It started with taking a walk. I decided I could walk to work," she said.

That was two years ago. She found she could skip her morning trip to the gym and instead enjoy coffee at home and still get her exercise on foot. It's a mile from home, a two- story 1917 house near Terrace Park, to her downtown office. Lessons she'd learn on foot bordered on the obvious, but are often missed.

"You take a step of simplification and it keeps leading to other things. You start examining yourself," she said. "A walk is a slower path. You have time to think. It's a simple act of slowing down, which has made room for some things."

Among the things would be Haiti and the Christian tug to be considerate of others.

"Now after 20 years of practice, I have something to offer. Why shouldn't I take part in this?" she said.

Her husband, Greg, and her partners at work, Chris Schiltz and Jeff Hazard, backed her up.

"She's not a dreamer. She's down to earth, very realistic, very dedicated. She knows what she wants and is very true to herself and her family and her work and the people she cares about," Schiltz said.

Building green implies three principles in the Midwest - energy-efficient, using less water, better indoor air quality. The principles may differ in Haiti. The work might mean using rainwater for showers or collecting water in a barrel on the roof.

"I'll learn that when I get there," she said.

Reach reporter Jon Walker at 331-2206 or 800-530-6397.