EKLA’s founder, Elizabeth Kennedy, is an expert in designing interpretive landscapes for culturally significant and historic sites. She is noted for her innovative applications of sustainable design principles and technology during cultural landscape planning. A working principal, she personally directs preliminary design, and remains actively involved in all aspects of contract documentation, bidding assistance and construction phase administration.
Her diverse professional background in environmental psychology, site design, real estate development, and construction gives her a keen understanding of both conceptualization and cost control. She is known for her programming insight, her command of aesthetics and her ability to successfully collaborate with stakeholders to deliver work that is consistently built on time and within the original budget for landscape architectural scope.
Before beginning her practice, Elizabeth worked with several NYC-area landscape
architects, and taught landscape architecture as an adjunct instructor. Since founding
EKLA in 1994, her leadership in minority business development and contributions to her
profession has been recognized by NYC Department of Small Business Services, the
Association of Minority Entrepreneurs of New York, and the New York City Chapter of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She is a Design Trust
for Public Space research fellow, and in 1998 served as one of seven distinguished jurors
for the Van Alen Institute’s “Design Ideas for New York’s Other River” competition. She
speaks regularly in public on issues in urban design, community revitalization, sustainable
cultural preservation, and green roof design, with stints as a conference panelist at
Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Smithsonian Institute Cooper Hewitt National
Design Museum, SOBRO, Sustainable Brooklyn, the National Organization of Minority
Architects (NOMA), and the Pratt Center for Community Development. She has facilitated
peer professional charrettes for the Design Trust and, more recently, public design
workshops for NYC MTA. EKLA’s work under her direction has been lauded by the New
York City Public Design Commission, New York Landmarks Conservancy, Preservation
League of New York State, US Environmental Protection Agenct, NYC Mayor’s Office of
Long Term Planning and Sustainability, NOMA, NYC Chapter of the AIA, and others.
