AIA New York Publishes Q&A With Jeff Kenoff as Featured Fellow

In the interview, Jeff reflects on his current inspirations, sharing “my work now is largely influenced by the importance of connected cities and finds itself at the intersection of architecture and urbanism. It’s most easily defined by a pedagogy of urban connectivity meeting vertical urbanism. One in which each project understands its role as a constituent of a larger urban fabric over time.” This approach is further explored in the paper Jeff co-authored for the CTBUH “Towards an Urban Troposphere.”  Examples and guiding questions from Jeff’s portfolio include “how to dimensionalize public space as in Huamu Lot 10, humanize facades like Westlake 66, respond to unique forces of a city like T. Rowe Price HQ or promote extroverted programs to activate streets like the One Vanderbilt podium.”

Looking to the future, the final question asks Jeff to explore the biggest challenges facing cities today. As the UN predicts 70% of people will live in urban environments by 2050, Jeff shares, “there will not only be a need to champion further diversity and innovation of program, but to also seek more symbiotic relationships between buildings, urban environments, and those components which uniquely define a local city. The hope being that each building or project is seen as not a single entity, but a mandate to craft innovative public space, engage humanization through scale as well as materiality, and formally respond to the meaningful yet unique externalities of the city. I’m extremely hopeful, but it will not happen without our best thinkers.”

Jeff was elevated alongside fellow KPF Principal Hana Kassem. The FAIA class of 2024 will be celebrated at the AIA Conference on Architecture from June 5–8 in Washington, DC. Additionally, the two were recognized at AIA New York’s Center for Architecture during the 2024 New Fellows Celebration. Read Jeff’s full interview here.