People

Architects, urban designers, and planners have incredible agency to draw on the energy and messy vitality of cities to speculate on and proactively shape more equitable, sustainable and human-centered urban environments for tomorrow.

A graduate of the University of Michigan and native Michigander, Kevin received his Master of Architecture from the University of Virginia where he was a cofounder and editor of the interdisciplinary design and research journal lunch.

Kevin joined Leers Weinzapfel Associates in 2006; bringing with him unique experience in allied fields including graphic design, information technology, and a hands on approach to design and construction. Kevin has five years experience as a graphic artist with the University of Michigan Medical School working on a variety of projects from interactive mapping, extensive print and web work, to temporary and permanent signage. Within the studio, he leads and coordinates digital technologies and their incorporation in the design process. Kevin has been an integral part of award-winning academic and infrastructure projects from the time of his arrival.

Kevin leads frequent studio discussions and instruction related to digital technologies and graphics and has been a guest critic at several area architecture schools.

My passion is the relationship between cultural concepts and physical contexts. Architecture is a reflection of a culture at a given time but it is also a powerful tool for reshaping future social patterns and beliefs. It can heal, provoke, question, stimulate, inspire, and transform.

Design is everywhere and every aspect of it is constantly evolving – it’s what makes our profession so exciting!

Tom S. Chung is a principal at Leers Weinzapfel Associates, recipient of the AIA Firm Award. Tom creates a nourishing public realm by pioneering sustainable Mass Timber Architecture, celebrating material and craft, and sharing his knowledge with current and future generation of architects. Tom’s architecture is welcoming, transparent, and sustainable, reflecting our values of diversity, democracy, and care for our environment.

Tom is a national leader in the practice and education of Mass Timber Design. His projects at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Arkansas are pioneering works of Mass Timber architecture and sustainability in the US, making accessible to the public, aesthetic and experiential beauty of this new/old material. Tom has been invited to speak on this emerging subject at conferences, seminars and workshops world-wide including Canada, Central and South America, South Korea, and throughout the United States. As Professor of Practice at Auburn University, Tom focuses on Mass Timber research and education, and serves on the Board of WoodWorks.

As a Korean born, naturalized American who was raised to value education and its opportunities for success, Tom is deeply committed to giving back through teaching and service. Through design studios at various universities in the US, Tom has shared his design passion and built work experience with the next generation of architects. Tom currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at his alma mater, University of Virginia. Through his involvement as a board member at Boston By Foot, an educational non-profit organization, Tom promotes the rich history and architecture of the city he calls home. Through his pro-bono work at Eliot Congregational Church in Roxbury, MA and Steps Academy in Tanzania, Africa, he serves organizations that reach out to better built environments in under privileged communities at home and abroad.

More information about Tom can be found in his BSA Profile interview here

With over 25 years of experience, Jeffrey is a talented and experienced project leader with an expertise in higher education new building, renovation, and adaptive re-use. He was educated at the Rhode Island School of design in both Fine Arts and Architecture.

Jeffrey joined Leers Weinzapfel Associates in 2008. His prior experience focused on the renovation of architectural landmark buildings, including Alvar Aalto’s Baker House at MIT. Since joining the firm, Jeffrey has led several of the firm’s award-winning university and civic building projects from conceptual phases into the field. His depth of experience and knowledge of materials and their assemblies make him a key member of the Quality Assurance / Quality Control Committee. He has contributed significantly to the firm’s address of the AIA 2030 Challenge.

Jeffrey has lectured on his work at MIT for the Baker House and Simmons Hall at the AIA National Convention and has been quoted in numerous magazines on both projects including Architecture and Metropolis.

I am driven by the process of creating a holistic and compelling vision in response to the forces that affect good design, which is thereby thoughtful, empowering and transformative. It has the ability to impact and shape the lives of people well beyond our lifetime

Design aspires to realize often unthought of imaginations of an enhanced future.  I believe that design enables an art of storytelling that allows for the conveying of complex cultural narratives. As designers we have the responsibility to challenge and address critical issues, and the capacity to search for holistic solutions.

Dedicated to seeking cross-cultural connections, Andrea is an internationally recognized leader in urban and campus design, and building for higher education. A pioneer in timber design and construction for academic settings, she led a design collaborative to realize the largest cross-laminated timber (CLT) building in the United States—Adohi Hall at the University of Arkansas, which received a 2021 AIA Housing Award—and was principal on the John W. Olver Building at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which received a 2020 AIA COTE Top Ten Award.

Andrea’s approach to architecture was shaped by her Masters of Architecture studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts, then led by Louis I. Kahn, pursuant to an undergraduate degree from Wellesley College. A subsequent year in Japan as an NEA-Japan U.S. Friendship Commission Fellow added to her professional sensibilities.

When Andrea and Jane Weinzapfel met as interns, they discovered shared values and established a firm to create a bold and refined architecture for the public realm. In 2007, Leers Weinzapfel Associates became the first woman-owned firm in America to receive the prestigious AIA Firm Award, and it has been included on ARCHITECT magazine’s “Top 50” US firms roster since 2015.

Parallel with her practice, Andrea has a continuous commitment to education. She is a former director of the Master in Urban Design Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was adjunct professor in Architecture and Urban Design, and she now serves on the university’s Design Advisory Pool. Her previous appointments include Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia. Internationally, she has taught at Tokyo Institute of Technology, National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, and the University of Paris, Sorbonne. She was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome and lectures and participates in symposia and design juries throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Andrea’s work earned her the Boston Society of Architects Award of Honor, and she is currently Commissioner for the Mayor’s Boston Civic Design Commission.

I never fail to be amazed by our ability as designers to analyze a given problem and nurture our conceptual thoughts into physical solutions. It is for this reason that I welcome both the responsibility and opportunity of shaping our built environment for the better.

Katia is an architect with over 25 years of experience in architecture, interior design, urban design and planning. Katia collaborates with wide range of interdisciplinary professionals to create inspirational spaces. She loves solving complex architectural problems and is adept at building lasting client relationships, assembling collaborative partners and managing internal teams. She combines her strong commitment to sustainability, design innovation, authenticity and craft with careful attention to the needs of her clients.

Her design thinking spans from creating intimate spaces to large, complex buildings including learning environments, sports venues, performance arts venues, religious spaces, housing, and student life buildings. Her buildings are characterized by strong integration with their surroundings. She consistently searches for opportunities to connect the transition zones between buildings and open spaces and capitalize on new infrastructure as a way to extend nature and unite architecture, landscape, and ecology.

Her recent work reimagines existing structures and demonstrates how changing building envelopes can improve the quality and experience of the public realm as well as positively impact the environment through state-of-the-art building materials.

Katia is passionate about bringing diversity and inclusion to the design industry.  She is serving as a trustee of the Boston Architectural College, an institution that brings opportunities for students who might otherwise not be able to enter the field of architecture and design.

Design to me is a form of expression that can be interpreted and used in many different platforms. As a graphic designer I strive to apply design in many different ways to create strong and ever changing work.

The process of architecture is an act of optimism towards a world we want to live in. The negotiation of history, site, program and construction into a single vision is fulfilling work. I hope to be a part of creating spaces that inspire communities working towards their own visions of the future!

Architecture interweaves spatial, temporal, and human dimensions, which choreographs experiences through design sensibility and accommodates needs through creative and sustainable thinking.

As an interior designer, I look to environmental psychology to inform design decisions, and believe it plays an integral role in providing a sense-of-place for the end-user within the built environment.

Design is an optimistic attempt to realize our shared human aspirations while staying humble and rooted to where we came from -the environment, history and culture. And to have fun!

A building is a custom solution to a complex problem – a specific site, client, program.  It’s made where it will be used.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Josiah joined Leers Weinzapfel Associates in 1986 and became a Principal in 1998. He leads the firm’s community and civic projects, giving special attention to how they relate to their historic contexts and our sustainable future. He founded the firm’s environmental study group, Green Monsters, and works to lead the profession towards sustainable awareness. Josiah’s dedication to both the conceptual and pragmatic dimensions of architecture have made him a particularly successful designer of complex renovations and additions. He has led the design of several award-winning civic projects in Boston and beyond.

From 2006 to 2011, Josiah taught a professional development seminar entitled “The New American Courthouse” at the Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education Program and has also taught studios at Wentworth Institute of Technology. He is the author of several magazine articles on courthouse design and worked with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to develop Courtroom Design Guidelines. Josiah has served on the Designer Selection Panel of the Massachusetts School Building Authority. He was the 2017 President of the BSA/AIA (Boston Society for Architecture) and also served as its Commissioner of Design. Additionally, he was on the organization’s Honors and Awards Committee as both chair and member, and also its Harleston Parker Committee, a group awarding the “most beautiful building in Boston.”

Architecture is the shaping of space to create something both functional and beautiful.

Winne has taken an unusual route to the field of architecture, passing first through training and practice as a physician in Canada with a degree from McGill University School of Medicine. She acknowledged her first passion for design returning to Yale where she was an undergraduate to complete a Master of Architecture.

A talented and highly effective project leader and team manager with over 25 years experience, Winne has developed an expertise for managing technically demanding complex projects and has led several of our largest higher education projects. Many clients appreciate her insightful intelligence, depth of experience and ability to coordinate a large team of consultants from programming through construction with exceptional rigor and efficiency.

Winne has lectured on classroom design at the SCUP 2012 North Atlantic Regional Conference, and SCUP 2013 in Montreal. Her publications include co-authorship of the new chapter on Project Teams in the 15th Edition of the AIA Handbook and an article describing the new MGH Russell Museum, “A Bright New Face”, in Health Care Design Magazine.

Design strengthens access. Attention throughout the design process to the forms of access particular to each project – whether equitable, ecological, or playful – allows buildings to establish committed opportunity for both individual and collective experience.

Architecture provides us with the ability to reflect on past and present iterations of the built environment, while remaining to exist as a catalyst, encouraging the societies we hope to mold for the future.

I strive for a balance between the abstract and technical in all that I make, never forgetting that our hands can be our most powerful tools. From the kitchen to the studio I’ve learned the value of iteration, and that like many things, architecture is both process and product.

Architecture for me is about creating places where people are made aware that they belong. As a process, Architecture is discovering and creating many possibilities for how spaces can be used. Architecture is more than making an object or an enclosure; it is creating places that people can relate to.

A native of Tucson Arizona and distinguished alumna of the University of Arizona, Jane came to the Boston area shortly after her studies. While working as an intern architect, she met Andrea Leers, and after several years with a large architecture and planning firm, they founded Leers Weinzapfel Associates together. Jane is a design leader in campus academic facilities and campus design in general, and has a special expertise in award-winning infrastructure and transportation design. Dedicated to the craft and technology of design, she has led many of the firm’s investigations of new materials and systems.

Jane has been a Visiting faculty member at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning and at the University of Arizona College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, where she was on the Dean’s Advisory Committee. In 2002 she was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. She lectures and participates on design juries widely throughout the United States, Italy, and the Middle East. She has been a Design Critic and Lecturer at several universities in the U.S. and abroad.

Jane’s work and achievements have been recognized with the Boston Society of Architects Award of Honor. She was a board member and past president of the Boston Society of Architects. She is a Board of Overseers member and former Trustee of The Boston Architectural College and is a Trustee and Former Board Chair of Boston by Foot. She has served on the Mayor’s Boston Transportation Advisory Committee and the Mayor’s Government Center Plaza Task Force in Boston, MA. Jane also served on the Massachusetts Executive Office of Community Development Designer Selection Board.

Architecture has the ability to direct our consciousness back to the world and towards our own sense of self and being.

“A building’s concept is brought into reality through the details.”

I am drawn to ways art and design can play a role in experience through visual story-telling.

Architecture is about collaboration and conversations. It should be progressive and fluid in its ideas, representing the collective of people who uses it and makes it.