Our Team

Founder, Program Director, and Editor-in-Chief

k. kennedy Whiters, RA, is the founder of wrkSHäp kiloWatt and studio kW Architecture + Preservation. She leads both interdisciplinary studios with 20-years of community-centered, formal education and professional experience in architecture, preservation, and planning.

kennedy's project portfolio includes cultural, civic, and academic institutions with small to multi-million dollar project budgets and simple to complex scopes of work. Originally from Chicago’s South Side and South Suburbs, kennedy is a nationally-recognized leader, speaker, researcher, and writer in historic preservation and history communications.

Community engagement and being of service have been key components of her life since an early age. A two-time AmeriCorps member, during her first year of service, she helped infants and pregnant mothers on the West Side of Chicago obtain quality healthcare. During her second year, she provided hands-on preservation and design services for non-profit organizations in West Virginia.

Before moving to NY, she lived in Seattle for eight years, where she worked as an architect in a mid-sized architecture firm on preservation projects in Washington State and Oregon and as an owner’s representative for the City of Seattle. During her tenure in Seattle, she volunteered in King County’s preservation community, serving in a mayoral-appointed position on Historic Seattle’s Preservation and Development Authority Council and with King County’s grant-making agency, 4Culture, on its Historic Preservation Advisory Committee.

kennedy has earned licenses to practice architecture in Washington State and New York State.