Kate Orff, RLA, FASLA, is the Founder of SCAPE, a landscape architecture firm that emphasizes innovative solutions to climate change while designing spaces that promote social interaction and community life. Her work explores the intersection of environmental and social issues through design, activism, and research. She is widely recognized as a leading voice in landscape architecture, urban design, and climate adaptation, with a reputation for creating complex, creative, and collaborative projects that address environmental challenges on a global scale.
Orff’s accomplishments include being the first landscape architect to receive the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 2017. She was elevated to the ASLA Council of Fellows in 2019, received a National Design Award in Landscape Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, and was named a “Hero of the Harbor” by the Waterfront Alliance. In 2020, she was honored as Urbanist of the Year by The Architect’s Newspaper, and in 2023, she was named to the TIME 100, a list of the world’s most influential people.
In addition to her design work, Orff is the author of several influential books, including Toward an Urban Ecology (Monacelli, 2016), Petrochemical America (Aperture, 2012), co-authored with photographer Richard Misrach, and contributed to the bestselling anthology All We Can Save (Penguin Random House, 2020), which highlights women climate leaders. Her work has been profiled in top-tier publications like The New Yorker, The New York Times, National Geographic, and The Washington Post, among others.
Orff earned her Bachelor’s degree in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia, graduating with Distinction, before completing her Master’s in Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). She currently serves as the Director of the Urban Design Program and Co-Director of the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes (CRCL) at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP). Additionally, she serves on the Commission on Accelerating Climate Action for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the Advisory Board for Urban Ocean Lab, a policy think tank.
