Katie Swenson

Senior Principal, Advocacy
Boston, MA, USA

Katie Swenson is a design leader, writer, and educator renowned for her work at the intersection of architecture, equity, and public life. She is a Senior Principal at MASS Design Group, where she leads the Advocacy team. Her work explores how critical design practice can promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthier communities. With over 20 years of experience in both the theoretical and practical applications of design thinking, Katie is also a sought-after speaker on the role of architecture in building just and vibrant communities.

A prolific writer, Katie is the author of Design with Love: At Home in America and In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness, both published in 2020. She co-authored Growing Urban Habitats: Seeking a Housing Development Model with William Morrish and Susanne Schindler, and contributed to Activist Architecture: Philosophy and Practice of Community Design and Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. In 2021, she received the AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture.

Before joining MASS, Katie served as Vice President of Design & Sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners, where she led the Enterprise Rose Fellowship—first as a fellow, then as its director, growing it into a national platform for emerging leaders in community design. She also founded the Charlottesville Community Design Center.

Katie teaches at both the Parsons School of Design at The New School and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and lectures widely on affordable housing, sustainable development, and the role of design in civic life. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Architecture from the University of Virginia. In 2019, she was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.