Tessa Kelly and Chris Parkinson lead Architecture Dot Urbanism, a community-driven design practice based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Troy, New York.

Our practice took shape after we founded The Mastheads, a public design project enabled by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2014. That grant brought us back to our native Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, and expanded our conception of the role of architect. To create The Mastheads, we acted as designers, general contractors, fundraisers, graphic designers, community organizers, gallerists, education consultants, researchers, historians, and collaborators with partners across the municipal, educational, and academic landscape of the area.

Ten years later, we continue to be architects as community organizers. We ground our projects in local history and heritage, and produce architecture and associated programming that is participatory, celebratory, and that connects us to stories of the past while building a vision for the future. We create work that engages with the urban fabric of our post-industrial cities, and also build projects that are anchored in an understanding of the natural environments that surround them.

Tessa grew up in Pittsfield, MA and received a B.A. from Williams College and an M.Arch degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She has taught at the Yale School of Architecture, Williams College, and currently teaches at the Princeton School of Architecture. Chris grew up in Williamstown, MA and received a B.A. from Amherst College and an M.Arch degree from the Yale School of Architecture. He has taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and plays a continued role facilitating affordable housing initiatives in Troy between RPI and the Capital Region Habitat for Humanity.

Our in-house team includes architects Laura Quan and Taelinn Lamontagne. Current collaborators include poet Sarah Trudgeon, community organizers Tony Jackson and Marvin Purry, and gardener and genealogist Twink Williams Burns. Past collaborators have included literary scholar Jeff Lawrence, urban planner Tanushri Kumar, community organizer Alisa Costa, building scientist Mae-Ling Lokko, architect Zac Culbreth, and horticulturalist Dorthe Hviid.

Supporters of our work include the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Mass Humanities among others.

Institutional clients include Williams College, MASS MoCA, The Clark, Roots Rising, Multicultural BRIDGE, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, and Hancock Shaker Village.

A.U. is a certified woman-owned business (WBE), and was recognized as one of Architectural Record’s Ten International Design Vanguard firms in 2022.

Contact Us:

INFO@group-au.com

INSTAGRAM @architecture_dot_urbanism