the laurentia project

Design Conversations, Shared Meals, Intentional Space

Old problems need new thinking space. We believe that the environment in which you co-design affects the kind of thinking that you can do. As advocates of spaces with air and light and beauty we need to be solving our biggest design problems in these same contexts.

We do this by bringing together creative minds in food, design, art, science, writing, and policy, focused on dialogue that needs to happen now.  To simultaneously talk and make; on critical topics toward actionable progress. Laurentia is workshopping re-made. Be a part of our story.

JENNIFER PRESTON, Design Architect

Jennifer is Design Architect for The Laurentia Project where she supports the collaboration of creative thinkers through concept design, topic generation, menu development, equitable facilitation and post-event mappings resulting in emergent action.  

In addition to forming Laurentia, she is Partner at SHELTER Stories, a sustainable architectural design practice. Her design process weaves building science and energy simulations with material craft and spatial beauty. Her work is driven by an open-minded rigor, and a respect for nature; the result is lasting sanctuary.

Prior the founding Laurentia and SHELTER, Jennifer was Senior Associate and Sustainable Design Director at BKSK Architects in New York City. While there, she fostered multiple award-winning projects, garnering BKSK a coveted spot on the Architect 50 top sustainability firms in the country.  As a Community Coordinator working with Greylock Works in North Adams, MA., she combines design with public engagement to co-build a lasting food-based economy for Berkshire residents.  Jennifer served on the Steering Committee for the AIANY Committee on the Environment (COTE), and she co-founded the NYC+NJ Living Future Collaborative, a local chapter of the International Living Future Institute, where she facilitated a thoughtful, slow and productive group of cooperative agitators.

JAMES WILSON, Building Science + Design Philosophy

James is a design researcher based in Brooklyn. As Associate Editor at BuildingGreen, Inc., he works to produce useful and compelling resources for those seeking to transform the design and construction of the built environment. He is currently investigating how the development of different design cultures and communities of design practice might advance the incorporation of sustainability and wellness into the craft and discipline of architecture.

Independently, James's current research interests are focused on ethnographic and embodied forms of design research and education. He has recently been engaged in a research project concerned with how cultural values and practices shape our socio-spatial experiences and relationships. His research is guided by the question: Can design engender new cultural values and practices to foster stewardship, wellness, and community? How might architecture encourage and grant agency, empowering the inhabitant to find ways of "dwelling poetically?"

He is an active member of the NY/NJ Living Building Challenge Collaborative and serves on the Steering Committee for AIA COTE.