About

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 is the founder of several historic preservation initiatives that support equitable practices in historic preservation:

::  (un)Redact the Facts advocates for reparative narratives and interpretations of historical sites. The following organizations have cited (un)Redact the Facts: Landmarks Illinois, Education Week, Historic Seattle, Erica Avrami, Ph.D.’s “Building a Foundation for Action: Anti-Racist Historic Preservation Resources,” Slavery & Abolition, A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies’ “Slavery: Annual Bibliographical Supplement” (2021), and Commonplace: the Journal of Early American Life (2024). Her current manuscript in progress is (un)Redact the Facts: Writing Reparative Narratives to Tell a Fuller History about Historical Traumas for a Healed Nation.

::  Beyond Integrity in (X) advocates for landmarking processes that go beyond focusing on architectural integrity to cultural significance. Beyond Integrity in (X) continues the ad-hoc committee she co-founded in Seattle, Beyond Integrity in King County (BIKC). In 2021, she founded and collaborated with BIKC, Historic Seattle, and the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation to produce the Beyond Integrity in (X) Virtual Conference. 

::   Black in Historic Preservation highlights the contributions of Black people to historic preservation / heritage conservation, provides a community space for Black professionals, tradespeople, students, and grassroots preservationists, and advocates for the preservation of Black heritage sites.

In 2024, she taught a four-part guest lecture series for the Mellon Foundation-funded Place, Memory, and Culture Incubator Lenox Ave Studio at the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College of New York. In addition to an afternoon studio consultation with each student, she covered the following topics in three lectures: the power of maps, an introduction to historic preservation, and the importance of being intentional in grammar and language choices when communicating about design projects, i.e., (un)Redact the Facts.

Her preservation honors include a Mildred Colodny Scholarship from the National Trust for Historic Preservation (2008), an Emerging Scholar Award from the Association for Preservation Technology International (2011), Advisory Council on Historic Preservation profile (2021), recognition by the Young Urban Preservationists of the Landmark Society of Western New York as one of eight “Women to Watch Today in Preservation and Design” (2021), and she was a member of the New York City Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Civic Leadership Program Cohort (2023).

kennedy is passionate about the maintenance and stewardship of the built environment, access to quality and enjoyable design for all, and a leading researcher and writer on reparative narratives about historical traumas like chattel enslavement that tell a full(er) story about the places we protect and preserve. Premed as an undergrad, she brings a perspective of healing and wellness to preservation and design.