rePLACE Urban Studio is a multidisciplinary design firm committed to shaping a healthier future. We formulate and develop ideas that impact and form cities, and seek to improve the way our urban environments perform socially, economically, and ecologically.
We organize work products into thematic flows to ensure we are continually aspiring for qualitative and systematic impact. Each project is a point along our journey to create a responsive urban environment. This ideas-based approach results in design across scales: from small urban objects to large master plans, from the creation of new businesses to policy impacts and cultural exchanges, from digital information portals to zoning interpretation. Nothing is too big or too small to be considered for its potential and lasting impact.
Our team of designers, planners, and architects sees itself as a part of the continuum of urban thinker who understand that place matters. We have built a culture that strives to alter, connect, and question without bounds. We continually change vantage points in order to evolve the impact and the business of design.
Philip Palmgren
AIA LEED AP ND
Founding Partner
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As an urbanist, Philip has devoted his career to making cities better places to live, work, and play. His curiosity drives him to find creative and meaningful solutions to a range of urban design challenges. Philip’s work is noteworthy for being grounded in a rigorous and empirical approach that examines the economic, social, and ecological systems and how these systems can be optimized, amplified, and harmonized to create a healthy urban environment. His projects have taken him around the world and back home to New York. In 2010, Philip led a team of designers in developing the award-winning comprehensive urban design for 596 acres at the Newtown Creek Brownfield site spanning Brooklyn and Queens. Over the past 20 years, he has helped clients to develop street scapes, tactical urban interventions, innovative development concepts, award-winning districts, and complex regional plans in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and North America. As a leader in the urban design community, Philip has spoken as well as presented at events in Asia, the Middle East, and North America.
Peter Syrett
AIA LEED AP BD+C
Founding Partner
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Peter is dedicated to creating better cities by examining the links between natural and man made systems, public health, and regenerative design. His twenty years of experience in sustainability and living built environments allows him to guide clients towards a deeper understanding of sustainability, one that looks beyond green rating frameworks such as LEED, towards a paradigm of creating healthy and thriving ecological systems. Peter’s work ranges in scale from large urban planning projects to critical analyses of the substances we use to build. Peter led the effort in 2009 to develop the Precautionary List, the architectural industry’s first major list of substances to avoid using in building design. He has written extensively on material health, including a white paper for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on asthma and building materials. He is currently the Chair of the Health Product Declaration Collaborative, which created the Health Product Declaration (HPD) Standard. He is a recognized expert on green design who has spoken in North America, Europe, South America, and Asia.
rePLACE Urban Studio
12-16 Vestry Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10013
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info@replaceurbanstudio.com
ph. 212.380.1079
Book a Speaker
If you are interested in booking one
of our speakers, please contact us at info@replaceurbanstudio.com
with the pertinent details.
SELECTED CURRENT
AND PAST CLIENTS:
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Brooklyn Navy Yard
​Development Corporation
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City of New York, NY
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Department of City Planning
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Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)
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Department of Transportation
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School Construction Authority
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Education Construction Fund
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City of Shanghai, China
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Columbia University in
the City of New York
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Manhattanville Development Corp.
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Real Estate
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Edison Properties
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Empire State Development Corp. (NYS)
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L&M Development
Lingang Development Corp.
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Lower East Side Partnership
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The Lowline
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New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC)
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New York Presbyterian Hospital
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​Northwell Health System
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Oceanwide Holdings
Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey(PANYNJ)
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Prudential Financial
(Impact Investment Fund)
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Trinity Real Estate
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The Durst Organization
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Urban League of Essex County (ULEC)
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Village of Southampton
(Land Management
Long Range Planning Department)
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Village of Mamaroneck, NY
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Waterfront Toronto
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World Wide Group
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The YMCA of Greater New York
Erik Kath
Studio Director
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Erik has worked on a variety of large, complex projects throughout world. He has extensive experience in urban masterplanning, dense mixed-use developments, and community outreach. He has led design teams for several large-scale residential, commercial, and healthcare projects. Erik is an expert at finding beautiful, creative solutions to complicated design problems. From neighborhoods to tech campuses, he seeks to create a compelling sense of place and community while understanding a project’s broader implications. As a former professor at the New York Institute of Technology and a frequent guest design critic at the City College of New York, he is dedicated to the continuing advancement of the design disciplines in New York and beyond.