2023 Class of Fellows, Michelle Delk, New York Chapter
Snohetta, New York City
Michelle Delk creates work that shows new dimensions of landscape, environment, and sustainability, and expands the urban landscape vernacular, while expressing the subtleties of place. For over 20 years, she has led a breadth of projects ranging from master plans and brownfield redevelopments to realizations of urban plazas, parks, streetscapes, and riverfronts. Michelle strives to advance the interplay between humans and nature while exploring the social life of public spaces. As a partner and landscape architecture discipline director at Snohetta, she has deepened the knowledge, capacity, and voice of the profession within the existing transdisciplinary foundation of the firm. Michelle is a dedicated advocate for the profession, serving on institutional boards and mentoring students. At One City Plaza, Greenville, SC, Michelle led the redevelopment of an underused three-acre downtown plaza into a treasured energized gathering space along the city's vibrant Main Street, weaving together people and activity, sun and shade, water and garden with contemporary technologies, form, and materials. The Willamette Falls Riverwalk Vision Plan, Willamette Falls, OR, envisaged the future riverwalk through a 22-acre waterfront site, composed of a physical stratum of geology, hydrology, and ecology intertwined with remnants of constructed industrial structures. Calgary Public Library Plaza, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was designed to realize the city's vision for a technologically advanced public space for innovation, research, and collaboration, establishing a vibrant and welcoming public space in the heart of the city.
