2025 Fellows: Stephen Whitehouse, FASLA, New York Chapter

Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, New York City, NY
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Stephen Whitehouse has dedicated his career to transforming New York City into a greener city. With his forward-thinking ideas and leadership, he has put landscape architecture at the center of resilience and infrastructure strategy. As Chief of Planning for NYC Parks, he was an agency policymaker and increased visibility and types of work for the landscape architecture profession through master plans and infrastructure programs such as the Green Streets program, the Citywide Greenway Plan and its implementation, requirements for waterfront design, and strategic park acquisitions-all contributing to making a greener, more interconnected, and more equitable city. His visionary planning of the waterfront park system expanded opportunities and created new park destinations. As co-founder of Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, Stephen has led studies that put landscape architecture at the center of resilience strategy and created award-winning spaces that model the forward-thinking policies he helped to develop early in his career. He established foundations for wastewater programs, green infrastructure, and post-disaster coastal resilience innovations at all scales. He has designed courtyards, roof gardens and other amenity space for projects creating over 4,000 new affordable apartments. After Hurricane Sandy, Starr Whitehouse was part of the winning team for the Rebuild By Design competition with the Big U project that protects ten continuous miles of low-lying geography in a dense, vibrant, and vulnerable urban area. Throughout his more than forty-year career, Stephen has proven to be a strong leader in the landscape architecture community and beyond. An award-winning leader, he aspires to assist others in finding creative and transformational solutions.