WHO WE ARE

Kathleen Ziegenfuss

Associate

Kathleen has been at PPS since the fall of 2004. As a project manager, she works primarily on training programs and Placemaking workshops.

Kathleen has managed campus, park, and downtown projects, including the Public Space East Campus Renaissance Program at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, IL; San Diego Embarcadero Marina Parks; PPS’ involvement in a land use planning study for Granville Island, Vancouver BC; and the visioning for the creation of a First Street Promenade district and revitalized downtown in Rochester, MN. She has worked on a variety of other projects ranging from Placemaking training programs and downtown revitalization, parks and plaza projects, including: visioning for increased use of United States Forest Service land outside Las Vegas, NV; the redevelopment of the former convention center in Washington DC; a vision for central Brisbane, CA; visioning for the new Houston Downtown Park; and working on a strategy to increase activity in the Mead Garden Botanic Garden in Winter Park, FL.

Training programs she has been involved in include: Placemaking Scotland, a program to train associates through Greenspace Scotland to incorporate a Placemaking approach to country-wide projects; coordination and facilitation of Making Nova Scotia Places, a training for a primarily librarian and planning audience that focused on typical issues throughout the province; municipal staff training in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and, training of city parks department staff and local landscape architects in Anchorage, AK through a demonstration project on the fourteen-block long Delaney Park Strip.

Kathleen also coordinates the How to Turn a Place Around training course which PPS offers each spring and fall, as well as PPS’ summer internship program.

Much of Kathleen’s inspiration for working in the urban environment came from her native Minneapolis, where she grew up in an urban area while having access to ample lakes, park and greenways. Before moving to New York to work at PPS, she interned at the Midtown Greenway Coalition, which oversees the community-based process and development of a greenway connecting the Chain of Lakes to the Mississippi River.

In the summer of 2003 Kathleen walked over 900 kilometers across northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago, through the Ada Draper Award grant received from Boston University. Starting in France and ending at the sea above Portugal, she walked about 20 miles a day and looked at the urbanization and development along the Camino, focusing on how the people traversing the trail have influenced the towns and cities it passes through—physically, socially, culturally and artistically.

Previous to living in Minneapolis, Kathleen spent five years in Boston. She attended Boston University and after graduating worked as a substitute teacher in the Boston Public Schools and at Larry Koff & Associates, a community planning firm. While working at Larry Koff & Associates, Kathleen assisted the principal on Master Planning and Community Development plans throughout the greater Boston area. At Boston University, she majored in Urban Studies and Hispanic Languages and Literature, and minored in Visual Arts. While in school she worked at Boston Mobilization and was involved in organizing students around the housing crunch, which was exacerbated by the city’s numerous colleges and universities.

In New York, Kathleen is most happy on her bike, exploring the city’s nooks and crannies.