Walter Meyer

Walter Meyer

Founder, Local Office Landscape Architecture and Professor, Parsons School of Design

Walter Meyer is an urban designer, policy advisor, and professor at Parsons The New School for Design and founding Principal of Local Office Landscape & Urban Design, a WBE in Brooklyn, NY. He founded the firm Local Office in 2006 with Harvard GSD classmate Jennifer Bolstad. Operating between urbanism, infrastructure, and territory - the firm has won awards from across the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, public policy, science and art. Walter has been engaged as a lecturer and visiting critic at Harvard University, Yale, Columbia, Penn, MIT, Parsons New School, and Pratt Institute. Architectural Record documented how LOLA’s $55m Parque Litoral in Puerto Rico protected the city of Mayaguez from the catastrophic surge and rain of Hurricane Maria. 30 coastal businesses adjacent to the 2km coastal park were able to reopen the next day. LOLA’s built metrics have helped shape national resiliency policy under the Obama administration resulting in the White House champions of change award. Currently, Local Office is designing NYC’s first net zero neighborhood in Queens, NY. The firm is also working on resiliency plans for the states of Misissippi and New Jersey.