Pictured: Tu, 430 Meeting Street, Charleston, South Carolina
Traditional Architecture · New Urbanism · Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Kenny Craft, LEED AP, CNU
Founder · Principal Architect
Kenny Craft is the founder of Craft Design Studio, an architecture firm specializing in authentic, traditionally rooted architecture in an urban context.
Biography
The Architect
Craft Design Studio, PLLC is an architecture firm specializing in authentic, traditionally rooted architecture, in an urban context. Founder Kenny Craft has been a passionate advocate of the New Urbanist movement, and the work of Craft Design Studio strives to align with, and advance, its principles.
The studio specializes in residential architecture, from high end residential to affordable housing, from new urban neighborhoods to historic urban in-fill. It also provides architectural services for a wide range of commercial architecture, specializing in types common to new urban neighborhoods, such as live works, multifamily buildings and mixed-use buildings. And it provides Town Architect services, developing architectural standards and upholding them through a rigorous yet customer sensitive review process.
Kenny serves as the Director of Design for the South Main Neighborhood in Buena Vista, Colorado, a mixed-use Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) planned by Dover Kohl and Partners. In that role Kenny oversees all aspects of design and implementation, upholding design standards through a design review process and construction observation. Kenny has also been a charrette team member for mixed-use developments around the country, helping to set an architectural vision for each development, rooted in the local building traditions of the region.
Kenny received a Bachelor of Architecture, cum laude, from Auburn University in 2002.
Chapter
I
South Main
Buena Vista, Colorado
South Main is a 40-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development in Buena Vista, Colorado, planned by Dover Kohl, on a development concept from Jed Selby. By 2007 Public Square, the journal of the Congress for the New Urbanism, was already naming Kenny as South Main’s in-house designer, credited with modifying the exteriors of Marianne Cusato’s Katrina Cottages to fit local Mountain West characteristics.
As Director of Design today, Kenny has designed numerous projects at South Main while advancing the idea of a South Main Style, a locally distinct architectural character suited to its place. The work there includes houses, row houses, live/work buildings, the Surf Hotel and the Surf Chateau.
Chapter
II
On the Charrette Team
Around the country
Kenny has worked as a team member on domestic and international charrettes with Town Planning and Urban Design Collaborative and with Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company. The job is to help set an architectural vision for a development, rooted in the local building traditions of its region.
The work shown here includes San Elijo Hills in San Marcos, California, the Pacana District in Pflugerville, Texas, the H2O District in Nashville, Downtown Carmel, Indiana, Johns Island in Charleston, Block 12 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and a town extension in Chestertown, Maryland. A recent charrette with Brian Mork of StudioMork looked at a walkable mixed-use village in downtown Oklahoma City, with access to the bike trails along the Oklahoma River.
Chapter
III
Charleston and the Lowcountry
South Carolina
The studio is in Mount Pleasant. Work close to home includes the Craft House at Earl’s Court, the Damjanovic House in I’On, and Tu, a restaurant at 430 Meeting Street in Charleston that opened in 2017 across two buildings.
Kenny was involved in the design of two houses on Catfiddle Street, an in-fill pocket neighborhood in downtown Charleston. Witold Rybczynski helps tell its story in the 2019 book Charleston Fancy. On Sullivan’s Island, Kenny was the architect of a house built in 2020 by Alka Construction. After a period on the Kiawah River Architectural Review Board, Kenny designed the Wren House in the community’s Bell Cove enclave, built by Jackson Built Custom Homes.
Chapter
IV
First and Foremost
Urbanism
Kenny puts it plainly: “First and foremost I am an Urbanist.” Study the best architecture around the world, Kenny writes, and “you can’t help but fall in love with the City.”
“As an Architect, I love to design Beautiful Buildings that borrow inspiration from the past,” Kenny writes, but nothing is more exciting than “an opportunity to propose a Walkable, Mixed-Use ‘place’ with rich character, responsible density, compact footprint, and elegance.”
Selected Credits
Architect, with Repp + McClain as architect of record
Surf Hotel
The hotel gives South Main, a Traditional Neighborhood Development in Buena Vista planned by Dover Kohl, a large public building with a clear base and top.
View the projectArchitect
Surf Chateau
Seen from the water, the building sits high on a planted bank above a rocky river edge, a long brown mass with a white roof.
View the projectArchitect and interior design, with Kennley Montrose Selby and Jed Selby
Selby House
Pale walls, shaped gables and a stone base give this house a distinct outline in a Colorado town.
View the projectArchitect
Tu, 430 Meeting Street
Two very different buildings share a brick court on Meeting Street.
View the projectDesigner, with VVC Design as architect of record
Reforma
Reforma sits at St.
View the projectArchitect, Carlton Landing
Humphreys House
At Carlton Landing, the lake town planned by DPZ, this house faces the street across a porch that runs the full width of the front.
View the projectArchitectural design studies, with TPUDC
San Elijo Hills
Originally master planned by Peter Calthorpe, the San Elijo Hills town center represents a Calthorpe Couplet urban planning strategy.
View the projectDesign review as Town Architect
Restaurant Design Review
As Town Architect and Director of Design, the studio reviewed a proposed restaurant for compliance with the Neighborhood Design Guidelines and general principles of traditional architecture.
View the project