Cortney Kirk
Title: Landscape Architect, Copley Wolff Design Group, Boston
Age: 36
Experience: 7 years
Cortney Kirk dabbled in independent filmmaking after graduating from Syracuse University. It was a move to Boston, however, that triggered her interest in landscape architecture. Since joining Copley Wolff Design Group in 2012, Kirk has helped design outdoor spaces for The Kensington apartment tower in Boston and the Integrative Learning Center at UMass-Amherst. She’s currently designing a new residential campus quad for Babson College and a mixed-income housing building for the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard in the Longwood Medical area. In her spare time, she enjoys home brewing and honing her recipes for Ohio-style pizza.
Q: What prompted you to make the transition from filmmaking to landscape design?
A: I grew up in Columbus, Ohio. When I was in high school, it was just a suburban and farm town. When I graduated from Syracuse University, I moved to Boston with one of my roommates and did a whole bunch of freelance film work and in my down time, just started photographing urban spaces and asking a lot of questions about the ones that seemed a little bit more designed. I was able to take an exploratory class at the Boston Architectural College and got really interested in landscape architecture.
Q: Which local properties particularly caught your eye?
A: The Federal Reserve building right by South Station, and just being able to walk from Commonwealth Avenue through the Public Garden to Boston Common. Those are things you didn’t really get to experience in the Midwest aside from a college campus. I decided it was best to be immersed, so I went back full-time to Rhode Island School of Design and got my master’s.
Q: What are people’s biggest misconceptions about landscape architecture?
A: I always like to explain that when you’re sitting next to someone on an airplane and tell them you’re a landscape architect, the first question is, “Well, what do you do in the winter?” So it’s sort of like, “OK, well, where should I begin?” It’s sort of explaining you work on very large projects. It’s not just single-family residential design. We are not landscapers. We’re not the ones planting the plants and cutting the grass, but we’re the people designing the spaces in between buildings.
Q: What were some of the unusual features you designed for the Kensington apartment tower in Boston?
A: There’s a pool and an outdoor terrace on the sixth floor, their common space floor, which is not very common around Boston. It’s technically an above-ground pool but the way the design works, all the decking makes it look like it’s integrated within the roof terrace. All the edges became opportunities for seating, or really nice raised planters.
Q: What’s the concept for the project at UMass-Amherst?
A: It’s the Integrative Learning Center, which is just wrapping up. It’s right in the heart of their campus, where they have an old historic pond where the edges are being reconstructed and it’s becoming a student gathering space. The idea was to create an identity at UMass so you can say, “Let’s meet at the pond.”
Q: You describe yourself as an expert on Ohio pizza. What’s unique about it?
A: The terminology is that it’s a St. Louis cracker crust, so it’s very thin, a little flaky and the toppings go all the way to the edge of the pizza. And it’s cut into rectangles. Everyone fights over getting the little triangular pieces in the corner. The crust is very different, and outside of the Midwest, you won’t find that style of pizza.
Cortney Kirk’s Top 5 Craft Beers:
- Nøgne Ø – Saison
- Three Floyds – Pappy Van Winkle Barrel Aged Dark Lord Imperial Stout
- Bell’s – Hopslam Ale
- Brouwerij Verhaeghe – Duchesse De Bourgogne
- Mystic – Saison
