TREVOR LEE
Trevor’s work focuses on transformative landscapes, the rethinking of how we foster social life through meaningful cultural and ecological engagement and design. He has worked alternately as a designer, researcher, instructor, and advisor over 18 years in both professional practice and academia, including more than a decade with OLIN. With his background and interests in art, graphic design, and illustration, he considers ways to create immersive, embedded experiences by foregrounding cultural, technological, and ecological frameworks within the landscape. He has brought this approach to many of OLIN’s signature projects, including the LEED Platinum-certified forestry school at Yale University, Syracuse Connective Corridor in upstate New York, the 21st-century revitalization of Denver’s 16th Street Mall, a landmark reimagining of the public realm surrounding the Los Angeles Convention Center, and Manhattan’s newest park, Pier 26 at Hudson River Park.
Beyond his work at OLIN, Trevor has taught extensively through faculty positions as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, a Visiting Assistant Professor and Third Year Undergraduate Coordinator at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and as a Design Fellow at Syracuse University. While a Design Fellow, Trevor led a two-year research project titled Formerly Urban, investigating the benefits of the creation of a new urbanity in rustbelt cities with large population loss. This research culminated in a symposium and book titled Formerly Urban: Projecting Rustbelt Futures by Julia Czerniak. Trevor has also researched new technologies in solar and wind science, working with the Land Art Generator Initiative to develop an energy-generating public art sculpture called WindNest. He has worked with other renowned landscape architecture offices on notable commissions, including Section Three of the High Line in New York City and Chicago’s Navy Pier. As a partner, Trevor will continue to expand the transformative influence of landscape architecture at all scales of settlement.
Trevor moved considerably before coming to Philadelphia in 2005. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and lived throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, but was most influenced by a small river town called Marietta, Ohio. The town was intentionally built around ancient burial mounds constructed by the Hopewell and Adena peoples, with the purpose of preserving their cultural heritage. “As an 8-year-old living in Marietta, I would play ball around and on top of these mounds in a park called the “Sacra Via” (sacred way). It certainly left an impression on me, and perhaps my interest in landscape architecture started here without knowing it at the time.” At 17 he joined the Army and served for six years, both in the United States and abroad. In his last year of service, Trevor was accepted at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. At Mass Art, he received a degree in illustration but also explored his interests in landscape architecture, landscape urbanism, and the uncertainty of climate change. From there he enrolled in the Masters of Landscape Architecture program at the Rhode Island School of Design.
RISD’s rigorous and iterative, material-based approach to design was influential in shaping Trevor’s understanding of landscape. During and following his graduate studies, he began collaborating with several notable design practices throughout the Boston area, including the office of Mikyoung Kim, the artist Michael Singer, Ron Henderson’s L+A studio, and Martha Schwartz Partners. These offices approached landscape architecture through the exploration of graphic legibility, form, color, ecology, and temporal change. The imageability of landscape was the methodology of expressing narrative and forming the conceptual approach to projects, and Trevor brought this ethos with him when he first joined OLIN in 2005. Trevor’s early projects in the studio included the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards, Potomac Park Levee in Washington, DC, and Yale University’s Science Hill district, including the new home for the forestry school, Kroon Hall.
Trevor left OLIN for an academic appointment at Syracuse University in 2009 but returned in 2013 as Manager of Visual Communications and led numerous major competition efforts. In 2014 Trevor, in collaboration with Partner-in-Charge Lucinda Sanders, led a proposal effort resulting in the winning commission to design Pier 26, the newest addition to Hudson River Park in New York City. Pier 26 is unlike any other pier in Manhattan with its emphasis on research and the educational exploration of the Hudson River estuary. The pier sits at the intersection of urbanity and coastal ecosystems, with moments of recreation, play, and social life. The pier project is representative of the work and research Trevor has completed and will continue to pursue. Pier 26 opened to wide acclaim in September of 2020 and is quickly becoming a beloved destination for all ages in Lower Manhattan.
