Kenneth Cleveland

Kenneth Cleveland, AIA

Ken began pondering a career in architecture in second grade. He liked to draw and when his mother told him that architects used pencils all day long, he was suitably impressed.

Growing up on a farm in Connecticut, Ken was surrounded by traditional architecture. That early influence helped shape the practical approach to design he has maintained throughout his career.

Ken used his Centerbrook Travel Grant trip in 2013 to study Roman pavement patters in Italy. He came away most impressed by the Pantheon in Rome. Arguably, the world’s most sustainable building, it was built nearly 2000 years ago and is still being used.

Ken earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture at the University of Hartford, and after working for design firms in New Haven and West Hartford, he joined Centerbrook in 2006. After a brief period away to pursue another opportunity, Ken returned to Centerbrook in 2019.

Ken has worked with a variety of project types at Centerbrook, including the famed Ocean House resort – an enduring Rhode Island landmark – as well as Quinnipiac University’s North Haven and York Hill campus expansions.

Ken was also on the design teams for a major project at Mary Institute & St. Louis Country Day School, the renovation of Demerec Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and the chic Bedford Square mixed-use development in Westport, Connecticut.

“Not many architects get to work on both a new law school and a medical school in succession,” Ken said of his QU North Haven involvement. “I enjoy projects that have an impact on the lives of the people who use the building. I worked on an addition and renovation to an inner city school in New Haven, the Truman School, and when it was finished the Principal was so moved by the changes that she cried at the opening ceremonies. I’ll never forget that.”