About
Approach
Kate Cowing Architect, LLC (KCA) is a full service architecture firm with a focus on existing buildings and a specialization in historic preservation. Kate believes in the importance of using existing buildings rather than demolishing and building new. Not only is this approach environmentally sound, it helps ground the surrounding communities by providing continuity and history.
KCA uses a thorough understanding of the buildings themselves and the surrounding community as the starting point in all design. A knowledge of the old informs the design decisions for the new. With that knowledge and creativity, the needs of the client can be gracefully joined with the existing structure. Such reuse often creates surprising results that can even enhance it the existing building.
History
Kate Cowing, AIA, discovered her passion for buildings early in life. After more than 30 years working in architecture and historic preservation, Kate began the firm of Kate Cowing Architect, LLC. in April of 2018.
Kate has a wide variety of experience from residential additions and renovations, the restoration of large municipal and religious complexes, to the rehabilitation of national landmarks and even a zinc mine and a family mausoleum. She has worked with hundreds of buildings and sites.
Principal
Kate Cowing holds a BArch from Drexel University and earned her MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design with a concentration in architectural conservation.
Kate Cowing, Principal is both a registered architect and a trained architectural conservator, a combination that forms an exceptional depth of knowledge and skill for working with existing buildings and in the field of historic preservation.
Kate is an adjunct historic preservation professor at Temple University. She has presented papers at Association for Preservation Technology (APT) and Construction History Society of America (CHSA). Kate is a member of the American Institute of Architects, APT, CHSA, Partners for Sacred Places, the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and the Community Design Collaborative.