Christopher Kroner believes that design is for everyone and sees architecture as a daily practice of outreach. His work explores ways of regenerating the urban fabric using both new construction and adaptive reuse.
As an award-winning designer and committed architecture and urban design educator, he converted his teaching pedagogy into a revolutionary and immersive model of listening and engagement. When he joined MASS Design Group in 2017, Christopher setup the Hudson Valley Design Lab in Poughkeepsie, where he leads multidisciplinary teams in building networks within communities in need. The design lab works to pioneer community design in American “Fringe Cities.” He sees acts of listening, research, and diplomacy as new methodologies for design agency. He recently completed a USGBC LEED Certified Office and Shop Building for the Hudson Valley Farm Hub (Kingston, NY) and currently leads the design of the Youth Opportunity Union (Poughkeepsie, NY).
Christopher’s urban design work has garnered notable recognition. In 2023, his team’s proposal for the redesign of Franklin Park (Boston, MA) was described as “thoughtful” and “poetic”, and received the Boston Society of Landscape Architects Award in Analysis and Planning. In 2021, the National Canadian LGBTQ2+ Monument (Ottawa, ON), designed under Christopher’s leadership and in collaboration with artist Stephen Andrews, was shortlisted by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
In addition to directing design projects as a Principal at MASS, he leads all Poughkeepsie-based community outreach work, serves as a design consultant to the Poughkeepsie Planning Board, and volunteers on a number of community boards and regional coalitions.
Prior to working at MASS, Christopher spent a decade as an associate partner with Dean/Wolf Architects where he conducted a series of award-winning projects in all stages of design and construction. “Restless Response: Emergency Medical Station 50” at Queens Hospital garnered the American Architecture Prize Gold Medal in Institutional Architecture in 2016, and the station was featured in Architectural Record in March 2017. Additionally, “Ephemeral Edge House,” a rural retreat home south of Albany won a Progressive Architecture Award in 2012 and a New York City AIA Honor Award in 2019.
He has taught architectural and urban design at leading institutions worldwide, including Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and the University of Virginia. Christopher holds a Master of Architecture from Columbia University, where he received the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize. He received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia, where he received the Sean Steele-Nicholson Memorial Award.
