Kyna Leski

on sabbatical academic year 2023–24

Kyna Leski has served as the Architecture department’s head and graduate program director and as chief critic of the European Honors Program. She plays a formative role in the beginning education for architecture students at RISD. The pedagogy she developed recognizes ideas that emerge from making and engagement with material, intentions from a reiterative process and development of a syntactic architectural language, from material through architectonic and spatial order. One iteration of this pedagogy is showcased in the book The Making of Design Principles. She has taught in the Architecture, Experimental and Foundation Studies and Industrial Design departments and was a visiting professor at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China. More recently Leski has developed experimental studios that draw upon capacities associated with artists as agents of invention and action in addressing the crisis being played out on our global shorelines. These studios have operated as collaborations with scientists, environmentalists, dancers and musicians.  

3SIXØ Architecture is Leski’s award-winning professional partnership with Chris Bardt. Recent 3SIXØ projects include Brown University’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, Community Music Works and several residences. 

Leski’s design for a house of visual shadows was awarded first place out of 480 entries in the Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition. She serves on the board of Architexx, a nonprofit organization for gender equity in architecture, and has served as the city architect design decision review advisor to the mayor of Providence. Leski received a Lifetime Achievement Award from DesignxRI in 2017 and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. 


In addition to designing buildings, furniture and academic programs, Leski is an illustrator, animator and writer. She has spoken about the creative process throughout the US and abroad and wrote the book The Storm of Creativity, which has been translated into Russian, Chinese, Korean and Turkish (and will soon be available in Arabic). She can be found most mornings before dawn rowing on the Seekonk River and Narragansett Bay in Providence.