Kyna Leski is a designer, an artist, a teacher, and a writer who seeks creative discovery or, as she puts it, “realizing you do not know what you thought you knew, while expanding what you do.”
As a founding principal of 3six0 Architecture, Leski commits to creative discovery as an efficient and effective approach. Here Leski redefines problems that set in motion the strategy for solutions tailored to the specific needs, limits and situation of each project. The results have been recognized by Rhode Island and Boston AIA and the Boston Society of Architects numerous times. Architectural Record named 3SIXØ one of ten “vanguard” architecture firms emerging worldwide and subsequently recognized 3SIXØ for “Record Interiors.”
As the author of the first semester architecture curriculum at The Rhode Island School of Design, Professor Leski crafts problems which direct students back to their own inquiry as the source for generating ideas. Leski’s pedagogy is the basis of The Making of Design Principles, a book she authored in 2007. Leski served as the Head of the Department of Architecture, Graduate Director and Chief Critic of the RISD European Honors Program in Rome. She was a Visiting Professor, China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China.
Leski’s house of visual shadows, called Dream House, won first place out of 480 entries in the Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition. Architect Shin Takamatsu called her design “outstanding” and said of it, “Light undergoes variations and dislocations and becomes architecture.” In 1997 the Architectural League of New York selected Leski as a winner of its annual Young Architects Competition and in 2000 she was nominated for a Chrysler Design Award.
In 2015, The MIT Press published, Leski’s book The Storm of Creativity. It is being translated into Russian, Turkish, Korean and Chinese. The illustrations made by Leski for this book are the basis for her animation, “Storm’s-eye View.” Leski has given over 30 talks on creativity across the country—from POP!Tech in Camden, Maine to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California.