Alexandros E. Washburn

Alexandros E. Washburn, AIA is the Chief Urban Designer of the City of New York, Department of City Planning. An architect who has worked both in the private and public sector, he served as Environment and Public Works Advisor on Capitol Hill to US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then as President of the Pennsylvania Station Redevelopment Corporation, and then as partner of W Architecture and Landscape Architecture LLC, where he designed the award-winning Harlem Piers waterfront park before joining the Bloomberg Administration in his current position.

As the leader of a design studio within the government, he acts as the design eyes for City Planning. He judges success from the point of view of the pedestrian. His design team works in all five boroughs on a range of urban design products from zoning rules and policy to master plans to individual projects. The projects range in scale from plazas to shorelines, from bench designs to tower tops.

The Urban Design division works with the many talented planners, project managers, economists, zoning and other specialists within the agency to meet the specific challenges facing the city. Urban Design's purpose is to meet those challenges and at the same time to improve the quality of public life by improving the quality of public space.

Alex lives with his family in Red Hook, Brooklyn and commutes by bicycle across the Brooklyn Bridge every day. He is currently writing a book with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, called The Nature of Urban Design.