Takaya Kurimoto

Takaya Kurimoto is the principal Landscape Architect at Penguin Environmental Design (PED) and a Registered Landscape Architect (ASLA), with a Master of Landscape Architecture from Cornell University .

He explores the ways in which Japanese gardens contribute to and become a part of the modern world. He designs residential and small-scale landscape and also works on urban design projects. One of his recent projects was a set of stone gardens for the “Tea Culture of Japan” exhibition held at the Yale Art Gallery in 2009. He started off studying the philosophy and history of Japanese gardens very early in his career at Kyoto University, Japan. He also taught the Eastern Asian landscape at Yale University as a lecturer.

Before joining PED, he was a landscape architect for Towers|Golde and worked on university and commercial projects for nine years. His major works there include the Yale University Pierson & Davenport College Courtyard Renovations (the CT chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Honor Award).

Prior to that, he designed landscape for commercial buildings and worked on many community-scale projects at Konoike Construction Co., ltd. in Japan. There, he was a part of the winning design team for the Merit Award in the Okhotsk Townscape Design Competition, and as well as the team that won the JILA Award given for the NTT-CRED Motomachi Area Redevelopments.