John Kleinschmidt

Adjunct Lecturer in Design

John is a practicing architect and urban designer at Waggonner & Ball Architecture/Environment in New Orleans. As a design leader across both practices of the firm, he helps teams set the creative direction of projects focused on adaptations to climate change in coastal areas, Living With Water™ strategies for sustainable urbanism, and sensitive responses to place and site at the building and campus scales. Since joining Waggonner & Ball in 2008 for the Dutch Dialogues charrettes in New Orleans, John has been a key contributor to the collaborative workshops that underpin the firm’s “all-scales” approach to design and project definition with clients, design partners, and community members

John believes that practical things should be beautiful, that drawing by hand is as essential as breathing, and that the most important spatial challenges of our changing world can be met with creativity and design thinking.

John maintains a collaborative arts practice focused on installations centered on the phenomenology of water, environmental change, and uncovering hidden stories in strange sites. He has been an artist in residence at A Studio In The Woods and now serves as a board member. John also serves on the Customer Advisory Committee of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans and is a Design Consultant to Ripple Effect, a non-profit working to build water literacy in K-12 schools currently collaborating with Tulane’s ByWater Institute and the Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement & Development on “Ripples to Waves,” a multi-year initiative funded by the National Academies’ Gulf Research Program.