David Kamp
In a career spanning 40 years, incorporating practice, teaching, research and advocacy, David Kamp’s leadership and unique contributions promoting health through nature and design are at the forefront of the profession.
Mr. Kamp founded Dirtworks Landscape Architecture, PC to explore how design with nature can help restore and protect the well-being of individuals and communities, elevate individual and collective experiences, and advance the stewardship of our natural resources. Early among designers to advocate for the role of nature within increasingly technological healthcare environments, David combined this conviction and expertise to investigate how design might address the human condition in all its complexity, broadening his practice beyond healthcare settings to projects of all types and scales. The essential thread binding individual health to large-scale social and environmental well-being create what Mr. Kamp calls, “the fabric of health.” Like the threads of a fabric, individual threads, expressed as individual choices, can weave together into collective, stronger, more resilient responses to the challenges ahead. By integrating this perspective within design, we reinforce a deep connection to our profound and reciprocal ties to nature.
A MacDowell Colony Fellow, member of the National Academy of Design and University College Falmouth (UK) Honorary Fellow, David has been internationally recognized through awards, publications, and documentaries. A frequent guest speaker and writer, his book, “Nature, Design, and Health: Explorations of a Landscape Architect,” was published by Library of American Landscape History in August 2023.