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I am from the South Hills of Pittsburgh, PA, USA, where I grew up on my parents farm. Growing up, I realized my fondest memories were tied to building shelters, treehouses, and other structures with the materials that were found in the barn, burn pile, or forest floor. With a penchant for wanting to alter the world around me, I went on to study landscape architecture and urban design from Harvard's Graduate School of Design & West Virginia University between 2011 & 2017. Fast-forward a little bit, I’m presently located in Washington D.C, simultaneously practicing as a designer, educator and craftsman.
As a registered Landscape Architect, I’m currently an Associate at Oehme van Sweden where I’ve been since 2021, after several years with HOK’s Planning & Urban Design Practice. My career to date includes managing a wide range of projects from a strategic level, large-scale masterplanning, and public realm design guidelines all the way to medium and small-scale hospitality, campus, and public spaces throughout the United States and abroad.
For over three years, I’ve also been developing curricula for undergraduate and graduate level courses on digital design technologies and construction materials & methods at the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. With one foot in academia and the other in professional practice, my research is geared towards leveraging imaginative technology to challenge conventional design processes and establish more efficient workflows & construction methods that lead to higher-quality design and project delivery in placemaking. The latest graduate studio I co-taught with Dr. Christopher Ellis is part of an ongoing collaboration between Glenstone Museum, MNCPPC, and the University of Maryland exploring the futures of southern Maryland.
With much of my time focused on creating in a digital space, I spend most weeknights and weekends creating tangible objects with my own two hands scaling from architectural installations to tableware. Pulling from a family history of building and making things ranging from custom hand tools to barns, I began amassing my own fully functioning modular wood & metal shop on my rooftop apartment after moving to the nation's capital in 2018. It is here that all of the installations, furniture, and other assorted objects I make are created by hand using many of the heirloom tools inherited from the rest of the John W. Wray lineage and family that paved the way before me.
