Distinguished Alumna 2021, Kimberly Dowdell '01

Today, Dowdell is the marketing principal for the global design firm HOK’s Chicago studio, where she helps guide large-scale projects from vision to fruition. Her past work includes an airport and corporate headquarters, while HOK designs a wide variety of project types, including sports, recreation and entertainment facilities such as Detroit’s own Little Caesar’s Arena.  One simple yet expansive vision guides her work—“to improve the quality of life for people living in cities,” putting into practice a desire to build in ways that really help a wide variety of people.

She has incorporated that belief system into nearly every aspect of her professional life, serving in leadership roles that have allowed her to engage others in addressing issues of racial, social and environmental justice as they relate to architecture, design and community building. 

Dowdell recently completed a two-year term as one of the youngest presidents in the 50-year history of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), where she was also the fourth woman president. Dowdell helped the organization amplify its voice this past summer after the murder of George Floyd and along with the uprisings that erupted in protest of racial injustice all across the United States and around the world. 

“We were able to make a powerful public statement on behalf of NOMA and it was almost like a turning point for our organization,” she says. She encouraged not only members of NOMA but all citizens, neighbors and colleagues to “be BRAVE—an acronym standing for “Banish racism. Reach out to those who are grieving. Advocate for the disinherited. Vote in every American election. Engage each human that you meet as YOU would want to be engaged.” 

The response was overwhelmingly positive. NOMA’s membership grew by nearly 200 percent during Dowdell’s tenure, during which time she also helped the organization earn recognition among the world’s top architectural professional organizations. 

Inequality and its broader effects are issues that Dowdell works to keep front and center for architects and others engaged in the work of city planning and related legislation. “Architecture is a context in which we live our lives,” she says. Another part of that context entails asking critical questions. “Why aren’t Black families building wealth or experiencing health outcomes on par with other racial groups? It’s a very complicated set of issues.” 

For example, the approximate median net worth of a White family is $120,000 while the median net worth of a Black family is about $1,200. “A lot of that is linked to decades-old policies surrounding the availability of mortgages and the overwhelming lack of access to capital in the Black community,” Dowdell explains. Another metric to look at is life expectancy. 

“In Chicago, there’s a heat map that shows life expectancy. In the areas on the north side that are mostly White that number is 90 years and on the south side which is mostly Black, that number is 60 years. That’s what we need to talk about—quality of life and quantity of life, in year. Equity means working toward a goal of creating as much access as possible to healthier outcomes for everyone.” 

Dowdell began trying to address these issues during her first years out of college. In 2005, she co-founded the organization Social Economic Environmental Design (SEED), a principle-based network of individuals and organizations dedicated to building and supporting a culture of civic responsibility and engagement in the built environment and the public realm. It was designed to act like LEED certification does in environmental design and helped shine a spotlight on the need for social and economic considerations in building design and real estate development. 

Dowdell’s leadership was clear during her four years at Cranbrook, where she was a boarding student and became head resident advisor for her dorm at Kingswood. “It was cool to support the younger girls as resident advisor and coordinate with my fellow RAs to ensure that everyone was having an optimal experience,” she says. 

She was also president of Gold Key, the student group that shows interested families around the campus and was co-captain of the softball team in her senior year. Dowdell was also a highly dedicated and successful student, who favored art but committed to excellence in all aspects of instruction. 

“I enjoyed all of my art classes,” she says. “That was part of my draw to Cranbrook. It exposed me to so many different ways to express myself creatively.”

After graduation, Dowdell enrolled in Cornell University’s prestigious five-year architecture program, earning her professional license seven years later. Shortly after she completed her bachelor’s degree, she was invited to serve as a national board member at NOMA and was at work on developing the concept for SEED. From 2008 through 2011, she did her first stint at HOK in their New York office.

In recent years, Dowdell was been named a “40 Under 40” honoree by Crain’s Detroit Business and Crain’s Chicago Business, which called her a “change agent disguised as an architect” and recognized her promotion of healthier cities and equity in the design profession. In 2020, Dowdell earned the prestigious AIA Young Architects Award and was honored for her activism with Architectural Record’s Women in Architecture Award.

She returned to HOK two years ago when the opportunity to help lead the Chicago studio came up. “I wanted to do larger and more impactful projects,” she says. “It’s been amazing working with an incredible leadership team and a wonderful group of architects and designers.”   

Dowdell will continue to work toward her life goal of using architecture to improve lives, a profession that can do so much to protect the health, welfare and safety of communities. With her ability to lead, she no doubt will inspire countless architects and other partners in the built environment to join her in the cause.