Kyle MertensMeyer

Founding Principal

LEED AP

Introduction

Kyle MertensMeyer is an award-winning industry leader in sustainability and NGO founder. Trained as a designer and environmentalist, Kyle works across mediums and sectors, including electric vehicles, clean energy, clean air quality, healthcare, hospitality, food and beverage, retail, agriculture, and commercial real estate. Kyle has designed and managed a career total of 7.4 million square feet of built architecture and interiors with a total asset value of over $1 billion in 9 countries and 37 cities while being recognized with more than 45 international awards and honors. These include 40 under 40 from Building Design and Construction Magazine, The Azure AZ Award for Environmental Leadership, and the International Interior Design Association’s Will Ching Award for Designer of the Year. Since founding his studio in 2016, Kyle has led an international interdisciplinary team working on projects ranging from research and innovation to design and implementation while working with global teams across four time zones. Kyle’s practice reinforces a through-line of sustainability, climate resilience, strategic framing, and human-centered solutions.

Kyle's clients include the EV car company NIO Inc., the wind, battery, and smart grid company Envision Energy Group, the mass timber developer Intelligent City, the nonprofit Healthcare in Haiti Inc., as well as; Jones Lang LaSalle, Gensler, Legat Architects, FabOLab, Flask Restaraunt Group Shanghai, Stellar Works Furniture, Godolphin Cellars, and the volumetric capture film studio Avatar Dimension.

Past Experience

Before founding August Green, Kyle was an Associate and Sustainable Design Leader in Gensler's Shanghai Office, where he helped implement key projects such as the thirty-two-story WPP Headquarters Tower for the Nan Fung Group, Tishman Speyer's LEED Gold Campus for Nike, and the Knowledge Innovation Campus for ShuiOn Land, designed to be Shanghai's First LEED Platinum project.

Sustainability in Action

During Kyle's time at Gensler, he founded an air quality research study for PM 2.5, CO2, and TVOCs that received funding for three years from Gensler. During this time, Kyle developed an expertise focused on air pollution and its health impacts on the built environment. Kyle's research at Gensler has been published and presented as a key driver for healthy workplace environments. In addition to air quality (AQI), Kyle has developed an expert knowledge of life cycle analysis (LCA) for embodied carbon tracking, environmental analysis, greenhouse gas reduction strategies for GHG Scopes 1-3 carbon, mass timber development, the future of work (RTO), and planning for net zero.

From the beginning of his career, Kyle has been a passionate early adopter of sustainability and seeks to reduce his carbon footprint through examples of vegetarianism and the utilization of an electric moped for transport. In 2009, Kyle received his certificate as a LEED Accredited Professional, and to date, more than 70% of Kyle's life work has been Sustainability and ESG-focused. Sustainability is a function of how humans live and the decisions we make concerning our Biosphere. Each project Kyle has worked on has engaged with the natural world differently; whether creating views toward it or generating energy from it, the natural environment is a counterbalance to humanity's technological advancements. In Manila, Kyle trained with Al Gore as a Climate Reality Leader and, in 2015, worked as a volunteer during China's first Climate Reality summit in Shenzhen. Additionally, Kyle has spoken internationally on climate topics, including appearances as a keynote speaker at the Klimahouse Conference, the World Youth Design Forum, and the World Innovation & Entrepreneurship Expo.

Seeking to expand the scale and reach of his impact, Kyle went to Harvard to study how design can engage in the challenges we face today at the intersectionality of Environment, Society, and Governance. His research methodology combines quantitative and qualitative insights to drive new environmental standards and policy. Kyle believes that true sustainability is based on understanding the nature of the ephemeral and that every decision we make will impact lives today and beyond. "We must always ask, Why are we doing this, and who is it for?" As adaption and resilience become an essential focus for the future and security of our cities, Kyle has pursued the broad cross-boundary knowledge and interests of investors, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, engineers, philosophers, preservationists, artists, and advocates.

Ethos and Methodology

Kyle believes "we have to envision a better future while staying relevant to the needs of a better present." Throughout his career, Kyle has used design as a tool to improve the places we live, create beauty, and solve challenges across all scales. His experience has equipped him with the tools and knowledge to shape governance and policy, lead with an equitable interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving, and magnify the positive influence of impact-driven design on the built and natural environment. Kyle believes "we cannot talk about equity or justice in our work until we have engaged, experienced, and empathized with those we design for. The most significant challenges we face go beyond the act of design itself."

Kyle's design thinking process begins with understanding how the sun, wind, and rain are all integral to the local context of the built environment, material nature, and how air and light flow between the spaces. Kyle's process seeks to understand a project's historical and anthropological contexts while being mindful of present and future adaptability. A deep analysis of programming, site sketching, and massing studies of interactions between indoor and outdoor spaces with nature follows this research. Kyle leads and manages the journey through many rounds of design in a co-design process with clients and consultants before beginning documentation for construction. From construction through to occupancy, a project is only complete once the vision is realized.

In addition to his passion for the environment, Kyle is a wine lover. Over the last decade, Kyle has been internationally awarded more than thirty times for his boutique cellars, museums, and tasting experiences. Kyle's wine design philosophy is rooted in understanding place and the journey through spacial experiences. In the same way, wine journeys from the terroir to the table. No single journey is the same; each must be crafted around the senses of smell, taste, sight, sound, and touch. Kyle believes a cellar can evoke emotion in its visitors through transcendental beauty that brings together a sense of past, present, and future.

Virtual Worlds

In 2018, Kyle co-founded Kaleidoskope, a virtual environments studio. While much of Kyle's work is within the physical, built environment, he believes that working within the metaverse allows the imagination to flow and for creative ideas to be rapidly prototyped through mixed realities and digital twins. Kaleidoskope exists to push the boundaries of digital technologies to enhance communication and encapsulate multi-dimensional stories and business through Climate Analysis, BIM, and Visualization.

Volunteering

Beyond his professional practice, Kyle has been passionate about philanthropy and education. In 2020 Kyle founded the Green Missions Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization formed to serve and engage communities in need through fundraising, development, design, and scholarship awards. Additionally, Kyle volunteers as a member of the board of directors for Health Care in Haiti. While on the board, he has helped implement a new solar array project to move the existing medical center facilities off of diesel fuel; and has helped design, develop, and fundraise for a future Net Zero Medical Center Campus since 2019. 

Teaching

While in Shanghai, Kyle was a visiting professor at Tongji University, School of Design Innovation, from 2013 to 2019. He lectured, critiqued, and helped build a studio curriculum centered around volumetric biomimicry and augmented realities, leading students from narratives to virtual environments. Kyle has also been a guest lecturer and critic at Nottingham Ningbo University and Judson University in Chicago.

Education

Kyle also volunteers as the Co-Chair of the Harvard Circular Economy Symposium. At Harvard, Kyle studied Sustainable Development and Policy in the MDes Ecologies - Energy and Environment program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. This interdisciplinary program at the GSD allowed Kyle to cross-pollinate his education across the Harvard campus, studying at Harvard Law School, Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Business School, where he authored research on the future of work and carbon reduction through mass timber construction while Co-Authoring an HBS Teaching Case Study on low carbon development using mass timber.

Additionally, Kyle is a Graduate Associate at the Davis Center for Eurasian Studies, researching sustainable forestry, Mass Timber, and Ukraine post-war reconstruction. Before Harvard, Kyle studied Ecological Urbanism and Sustainable Passive Architecture in the Masters of Architecture program at Judson University. While at Judson, Kyle received the Kern Environmental Science Research Fellowship, a Graduate Teaching Fellowship, the Excellence in Studio Award, the Architecture Chair's Award, and the Dean's Medal for Leadership.

Extra Curricular: 

Kyle enjoys playing tennis and spending time with his family and friends while sharing good food in his free time. Kyle's artistic expressions take shape in his piano composition, drawings, and horticulture. 

Contact: kyle@augustgreen.com