Catherine Sckerl

Catherine Sckerl is an architect and urban planner with research interests in cultural and place identity, participatory design, place-making, and disaster recovery and international development. Originally from South Dakota, Sckerl completed her MArch at Tulane and MA from Oxford Brookes University before moving to Austin, TX. Her past research has addressed themes of participatory design and cultural/architectural heritage at sites ranging from the Treme in New Orleans to St. Petersburg, Russia to Venice, Italy.

As a professional, Sckerl founded Espero Planning & Design Studio in 2011 and has worked with neighborhood organizations and non-profits, municipalities, and institutions to develop long-range master plans that capture and reflect the values of the local community. Key projects have included an NEA-funded Our-Town Grant for Creative Place-making with the Austin Film Society, campus planning and implementation at Austin Studios, university master planning for Texas A&M University-San Antonio, and Downtown Master Plans for the Cities of San Marcos and Edinburg, TX. Sckerl also worked on redevelopment plans for a few Gulf Coast communities following Hurricane Katrina.

While vernacular place-making processes are of particular interest, Sckerl's broader area of investigation centers on cultural and place identity of the built environment.