Following his studies at UBC  and Dalhousie, Jonathan Cohn (BArch (TUNS)’83) worked for a couple of years in Toronto before moving to New York to pursue a graduate degree at Columbia. Although not initially intending to stay in New York, one thing led to another and several decades later he is still there.

Over the years Jonathan has been responsible for the design of a wide range of building types, from adaptive re-use of historic or existing structures, to new, iconic structures and large scale urban designs. As a Principal/Owner at Perkins Eastman Architects, one of the largest architecture firms in NYC with over a dozen offices globally, his work is focused on the architecture and urban design of transportation and public infrastructure projects and their interface with the public realm. His coordination of program requirements with economic, engineering, and site factors has resulted in highly-acclaimed, award-winning, state-of-the-art designs.

Multi-disciplined

As a senior designer, project manager, and project director, Jonathan has had the opportunity to lead large multidisciplinary design teams for some of the largest transportation projects in New York’s recent history.  For five years he served as the design director for JFK AirTrain, one of the country’s largest design-build projects, leading the project team from schematic design through construction documents. He also represented the Architect of Record for the design phase of the new transportation center at the site of the World Trade Center, coordinating with the design architect Santiago Calatrava.

Life in New York

Jonathan is a registered architect in the State of New York, a LEED Certified Professional, and active in the professional community. He has lectured on the design process and is a frequent guest critic at schools of architecture.

Jonathan lives in Brooklyn NY with his wife, the artist Penelope Umbrico, where they raised their twin daughters.