Blake Middleton

Blake Middleton FAIA LEED AP is a Partner at Handel Architects LLP and Lead Designer for some of the firm’s most prominent work. Blake’s expertise – and passion – is the hybrid mixed-use building as a catalyst for creating sustainable, revitalized neighborhoods in dense urban environments. Recent examples include The House at the new Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island, the world’s largest and tallest certified Passive House, and Millennium Tower Boston, a 1.4 million SF mixed-use tower including the renovation of Daniel Burnham’s landmark Filene’s Building.

Expanding on the firm’s experience at Cornell Tech, Blake is overseeing the design of two other precedent-setting Passive House projects: 115 Winthrop Square, a hybrid building featuring over 700,000 SF of high-performance office use in Boston’s Financial District; and in East Harlem, Sendero Verde, a 760,000 SF mixed-use complex including a high school, health center, community services partners, coupled with 650 100% affordable apartments.

The diversity of Blake’s previous work includes a 2.4 million SF, four building complex that dramatically revitalized Boston’s Theater District; academic and performance buildings for The Boston Conservatory; the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Natatorium and Ice Rink in New York; and the renovation of the historic Santa Barbara Bowl Amphitheater in Santa Barbara, California.

Blake has taught and lectured widely, and his work has won distinction from the AIA, SARA, Urban Land Institute, and the Congress for New Urbanism. His designs have been published widely and exhibited nationally. Blake received his B. Arch. and M. Arch. in Urban Design from Cornell University, and is a recipient of the Rome Prize and Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Blake lives with his wife and daughter in Morningside Heights in New York City and is a Board Member of the Riverside Park Conservancy.