about

Michelle Todd

Principal Architect

Michelle Todd is an award-winning architect and urban community activist. With over 30 years of experience, she has a longstanding passion for socially responsive, innovatively progressive and restorative landmark preservation design. Michelle grew up in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood within one of Mayor John Lindsay’s modular housing developments. She knew she wanted to be an architect at ten due to the vast imagination to create buildings and spaces in the numerous empty and dilapidated areas during that era.

It was the beginning of her interest in Urban Planning and how socially responsive architecture can do something positive for people and the planet. After a brief stint at Perkins Eastman, she opened her own firm M. Todd Architect, in Brooklyn in 2008 focusing on historic renovations and close client collaborations. The firm received the 2024 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award for the Ridges Residences from the New York Landmark Conservancy.

Michelle has worked with NYC agencies and on various project types including schools, restaurants, and landmark buildings. The firm is presently known as M. Todd Studio Architecture PC.

Michelle holds a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University (GSAPP), where she won the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Honors Award. She is Living Future Accredited (LFA) with the International Living Future Institute.  A Certified Passive House Tradesperson. A member of the USGBC. Trained in classical design at Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau, France. A licensed architect in New York and Maryland.

Her expertise includes community master planning, passive house design, and historic preservation.