Steven Bingler is the founder and CEO of Concordia, a community-centered engagement, planning and architectural co-design studio in New Orleans, Louisiana. Concordia, from the Latin word meaning agreement between people and harmony among things, is also the firm’s one-word mission statement.

The Concordia studio explores its mission in several ways, including research collaborations with universities (Stanford University’s Global Project Center, MIT’s Media Lab, and Harvard’s Project Zero), governmental agencies (U.S. Department of Education and National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and through a diverse network of collaborations with community-based organizations.

Steven is included in Wikipedia’s roster of internationally acclaimed urban planners. His manuscripts and research papers have been published in books and journals on urban planning, architectural design, education, public health and smart growth. His work has received support from the Ford, Rockefeller, Bill and Melinda Gates, Wallace, Prudential, George Lucas, Irvine, and William Penn Foundations, and the Philadelphia Education Fund. Concordia’s award winning education, cultural, housing, and recreation projects have appeared in Newsweek, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Metropolis, Architecture and Architectural Digest.

Steven is also a musician and naturalist who grew up in a working class family in Charlottesville, Virginia where he was one of the first in his family to graduate from high school. He received his architectural training at the University of Virginia, where he is a member of the school’s prestigious Raven Society. In 2014 he co-authored an Op Ed for the New York Times with architectural critic Martin Pedersen, advocating for a realignment of contemporary planning and design practices around more design equity and inclusionary practices, which led to the creation of the Common Edge Collaborative (commonedge.org).