Ahti Westphal is a globally engaged design practitioner and educator whose work spans architecture, landscape, and urbanism across a wide range of environmental and socio-spatial contexts. With over two decades of experience in both U.S. and international settings, he is recognized for leading integrated, regenerative design models that weave together living systems, cultural narratives, and material experimentation. His practice moves fluidly between urban design, regenerative landscapes, exhibition and artifact design, and community-based planning—offering a distinctive approach to cross-disciplinary engagement amid shifting ecological and cultural conditions.
Westphal is the founding director of AHTI — Studio for Integrated Design, Landscape, & Planning, an independent consultancy based in Minneapolis. The studio develops regenerative, place-based strategies through tectonic innovation in architecture—linking ecological performance with cultural infrastructure, social programming, and long-term land stewardship. His design process synthesizes material research, traditional ecological knowledge, and community-driven development into spatial frameworks that respond to environmental urgency and cultural continuity.
Recent work includes leading a bioclimatic masterplan for mass social housing in Djibouti, commissioned by the World Bank; representing Minnesota in a North American delegation to Finland on Forest Bioeconomy & Wood in Architecture; and directing the regenerative design framework for the East Phillips Urban Farm—a landmark environmental justice initiative and model of community-led planning.
From 2014 to 2018, Westphal co-founded and directed Studio ATLAS, an award-winning design practice based in Beijing. The studio’s work focused on ecological master planning, adaptive reuse, and public architecture—often engaging traditional knowledge systems and marginalized communities. ATLAS exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, IABR, Design Shanghai, and Beijing Design Week, and was named to Architectural Digest China’s Top 100 list. Among its most recognized projects was a collaboration with the Global Heritage Fund to establish a women’s textile cooperative in Guizhou Province.
Westphal’s expertise extends into large-scale conservation and environmental planning. As chief field architect for the South Coastal Cardamom Development Plan in Cambodia, he contributed to the master planning of over 400,000 hectares of rainforest—balancing ecological preservation with development. His work with Indigenous communities in North America, heritage preservation in Asia, and recent travel to meet with the Kayapó people of the Brazilian Amazon reflect a long-standing belief in the power of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to shape more holistic, sustainable, and socially responsive design futures.
He teaches graduate and undergraduate studios at the University of Minnesota, including GD3 studio on Ecological Urbanism, and has held teaching and lecture roles at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, Minzu University, Brown University, and the Royal University of Fine Arts Phnom Penh. His projects have been featured in The New York Times, CNN, ICON, and Wallpaper among others. He regularly participates in academic reviews, public lectures, and conversations at the intersection of environmental design, material culture, and global practice.
