Kevin Wilkes is an architect and small business owner. In 1985 he founded Princeton Design Guild, an award-winning architecture and construction collaborative, employing twenty designers, artists and builders.
A Princeton University graduate, he received his BA in Architecture in 1983 and went on to receive his master’s in architecture from Yale University in 1991.
Kevin has long taken an active role in Princeton’s growth and quality of life as an activist. He led community members and fellow artists to create arts-themed community-building events and installations -- two of which were Quark Park and Writer’s Block. These large-scale, AIA Honor award-winning public installations and events drew people together and generated long-lasting spirit and sense of community for Princeton's downtown. He served as President of Princeton Future for 5 years. In 2017 he led Princeton Future in the installation of Design at Dohm Alley – a rebirth of a vacant alley into a vibrant sound video poetry gallery.
His commitment to Princeton has also carried into local politics; serving for four years on Princeton Borough Council as Borough Council President and Police Commissioner.
In addition to running Princeton Design Guild, Kevin also worked as the Princeton Township Building Inspector from 1991 to 1994 and has taught as an adjunct special lecturer at the School of Architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he served not only as a teacher of design and construction from 1986 until 2004, but also as a mentor to aspiring architects by offering them career guidance through internships and full-time employment at PDG.
Kevin is presently renovating and restoring the Paul Robeson House of Princeton. He served on their Board since its inception and has led in the development of plans to renovate Paul Robeson’s birth home into a vital community center to celebrate and sustain the effort to remember the Witherspoon-Jackson area as an historical neighborhood with deep African American roots.
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