Joel Kurokawa

Principal Landscape Architect

Joel was born and raised in the Hawaiian islands. His 30+ year professional career has led him on a journey around the Pacific, from the Pacific Northwest to San Francisco, then to Japan, and ultimately back to Hawai‘i. Joel spent eight years in Tokyo, Japan with PREC Institute, a leading environmental planning and research firm as head of Studio J, a landscape architecture design studio. While in Japan he led the firm’s site master planning for a broad range of project types including regional, community, urban parks mixed-use developments, school campuses, and residential communities; urban design, resorts, transit and transportation corridors; and wetland and native waterfowl habitat restoration. Joel returned to Hawai‘i in 1995 as principal of Hawai‘i Design Associates, eventually acquiring the firm’s assets in 2007 and establishing Ki Concepts LLC to better align with his vision and core values.

Our design solutions evolve from a creative synthesis of the intrinsic qualities of a site; its historic, cultural, and community context; a client’s program, budget and schedule; and a reverence for landscape and natural processes.’