Laura Heery
Laura Heery
Laura M. Heery is a co-founder of Brookwood Group. Based in Atlanta, Miami and New York, she is the owner of Brookwood Design Group LLC, a women-owned affiliate of Brookwood Group, Inc. She is an architect who provides “design thinking” for projects and initiatives with a multi-disciplinary, cross-sectoral approach. Integrating leading-edge expertise, Laura focuses on using design thinking for accelerating digitization in education, for planning new health considerations, and for preparedness for disruption and disaster recovery.
Laura currently serves on a number of boards including the Grove Park Foundation. As a civic leader in Atlanta, she has a keen interest in the improvement of the urban environment.
As Brookwood’s Design Principal, Laura chaired the master plan for the Turner Broadcasting Campus in Midtown Atlanta; designed the campus and buildings for the Georgia Institute of Technology in Savannah; and transformed two miles of Peachtree Road from a dystopian highway into an urban boulevard. Laura studied and worked abroad in Europe launching the design for The Coca-Cola Company’s European Union Headquarters in Brussels and in Asia on projects such as AFLAC’s regional corporate offices in Tokyo. She provided pre-development, strategic planning, and design guidelines for Charis Community Foundation, Mall of Georgia, Decatur, Morehouse College, Glenwood Park, and early stage concepts for Centennial Olympic Park and Centennial Hill master planning.
Apart from architecture and planning, Laura is president of www.TAEVAST.com, which invests in high growth technology sectors. Since 2016, she has formed and facilitated “Cross Sector Conversations” roundtables for “Freedom on the Net”, with data collected from 65 countries on cyber peace and security. Laura has been invited to participate in related conferences and roundtables hosted by SINET, Microsoft, Freedom House, and the Cyber-Futures Dialogue in Davos.
Laura has been a speaker and panel organizer for: Purpose Built Communities hosted by Warren Buffet, Tom Cousins, and their foundation in Omaha: the Real Estate Impact Conference at the University of Miami; Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU); the Urban Land Institute; LOCUS/Smart Growth America; National Town Builders Association; and Ecodistricts among others. As a board member for the Congress for the New Urbanism for six years, she was the board’s Initiatives Chair, co-leading CNU projects such as “Health Districts” and “HUD Finance Reform”. She founded The Live/Work/Walk Foundation to support initiative work with CNU, LOCUS, Smart Growth America, and non-profits related to livable neighborhoods, districts, and greenspaces.
Laura is a past member of Young Presidents Organization; Leadership Atlanta; the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Research Institute and LINK program; the Carter Center Board of Counselors; Emory University’s Board of Visitors; International Women’s Forum; the board of RouteMatch; and of non-profits such as Atlanta Botanical Garden and Research Atlanta. Laura currently serves on the National Trust for Historic Preservation; Earthshare of Georgia; Research Atlanta (now Atlanta Civic League); and Nexus Art Center. She also serves on the boards of the Georgia Cities Foundation; University of Miami School of Architecture; and The Grove Park Foundation, a member of Purpose Built Communities.
She earned a Masters in Architecture from Yale University, where she studied with Cesar Pelli; has worked as an architectural designer for Heery International, I.M. Pei & Partners, and John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson on signature projects such as Rockefeller Center in New York City and Atlantic Center in Midtown Atlanta.
