Renata Southard, AIA, NCARB, oversees the Redevelopment Strategy Planning (RSP) Team in the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).
Ren is an urban designer, planner and architect licensed in Maryland. In her primary role, she leads a team of planners, architects and engineers for Baltimore City’s Neighborhood Development Division. Ren and her team provide community design services, technical assistance, predevelopment test-fits for city-owned sites, and coordinate with sister agencies to strategically align investment. After more than a decade in private architectural practice, Ren joined Baltimore City in 2018, first with the Department of Planning, where she was the Urban Design Division Principal, before moving to DHCD in 2025.
While earning her Bachelor of Arts with concentrations in sculpture and printmaking, Ren worked as a designer and project manager in Minneapolis, Detroit, and Nashville. After settling in Maryland in 2012, Ren completed her Master of Architecture, with a Certificate of Urban Design from the University of Maryland School of Architecture. While at UMD, Ren was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Assistant award for her teaching work. Ren continues to teach and lecture regularly in the region and is engaged with the Schools of Architecture at Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, Morgan State University, and M|I|C/A.
Ren is active in AIA, as an AIA Maryland Board Member and the former chair of Baltimore’s Urban Design Committee (UDC).
Renata will be speaking in Session 4: Collaborating and Innovating Across the Industry