Our experience has helped us strike the ideal balance between creative thinking and technical expertise at every stage of every project. As we engage with clients and colleagues, we draw on decades of innovative, fast-paced, data-driven work. The spaces and experiences we create are characterized by a unique combination of design discipline, user-focused functionalist, and close attention to social and geographic contexts.
We lead with conversation. We discuss our clients’ business structures, objectives, strategies, and aspirations. Only after gathering qualitative and quantitative data do we begin to create the personalized, purposeful, human-centered spaces that have become our hallmark.
The depth and breadth of our hands-on work is spread across teams full of individuals with different experiences, backgrounds, and skill sets. This diversity and versatility — grounded in our commitment to close relationships and effective collaboration — has enabled us to work with clients in dozens of industries across the country. We strive to meet clients’ needs with solutions that work just as well today as they will tomorrow, and we’ve demonstrated our design prowess in the workplace, retail, mixed-use, office, and hospitality sectors.
Celebrating a history spanning over 60 years
MILO KLEINBERG ESTABLISHES MKDA IN NEW YORK
Milo Kleinberg founded MKDA, originally Milo Kleinberg Design Associates, in Manhattan in 1959. Its founding mission was to provide solutions that blended American practicality with European beauty and sophistication, an approach developed from his youth spent in Austria prior to immigrating to Brooklyn.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MILO KLEINBERG BECOMES KING OF THE FASHION DISTRICT
Opportunity appeared inside a vacant Garment District building. Milo persuaded the building’s owner to subdivide a floor to show prospective tenants the potential of the space. Fashion industry executives were so impressed by what they saw that the building was fully rented in six weeks. Suddenly fashion houses that never before hired an interior designer wanted Milo Kleinberg. By the 1960s, Kleinberg was the unofficial “King of the Garment District”.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MILO’S SONS JOIN THE FAMILY BUSINESS
Equally critical to the long-term health of MKDA was the arrival of Kleinberg’s sons Jeffrey in 1975 and Michael in 1978. Not only did they bring another generation’s gift for design to the practice, they took a fresh look at management, market areas and professional services, refining their particular areas of skill and expertise, and complementing each other’s strengths as they quietly transformed the firm their father founded. The brothers had been familiar with MKDA since childhood, having visited the office on weekends and started their apprenticeships with their father in high school. Still, both earned their formal architecture degrees–Jeffrey at New York Institute of Technology and Michael at City College of New York–and worked for others before joining MKDA.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MICHAEL AND JEFFREY TAKE OVER LEADERSHIP OF FIRM
Michael would become MKDA’s president as well as partner in 2006, assuming responsibility for the firm’s strategic direction, ongoing business and client development. At the same time, Jeffrey defined his role as MKDA’s partner focusing on new technology, space planning, design and project management. Milo continues to serve MKDA as founder and principal emeritus, providing mentorship and direction to junior staff members.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MKDA OPENS FIRST SATELLITE STUDIO IN STAMFORD
With many companies leaving Manhattan to establish themselves in the suburbs, MKDA opened the firm’s first satellite office in Stamford, Connecticut, in 2006. The firm found a natural fit in Julia Lindh, RA, who opened the studio as “a one (wo)man shop”. Since then, the studio has maintained steady growth with a healthy roster of clients.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MKDA OPENS FIRST SOUTHEASTERN STUDIO IN MIAMI, LAUNCHES ARCHITECTURE STUDIO
The same way it is able to spot hot industries coming to the fore, MKDA knows an emerging market when it sees one. MKDA had long had his sights on Miami and environs, seeing the potential for growth in funky neighborhoods like Wynwood, and in cities like Fort Lauderdale and Coral Gables, where a number of unusual buildings were ripe for refurbishment and repositioning—something Milo built his reputation on with projects like the Childrenswear Building at 100 West 33rd Street. MKDA tasked Amanda Hertzler, NCIDQ, with opening the Florida licensed architectural studio in 2013. In addition to the firm’s core interior design practice, the busy studio today performs inventive ground-up architecture on hospitality, mixed-use, residential, retail and commercial office properties across South Florida and the Caribbean.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MILO KLEINBERG ESTABLISHES MKDA IN NEW YORK
Milo Kleinberg founded MKDA, originally Milo Kleinberg Design Associates, in Manhattan in 1959. Its founding mission was to provide solutions that blended American practicality with European beauty and sophistication, an approach developed from his youth spent in Austria prior to immigrating to Brooklyn.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MILO KLEINBERG BECOMES KING OF THE FASHION DISTRICT
Opportunity appeared inside a vacant Garment District building. Milo persuaded the building’s owner to subdivide a floor to show prospective tenants the potential of the space. Fashion industry executives were so impressed by what they saw that the building was fully rented in six weeks. Suddenly fashion houses that never before hired an interior designer wanted Milo Kleinberg. By the 1960s, Kleinberg was the unofficial “King of the Garment District”.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MILO’S SONS JOIN THE FAMILY BUSINESS
Equally critical to the long-term health of MKDA was the arrival of Kleinberg’s sons Jeffrey in 1975 and Michael in 1978. Not only did they bring another generation’s gift for design to the practice, they took a fresh look at management, market areas and professional services, refining their particular areas of skill and expertise, and complementing each other’s strengths as they quietly transformed the firm their father founded. The brothers had been familiar with MKDA since childhood, having visited the office on weekends and started their apprenticeships with their father in high school. Still, both earned their formal architecture degrees–Jeffrey at New York Institute of Technology and Michael at City College of New York–and worked for others before joining MKDA.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MICHAEL AND JEFFREY TAKE OVER LEADERSHIP OF FIRM
Michael would become MKDA’s president as well as partner in 2006, assuming responsibility for the firm’s strategic direction, ongoing business and client development. At the same time, Jeffrey defined his role as MKDA’s partner focusing on new technology, space planning, design and project management. Milo continues to serve MKDA as founder and principal emeritus, providing mentorship and direction to junior staff members.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MKDA OPENS FIRST SATELLITE STUDIO IN STAMFORD
With many companies leaving Manhattan to establish themselves in the suburbs, MKDA opened the firm’s first satellite office in Stamford, Connecticut, in 2006. The firm found a natural fit in Julia Lindh, RA, who opened the studio as “a one (wo)man shop”. Since then, the studio has maintained steady growth with a healthy roster of clients.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>
MKDA OPENS FIRST SOUTHEASTERN STUDIO IN MIAMI, LAUNCHES ARCHITECTURE STUDIO
The same way it is able to spot hot industries coming to the fore, MKDA knows an emerging market when it sees one. MKDA had long had his sights on Miami and environs, seeing the potential for growth in funky neighborhoods like Wynwood, and in cities like Fort Lauderdale and Coral Gables, where a number of unusual buildings were ripe for refurbishment and repositioning—something Milo built his reputation on with projects like the Childrenswear Building at 100 West 33rd Street. MKDA tasked Amanda Hertzler, NCIDQ, with opening the Florida licensed architectural studio in 2013. In addition to the firm’s core interior design practice, the busy studio today performs inventive ground-up architecture on hospitality, mixed-use, residential, retail and commercial office properties across South Florida and the Caribbean.
– Milo Kleinberg and MKDA: Six Decades in Design >>>