Faculty

Profile

Kimberly Serrano Tate (she/they/we) is an architectural designer, embodied design researcher–practitioner, educator, and culture builder whose work bridges Leyte, Philippines and Lenapehoking/Brooklyn, New York. Her interdisciplinary practice explores how material knowledge, somatic inquiry, play, and community co-design can cultivate belonging, expand cultural imagination, and advance more just and regenerative approaches to design across homeland–diaspora contexts.

She is the founder of Bambulawan, a bamboo architectural craft and design-build studio rooted in Burauen, Leyte. Centering bamboo as both architectural material and cultural technology, Bambulawan develops natural building, craft, and community-centered projects while cultivating local capacity, strengthening ecological knowledge, and laying foundations for regenerative bamboo livelihoods in the region. Working alongside artisans, youth, cultural workers, and community partners, the studio explores how contemporary design can support cultural regeneration, climate resilience, and meaningful exchange between homeland and diaspora.

Tate is also the creator of DANCITECTURE, a movement-based design practice that uses contemplative somatic inquiry, collective ritual, and improvised spatial environments to explore embodied intelligence, memory, grief, joy, and belonging. Her collaborative work has included programs with NAPISEV (National Organization of Asians and Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence), Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts, Walang Hiya NYC, Moving Rasa, and other community-based organizations in New York and the Philippines.

At Parsons School of Design, Tate teaches BFA and MFA Interior Design studios centered on embodied design, sensory experience, culturally situated frameworks, co-design, and community-rooted approaches to spatial justice and cultural renewal. Her pedagogy invites students to understand design not simply as the production of spaces and objects, but as a practice of relationship—between bodies, materials, places, communities, and histories.

Degrees Held

M. Arch Parsons School of Design, The New School

BA, University of Missouri 

Recent Publications

Design Makes Sense. 2025. “Kimberly Tate.” August 1, 2025. https://www.designmakessense.org/kimberly-tate

"Parcon in the Park," written in collaboration with Andrew Suseno. Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly, Issue 24, SOMATICS, by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, Summer 2018

"Feeling into Deep Ancestry: Holding my Child While the Earth is Holding Me," Kultivating Kapwa: Decolonizing Parenthood Episode 3.15, Center for Babaylan Studies podcast, 6 March 2022

Performances and Appearances

Tandang Sora Project with Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts, part the Monument Lab Re:Generation project (2022)

DANCITECTURE #16: Labyrinth for Embodied Dreaming, Parkside Plaza, Brooklyn (2019)

Village Matriarchs Sanctuary of Rest and Dreaming, Common Field Convening (2021)

Research Interests

Embodied & Somatic Design

• Embodied design methodologies
• Somatics and movement-based inquiry
• Trauma-informed and healing-centered pedagogy

Material & Ecological Research

• Bamboo craft, cultural technology, and material ecologies
• Natural and earth-based building practices
• Bioregional heritage and climate-resilient design

Cultural & Decolonial Practice

• Decolonial and culturally rooted design frameworks
• Homeland–diaspora exchange and cross-regional knowledge transmission
• Cultural regeneration and intergenerational storytelling

Community & Social Innovation

• Community co-design and participatory spatial practices
• BIPOC/AAPI/Filipinx community wellness
• Social innovation in rural and diasporic contexts

Spatial, Artistic & Experiential Work

• Architecture, interiority, and spatial justice
• Installation, public art, and performance
• Experiential and sensory design

Awards And Honors

Tishman Environment and Design Faculty Grant

Laudromat Project Create Change Fellowship

SVA Design for Social Innovation, Designer in Residence

Portfolio

Bambulawan

kimberlytate.com

dancitecture.com