James Ramsey is a designer, architect, and inventor. As principal of RAAD and creator of the Lowline, James has founded a firm that holds true to the traditional idea that design should remain informed by the craft of building and shaping materials. James’ intellectual energy and creative drive emanate through his life and his work.

James studied architecture at Yale University where he won a Bates Fellowship to study cathedral design in Europe. He then went to work as a satellite engineer for NASA, an integral part of the team that created the Pluto Fast Flyby and the Cassini satellites.

James founded RAAD in 2004. RAAD now consists of three divisions—products, architecture and urban design. James closely oversees each of these aspects and personally holds several patents for inventions. His products range from mobius-loop furniture to modernist chicken coops, to even a line of shoes named after him for Hermes, while his architectural work runs the gamut from luxury residential work to institutional scale commercial projects across the world. RAAD’s recently launched urban design division focuses on creating community-driven green spaces in some of New York’s most congested neighborhoods.

The Lowline is a plan to use innovative solar technology to convert an historic trolley terminal on the Lower East Side of New York City into the world’s first underground park. Specifically for the project, Ramsey created a “remote skylight” a solar technology whereby sunlight passes through a parabolic collector and is directed underground. The technology transmits the necessary wavelengths of light to support photosynthesis, enabling plants and trees to grow. In October 2015, Ramsey and his team opened The Lowline Lab in an abandoned warehouse on Essex Street, which has seen more than 50,000 visitors to date.

James is an expert at North-Mississippi-style guitar.  An avid and accomplished chef, he has been featured in Bon Appétit and selected for the NYC Burger Championship. Besides being a card-carrying member of the New York Mycological Society, the Origami USA organization, as well as several Paleontology societies, James is a guest lecturer in architecture at Yale, the Chicago Ideas Conference, Columbia, Bloomberg Design Awards, The Genius Gala, New York’s Tenement Museum, and Google.