Mercedes Narciso

Mercedes is a registered architect and urban planning consultant and has been teaching at Pratt since 2009. From 1990 to 2008, she worked as a Assistant Director of Community Planning / Senior Planner and Project Manager at the Pratt Center for Community Development where she provided technical assistance in planning and development to different community-based groups and other stakeholders throughout New York City to improve their neighborhoods quality of life, address issues of inequality and promote sustainable development. Currently, she is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, and a Pratt Diversity Advocate.

With extensive practice in community planning, Mercedes has assisted numerous local organizations in the coordination and preparation of community-based plans, analysis of rezoning actions and other environmental review processes, working closely with local stakeholders, institutions, city agencies and elected officials.

Since 2012, Mercedes works as an urban planning consultant for the Collective for Community, Culture and Environment, LLC, a women-owned and operated consulting business and interdisciplinary professional network, who collaborate to further economic resiliency, cultural diversity, public health, social justice and environmental sustainability. She served as a one of the Project Managers for the Plan for Chinatown and Surrounding Areas, developed in 2013 by the Collective in partnership with the Pratt Center for Community Development for the Chinatown Working Group. She has also worked on other CCCE planning and research projects.
As an architect, Mercedes is experienced in building design and construction rehabilitation of affordable housing in New York City. She holds an M.S in Architecture and an M.S. in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela.

M.S. Pratt Institute City and Regional Planning – 2000
M.S. Pratt Institute Architecture – 1982
B.A. Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela, Architecture – 1979