Larson has practiced architecture in New York City since 1981: in partnership with Peter L. Gluck from 1981 to 1995, and as Kent Larson Architects, PC from 1995 to present. His firm was selected as one of The Architectural Digest’s 100 Architects for residential design. His architectural design work as partner-in-charge has been published in Architectural Record, Global Architecture (GA), Progressive Architecture, Architectural Digest, House and Garden, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He was awarded an AIA Award for the design of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, and was selected as a winner of the American Institute of Architects Florida Headquarters Design Competition of 1980. The 1982 project, Pavilions and Pool at a Mies van der Rohe House in Weston, CT, has been widely published and won numerous awards.

Larson is Founder and Director of the MIT Digital Design Lab, which focuses on architectural research and design using digital tools and the development of new techniques for the visualization of space. He is technology consultant to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. He is currently the director of an MIT research project called “The Unbuilt” to create hyper-realistic simulations of visionary architecture of the 20th Century. This work is now being exhibited in the largest architectural show ever attempted, “The End of the Century,” which opened in Tokyo in 1998 and travels to South America, Europe, and the United States through 2001.

Since 1990, Larson has written for the architectural press on the use of advanced digital tools for architectural design and inquiry. His article, “A Virtual Landmark,” published in Progressive Architecture in 1993, was funded by two grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. This work, described as a “stunning act of digital cyber architecture” was selected by Time Magazine as a “Best Design of the Year” project. Kent Larson’s Digital Visualization work has also been featured in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Progressive Architecture, Architecture Magazine, I.D. (The International Design Magazine), OPEN: Redefining Creativity in the Digital Age, Interior Design, “Interiors: Computers and Design” (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.). The essays, “Digital Light and Space” and “A Balance of the Perceptual and Conceptual” and introduction to “Hyper-Realistic: Computer Generated Architectural Renderings,” were published by Rockport Press. His book, Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks, is published by the Monacelli Press, with a foreword by Vincent Scully and afterword by William J. Mitchell. This material was the focus of a winter 1998 exhibition, “Design for the Spirit,” at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Kent Larson curated a winter 1999 exhibition called “Unbuilt Ruins” at MIT’s Compton Gallery. The exhibition will travel to the University of Pennsylvania, the Palladio Center in Vicenza, Italy, and other venues.