Hunter Kennedy was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina. An Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Interdisciplinary degree in 1992. He studied studio art in Florence, Italy and at the Vermont Studio Center. After college, he relocated to Austin, Texas where he spent three years working in cabinet shops and at a small bronze foundry before enrolling in the Masters of Architecture program at Rice University in 1995. In the summer of 1996, he worked at the architecture firm of Robert A.M. Stern. While in New York City, other opportunities presented themselves, and what was initially a short break from the Rice Masters Program turned into a five year sabbatical from architecture. After returning to South Carolina in the fall of 2001, he spent over five years as a residential designer at Beau Clowney Design, where he worked on a variety of historic renovation and new construction projects in downtown Charleston and the surrounding islands. He founded the residential design firm KDS in 2007, where he is currently principal designer.