eDesign Dynamics is a New York environmental engineering and planning firm founded in 2002, with its main office on West 35th Street in Manhattan and a second office in Pittsburgh. Green stormwater infrastructure is the core business: design, monitoring and construction management for public agencies, nonprofits, universities and design firms. It practices as Montalto & Rothstein Engineering, DPC. The firm designed the North End Recirculation System in Central Park, a $35.7 million buried loop of pumps, filters and pipe tying the Pool, the Loch and Harlem Meer together for the Central Park Conservancy, DEP and NYC Parks. Work began in September and it’s due in fall 2028. The goal is to stop topping up the lakes with city drinking water.
The client list is the quickest route to understanding what eDesign Dynamics gets hired to do. On the public-agency side it names the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Parks and Recreation, City Planning, the Economic Development Corporation and the Mayor’s Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability, plus the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the City of Newark, the City of Rye, the Borough of Roosevelt and the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program. Alongside those sit large engineering houses, including AECOM, HDR, Stantec and Woodard & Curran, and landscape and urban design firms such as James Corner Field Operations, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Thomas Balsley Associates and WXY. A third tier covers institutions and advocacy groups: Columbia, Cornell, the Cooper Union Research Foundation, Riverkeeper, NY/NJ Baykeeper and the Greater Newark Conservancy.
That mix explains how the practice is organised. The firm runs five lines of work: water resources modeling, planning and design; habitat restoration and assessment; green stormwater infrastructure; resilience planning and design; and international development, with ecosystem design and analysis running through all of them.
The stormwater portfolio is largely programmatic rather than one-off. It includes a task-order contract for green infrastructure designs in New York City public schools, construction management for on-site green infrastructure at city Parks and NYCHA properties, a research and development project for DEP, the Brooklyn green infrastructure design guidelines, bioswales on the 6th Street Green Corridor in Gowanus, stormwater improvements at Green-Wood Cemetery, a stormwater management plan for Allegheny Commons in Pittsburgh, and long-term control plan feasibility work for Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Combined sewer overflow studies around the Gowanus Canal run in parallel.
Habitat and coastal work is the second large block: salt marsh and freshwater wetland design at Muscota Marsh, Gansevoort Peninsula, Ferry Point Park and Roberto Clemente State Park, a living shoreline at Maritime Park planted with smooth cordgrass, coastal habitat restoration along the Jersey City shoreline, and framework and master plans for Sojourner Truth State Park and Manresa Island Park. Flood and resilience assignments include Hunts Point Lifelines under Rebuild by Design, Captiva Island climate resiliency, FEMA-compliance hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, and EPA technical assistance work in Newburgh, the South Bronx, St. Croix and Culebra.
The international practice is genuinely international: water resources planning in Achham, Nepal; a rainwater capture and supply system in Rwanda; a terraced wetland treatment system in Sao Paulo; constructed wetlands in the Venice Lagoon; master planning at Qianhai Harbor in China; and a regional water-contamination risk analysis in Kerala, India supporting the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program.
Twenty-two staff are listed in house, with eleven outside collaborators and a small graphics and production group alongside them. Franco Montalto, PE, PhD is president and principal engineer, Theo Barbagianis, PE is managing partner, Eric Rothstein is senior partner, and Amanda Bayley, RLA directs habitat restoration; further PhD, PG and EIT credentials appear through the rest of the roster. Besides the two listed offices, the contact page routes staff in Philadelphia and in Ethiopia through New York.
