An Unabashed Plannerd

I believe that the physical design and amenities of a city deeply impact how well citizens can thrive individually and collectively as a community. I believe that cities should be planned and developed with critical consideration for how it positively and negatively affects citizens of all means, backgrounds, and abilities, and their potential to lead healthy, productive, meaningful, and well-connected lives.

Affordable Housing Fosters Hope

With some of my grad school classmates, I submitted an affordable housing project proposal for the Bank of America Low Income Housing Challenge. We proposed the development of a 99-unit affordable apartment project that would serve residents in Montclair, California. In the project development process, I had the privilege of interviewing current affordable housing residents, most of whom were kids. Their collective story conveyed that that well designed affordable housing is more than a financially feasible roof over one's head; rather, it has the potential to become a supportive community that fosters hope, peace and the path towards upward mobility.

Designing a User-Centered Bus Ride

In my quest to find out if design thinking can be used to create better designed user-centered cities, I conducted a study, via IDEO University, where I applied design thinking strategies to public transportation. My IDEO course, Insights to Innovation, guided my study through five steps: observation, identification of extremes, interviewing, empathizing, and insights. The mind maps linked below memorialize each of those steps and my findings.