Selected Work

A selection of place-centered approaches to technology with community wisdom, since founding this practice in 2012: products, public engagement campaigns, and civic service design across cities and institutions.

Selected clients & collaborators

Participatory Budgeting Project Project for Public Spaces Pratt Disaster Resilience Network The High Line AIGA New York

…and programs including the U.S. Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program.

Projects

Partial map from the first complete service blueprint of PBP's participatory budgeting process

PBP & Consul Madrid

Product, UX, and digital transformation innovation strategy for the Participatory Budgeting Project in its NYC pilot adaption of Consul, community participation software developed in Madrid. The holistic Wise City approach also helped PBP clarify its business model & mission around digital. Iterative work years after being a founding member of the steering committee that started PB in NYC.

Declare Home concept screens created at Tribeca Hacks Data/Docs Chicago

Declare Home

Design research, product strategy & management, for an app aimed at helping grassroots organizers collaborate easily to build every-day resilience. Connected to the documentary film Cooked: Survival by Zip Code by Judith Helfand, inspired in part by Eric Klinenberg's work on the spatial-social determinants of health and need for better public social infrastructure.

Digital placemaking engagement along the 15km Corredor Verde rail corridor in Cali

Corredor Verde de Cali

Community engagement strategy and placemaking project management (for Project for Public Spaces) on the Corredor Verde de Cali project, a 15 kilometer transit corridor and linear chain of parks in Cali, Colombia — the largest public space and transit-oriented development project in the city's history.

Community asset and visioning workshop in the Rockaways for AIGA/NY Design/Relief

AIGA/NY Design/Relief

Community strategy for a community-centered & place-based design project in the Rockaways of New York City. An AIGA/NY NEA ArtPlace-funded project to demonstrate how graphic design can contribute to the practice of creative placemaking.

Participatory workshop informing the Our Miami Public Space Challenge campaign

Our Miami Public Space Challenge

Public engagement, campaign strategy, and capacity building for The Miami Foundation's mission to increase attachment to place. An online and offline crowdsourcing project for Project for Public Spaces and with IOBY. First of its kind to combine philanthropy and crowdfunding in place-led prioritization and placemaking investment.

Crisis wayfinding signage deployed across the Rockaways after Hurricane Sandy (photo by Lucky Tran)

Crisis Wayfinding Post-Hurricane

Agile service design for Hurricane Sandy recovery — designing, producing, and deploying wayfinding for communities in the Rockaways grappling with survival and recovery amidst minimal city social services. A project with Not An Alternative and Pratt Disaster Resilience Network. Socially Engaged Art Practice artfacts now in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Selected Talks & Workshops

From the White House and the United Nations to biennale keynotes and national smart-cities programs — a selection from 30+ invited talks, workshops, and courses across 11 countries on four continents.

Government & Policy

  • "Strategies & Innovations for Outreach" — Community-Led Participatory Budgeting in the U.S., Office of Science & Technology Policy, The White House, Washington D.C. 2014
  • Civic-technology masterclasses for the Australian Government's Smart Cities and Suburbs Program, with Cities Leadership Institute — Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne 2017
  • "Digital Placemaking & Moving to Place-Based Governance" — Moscow Higher School of Economics & Moscow City Planning Department 2014

International Institutions

  • "Digital Placemaking Community Strategies for the Corredor Verde" — UN-Habitat World Urban Forum, Medellín 2014
  • "Authentic Digital Engagement" — UN-Habitat Building Cities Through Social Media, United Nations Headquarters, New York 2012
  • "Mission 2062" workshop on cultural institutions in civic engagement — British Council, La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris 2012
  • "Collaboratively Drafting a Tech for Engagement Manifesto" — Knight Foundation Technology for Engagement Summit at MIT, Cambridge 2012

Teaching & Academy

  • "Digital Placemaking," Crowdsource City course — Columbia University GSAPP, New York 2011
  • Urban Interaction Design studio course — University of New South Wales Built Environment, Sydney 2017
  • Digital Placemaking masters mini-course, three editions — Moscow School of Social & Economic Sciences 2015–2017

Keynotes & Field Conferences

  • Digital Placemaking keynote — Digital Publics Symposium, Media Architecture Biennale, Sydney 2016
  • Keynote on Internet of Things & Digital Placemaking — Professional Lighting Design Convention (PLDC), Rome 2015
  • "A Manifesto for Standard Place-Led Metrics" workshops — Placemaking Week, Amsterdam 2017
  • "From Smart Cities to Wise Cities" — Ashoka Future Forum, Washington D.C. 2013
  • Community capacity for #smartcity, #datajustice & #humanrights panel — RightsCon, Toronto 2018
  • "Smart City vs Wise City: Tech Politics & Digital Placemaking" — American Planning Association New York Technology Committee 2021

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