Rigor, care, and informed optimism in practice
I've led research for a strategic vision and brand narrative for an 1,000+ acre park in a rapidly growing city through a mixed-method, multi-sensory and community-centered approach, to placing employee well-being at the forefront in the future of restaurant design for a large, global corporation.
I am a design researcher at IDEO — a global design and innovation company with a mission to create a sustainable, equitable and prosperous future. I oversee the research process that weaves together the needs and stories of clients, stakeholders, and research participants through actionable insights that directly inform strategy and design solutions. My work spans across clients from different domains: climate, urban systems, financial services, food, health, and media and technology.
There is always room to collectively build spaces and conditions of healing, care, repair, justice, and joy.
A PALIMPSEST APPROACH
/ˈpaləm(p)ˌsest/
noun
a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.
something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
PROCESS
AUDITING THE CATALOG
I use the three categories of (1) speculative, (2) generative, and (3) restorative as a guiding roadmap for categorization, juxtaposition, and distillation of the different sources and material in research.
Originally used to sift through research specific to the built environment, these three categories are not meant to silo off the work into the category I placed them in.
The original purpose of this roadmap was to offer one way to make sense of architecture’s responsibility, capability, and constraints when tackling issues around equity and climate change.
SPECULATIVE
Primarily exploratory with the quality of ephemerality whether expressed physically in the environment as a temporary structure or a provocation or criticism through publications
GENERATIVE
Ongoing built work or a framework that intends to put the speculative work into action and practice
RESTORATIVE
Projects and initiatives with the explicitly purpose of healing and/or repairing either in day-to-day discriminatory practices and/or larger structural inequities
SENSEMAKING PROCESS
SENSE-MAKING IS FORM ASSEMBLING
I think of the design and research as a topography — one that has a shape, a landscape, and therefore, deeply grounded in the foundation of context through the history, politics, and social issues of our everyday lives.
Gathering, synthesis, translation, and praxis are the four foundational containers I build my design and research practice on. Below, I provide what each concept means, and the context on how each can be applied as part of a process in design research.
01 GATHERING
02 SYNTHESIS
03 TRANSLATION
04 PRAXIS
