Alumni Spotlight: Francisco “Pancho” Brown MDes ’20

“Change will only happen if we include people that don’t come from hegemonic forms of power and influence, yet are disproportionately affected by structural outcomes.”

— Francisco “Pancho” Brown MDes ’20

We recently spoke with Francisco “Pancho” Brown MDes ’20. Pancho is a Nicaraguan designer and creative consultant with experience in humanitarian and commercial architecture, journalism, and research. Pancho is a co-founder of MICROPOLITAN Studio, an art and design collective connecting the built environment with human stories through design, architecture, and art practices. He has served on design juries at Yale University, CUNY, Boston College, the Michael Graves School of Architecture, and the Wentworth Institute of Technology, where he led an Interdisciplinary Studio in 2021. Currently, Pancho is the Director of Communications at Sage and Coombe Architects.

How did the Master in Design Studies (MDes) program suit your academic goals?

Before the GSD, I already had a Bachelor’s in Architecture and a graduate degree in Sustainable Architecture. I was working in the design field, which is the type of person the MDes program is often aimed toward. Essentially, MDes is a non-studio, research-based two-year program. Besides a couple of core classes, students are able to build their own curriculum. We had options to take classes at Harvard and MIT that were closely related to very specific interests. The diversity of classes gave us constant opportunities to collaborate with other students from different cohorts with overlapping areas of expertise. This multidisciplinary nature highlights how important it is for students to work collectively and to rely on different fields for their work, because that’s how they will practice in the field anyways.

How did you begin parsing out what courses you would select and what research you would pursue at the GSD?

I knew what I wanted to learn more about, and everything else came down to receiving guidance from my professors and making use of the available resources.

When selecting my courses, I was curious about understanding the relation of power dynamics in the US and design, in addition to learning about real estate, graphic design, and urbanism. I was able to take classes on storytelling and communication design that were fundamental to constructing and sequencing ideas. I took some classes focused around technology—I’m not a tech person, but I felt the need to understand the basics because I wanted to collaborate with really sophisticated and talented technologists.

For my research, I studied the relationships between existing buildings and co-working spaces, and the effect that WeWork and co-working culture has had on the digital environment, the real estate market, interior design, and retrofitting technology into culture. I worked with a lot of professors who had their own startups and research on monitoring people in offices.

What were some of the insights that you gathered from that work?

The aspects of the work spaces I studied were intentionally selected to perform in a particular way, responding to a very sophisticated bottom line and integrated system. Thanks to access to technologies like 3D scanning and BIM (Building Information Modeling), these coworking companies were able to retrofit office spaces very quickly. If retrofitting a regular office space in New York City took nine months to a year, these teams were able to do it in two or three months. It was really interesting how they utilized the latest technologies to deliver a functional, cheap, and relatively attractive product.

At its core, [I found that] the co-working business model was not exactly about sharing a single space, which was the origin of co-working spaces. From my research, I got the impression that WeWork and other corporate co-working spaces understood that they wouldn’t make money through the sum of their parts as a space, but through renting single “fishbowl” units. Therefore, the more subdivided a space was, the more money they would make. That’s why you ended up with these dense fishbowls looking like Starbucks designed by West Elm. In 2019, I was doing my research on WeWork when their IPO went out and then crashed, because it was grossly overvalued and due to the controversial behavior of its leadership. On top of that, the pandemic happened, so nobody was using these workspaces. During this time, I also struggled with my own mental health and time management to finish the research, which, in the end, became more of a graphic essay than a full-fledged research book.

This work opened my eyes to the future aspects of adaptive reuse and retrofit in architecture. Office space design has always been defined by current modes of production, technological advancements, and real estate, and these same dynamics are now changing and adapting to new office design landscapes across cities in America.

How has your experience been so far working at Sage and Coombe?

Working as the Director of Communications [at Sage and Coombe] is fascinating and challenging because I’ve always been attracted to the culture of architecture, especially public architecture. It’s exciting to be in a position to tell the story of how public design changes people’s lives for the better. We all feel very proud of our work, and with the idea that anyone can enjoy our libraries, parks, and public restrooms. Sage and Coombe is a small studio that specializes in civic and public architecture. For the last 30 years, Jennifer Sage AB ’78 and Peter Coombe MArch ’88 have been working on projects that were truly exciting to me, including The Noguchi Museum, which, in my opinion, is one of the best adaptive reuse projects in New York. They’ve also been working on a prototype of public bathrooms throughout the city. Projects like these are not only about how something looks, but how it performs—how they impact and affect their immediate communities and ecosystems and how they can mitigate the damaging outcomes that careless architecture has had in our city.

Working with Peter and Jennifer and a team of 20 architects, I learned how to tell this story of impact and being able to quantify that impact—all of these things have been fundamental in shaping my own practice. For example, we just won, together with EHDD, a public competition to design the new Hudson River Park Estuarium Research and Educational Center because of our extensive experience designing beautiful and sound public projects.

You also started MICROPOLITAN Studio with GSD alumni—how did that idea come to fruition?

We were all part of the MDes program in different concentrations. Jimmy Pan MDes ’20 was pursuing the concentration on Risk and Resilience, Delara Rahim MDes ’20 was doing her concentration on Art, Design, and the Public Domain, and I was working in Critical Conservation. Our paths never fully crossed through school, but we were good friends because two of us were neighbors. Then, we were all in the same place during the pandemic, and we realized that we were so different but had a willingness to help each other, so combining our skill sets made perfect sense.

It was an interesting time because we graduated in 2020, so everyone’s plans completely vanished. After wrapping up this amazing academic experience, we decided to open our own art and design collective using our design knowledge, our passion for public spaces and adaptive reuse, and our skills in technology visualization, data, and fabrication. A year later, we were selected to be part of the New Museum’s NEW INC cohort. Having access to the most incredible network of art and culture makers in the region was crucial for our growth as a collective.

We recently signed our LLC, so now things are feeling more real, and our dreams are slowly becoming a reality. As cliche as it sounds, in an environment like the GSD, meeting peers is really the best part. Students were always my biggest source of inspiration, motivation, and knowledge.

Do you think it’s important for alumni to remain a part of the GSD community?

Yes—it’s a gold mine of knowledge. I think the GSD, along with a lot of academic centers across the US, are working on changing the world. Investing time and being a part of the solution is why we’re all in this field.

You need a lot of hope to be a designer. The GSD in particular is full of people with very different backgrounds, most of whom landed there because they share a critical vision of change in design. Today more than ever, every design field must critically examine the structural problems with social and racial equity and climate change in our cities and communities. If we want to make changes to centers of power, like Harvard, we have to put ourselves in conversations, at the table, and so forth. Change will only happen if we include people that don’t come from hegemonic forms of power and influence, yet are disproportionately affected by structural outcomes.

How are designers leaders, and why is it important that designers continue to step up as leaders?

Design is a profession where you’re obliged to see things through multiple lenses. You need to think about things through performance and functionality and beauty and marketplace and fabrication. And then you need to collaborate with a lot of people to get things done.

Essentially, design is human: human culture, human functionality, human views, human accessibility, human friendly, human unfriendly. You can inflict an enormous amount of pain generationally when you redline cities that were designed a certain way, and you can undo [some of that pain] by pursuing design in ways that are extremely accessible and permeable and transparent to everyone. So for me, design leadership is having powerful and effective tools to reimagine and manifest a better world—especially for underrepresented communities and depleted ecosystems.

You can learn more about Pancho’s work and leadership below:

MICROPOLITAN Studio is currently in the process of preparing a group exhibition with NEW INC in June that looks at the relationship between risk and playground designs in the US.

Alumni Spotlight: Corey Zehngebot MArch ’09

“You can be an ambitious person who’s had a robust professional career, but also be self-aware enough to know when you need to take a break—because of whatever is happening in the world or in your life. The choice was clear to me once I sat down and really thought hard about what the best decision was, and I don’t want to be self-conscious or apologetic about that.”

— Corey Zehngebot MArch ’09

We are continuing to share conversations we have had with several of our alumni, each of whom pursued different areas of study at the GSD and have gone on to lead impactful careers in design.

We recently spoke with Corey Zehngebot, AIA, AICP, MArch ’09. Corey is an urban designer, architect, and planner. She has worked for the past 20 years in both the public and private sectors and remains captivated by cities. Most recently, Corey worked as the Director of Urban Design at Graffito SP, a consultancy that works with landlords, tenants, and developers focused on ground floor activation of mixed-use projects. Prior to joining Graffito, Corey worked as a Senior Urban Designer and Architect for the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA, formerly the Boston Redevelopment Authority). Corey has also worked as a senior urban designer, architect, and planner for Utile in Boston. In addition, she has taught at Harvard and MIT, and served as a design critic at many area colleges and universities. She received a B.A. with distinction from Yale University and a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Corey is currently a member of the GSD Alumni Council.

When did you know that you wanted to pursue a career in design?

I wasn’t one of the people who knew from birth. I took a long, roundabout way to figure it out. In college, I double majored in behavioral neuroscience and history of art, but I was very interested in architecture. Also, I went to Yale, which has two of the best designed art museums in the country: The Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art—the latter of which, in particular, was one of the first buildings where I really understood how design can profoundly impact the way people feel about space.

After college, I got a job working in master planning and construction at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This museum is a classical stone civic building that sits in a park, not unlike The Met in New York City, and it was embarking on a large-scale expansion project. I was part of the in-house team that was working with the architects and landscape architects; I had always struggled to figure out how to combine the sciences with the arts until I had a front row seat to this design process. The proverbial light switch flipped on in my head, and I thought: “This might be something that I want to do.”

You studied architecture, but have gone more into planning, correct?

I’m both an architect and a planner. Ultimately, I consider myself an urban designer in the sense that I’m very interested in the buildings themselves, but I’m more interested in how they operate within the space of the city. My focus has been in urban design, meaning the space between buildings and the first floor of those buildings—the public spaces that most people in cities would occupy and interact with.

I could care less about curtain walls and detailing certain aspects of a building; I want to play a role in creating the space of the city. I like to think about how buildings meet the sky and how the buildings meet the ground, and if they don’t meet the ground in a way that is sensitive to a vibrant urban context, then they’re failures to me.

Is there a specific GSD experience that you look back on as significant in shaping how you practice now?

Exploring other curricular options in my final two years [at the GSD] was really important to me, which does mirror how I approach things today. I took two high-level option studios where I traveled to Mumbai and São Paulo. In both cases, I was very deliberate in not choosing to take an architecture studio. I took an urban design studio and a landscape architecture studio. My final year, I took a course called Real Property at Harvard Business School and a course on smart cities and transportation at MIT. [At the GSD] I took a Field Studies in Real Estate course with students in other disciplines. It was a team-based project, and I worked with people in the real estate program who built financial modeling for projects. In many ways, that course most closely resembles what I ultimately wound up doing.

Could you talk a bit about your practice or projects that you have worked on?

I left working at the city of Boston Planning and Development Agency to join a firm called Graffito, which is predominately a retail broker but was expanding its consulting practice into advising on early-phase development projects. I was advising developers, architects, and consultant teams that were working on large-scale development projects on the design of the ground floor and how it interfaces with the public realm.

I have pretty extensive knowledge of the city of Boston at this point, because I worked more than six years for the city. When you’re in government, you know all of the projects that are in the pipeline, many of which may not be publicly known. They’re still percolating in that pre-permitting stage. My approach to the work involved trying to connect the dots between projects that might be proximate to one another and to other city initiatives, while thinking about how best to create a well-designed, high-quality, consistent, and safe public realm. At Graffito, I was really able to get into the specific uses on the ground floor of these projects—both retail and, as the firm liked to call it, “non-retail ground floor active spaces.” Everything from libraries to COVID testing sites (at the time) to uses related to the arts. There are a lot of creative professionals like architects that prefer to operate out of a storefront location, as opposed to being in some commercial office tower way up in the sky. All of these uses bring vibrancy and life to the street. I would summarize the mission statement of the firm as “using ground floor space as a way to create value rather than revenue.”

How are you spending your time lately?

I’m taking a self-imposed sabbatical at the moment. I prefer the term sabbatical as it implies both intellectual pursuit and an endpoint. I’ve been working for 20 years, basically, nonstop, and I really needed a break. For me, it was more about the physical burnout than the mental burnout. Between two kids, working, teaching, and a global pandemic, I was exhausted. But I also had gotten to a point where I was reviewing development projects that I had seen earlier iterations of years prior because I had been working in government for so many years, and it was becoming difficult for me to get excited about some of these projects. That was another clear indication that I needed to step away.

Being on sabbatical has given me time to reflect and take care of myself, which was long overdue. I’ve done an enormous amount of reading about social injustice, race, feminism, and parenting. I have two young daughters; when they’re little, their needs are very custodial. But they’re getting older, and this time has given me an opportunity to recalibrate how I approach parenting.

What would you say to fellow alumni about your experience taking a sabbatical? Specifically, how has it been valuable for your life and career moving forward?

I don’t feel old or wise enough to impart wisdom, but I can offer my perspective, which is that my sabbatical has allowed me to see my career as a number of different chapters. I really subscribe to the notion of a nonlinear career path, and I think that my interest in design and cities is very broad; it’s become clear to me that I can enter the field from a number of different angles. To young people, I would say: The first job you have (or whatever job you’re currently in) is probably not going to be the only job you’ll ever have. I’ve found it’s a useful framework to think about the things you learn in school or on the job as seeds being planted that may not bear fruit for a long, long time, until the conditions are just right—even though that can be really frustrating.

I would like to note that I’m extraordinarily privileged to be able to make the decision to take a sabbatical. Architecture as a profession does not compensate people nearly as well as it should, and I know that there are many folks out there who are burdened by substantial loans and may not have the luxury of being able to take time off.

What happens to our society if initiative and progress in the design world stop moving forward?

As I said, I have two daughters, and I’m fearful that they’re going to grow up in a world where they have fewer personal freedoms than I did. On one hand, it’s important to advocate for and acknowledge how important design is to the world. But on the other hand, we’re living in a moment where many are realizing that the world’s problems are enormous and we’re all trying to put out fires left and right. I am a pathological optimist and don’t want to be dramatically pessimistic, but I worry that if the bottom falls out for a while, we’re going to have bigger problems. That said, I think there is much more awareness and acknowledgment about the value of design—certainly among sophisticated developers. They absolutely appreciate and understand the value of design, and they’re much more inclined to hire skilled and competent designers. “Value of design” is now a phrase that has infiltrated other discourses (like in business schools) and other spaces where that vocabulary didn’t always exist.

Do you see designers as leaders?

Absolutely. Designers have the ability to visualize tangible outcomes, which can inspire all sorts of people. They are trained to take in diverse information, synthesize it, and come up with a solution that’s tangible in the world. It is truly a remarkable skill set. I think that designers are recognizing that in order to show leadership, they have to speak multiple vocabularies and know how to operate in diverse contexts in order for what they’re saying to resonate with people.

The younger generation of architects has shown tremendous leadership around big issues like climate change, resiliency, and social justice—even with projects that are not generating money, or projects that people are pursuing independently because they feel that they’re important.

Alumni Spotlight: Kotchakorn Voraakhom MLA ’06

“Nature is changing, the climate is changing, and so we, too, need to change. We must understand that fixed definitions of nature from the past no longer apply in this era of uncertainty we are confronting. Climate change is causing cities to sink, and our current infrastructure is making us even more vulnerable to severe flooding. What if we could design cities to work with nature instead of against it?”

— Kotchakorn Voraakhom

Over the next couple of months, we are continuing to share conversations with several of our alumni, each of whom pursued different areas of study at the GSD and are now leading impactful careers in design.

We recently spoke with Kotchakorn (Kotch) Voraakhom MLA ’06. Kotch is the founder and lead designer of the award-winning landscape architecture and urban design firm LANDPROCESS, where she’s working to improve Thailand’s public spaces and solve urban ecological problems through landscape architectural design. During the spring 2023 semester, Kotch is also a design critic in Landscape Architecture at the GSD and is co-teaching the Option Studio BANGKOK REMADE with Niall Kirkwood, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Technology and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

Kotch’s recent work spans a major urban ecological park at the heart of Bangkok and numerous innovative public landscape designs. She’s a Chairwoman of the Climate Change Working Group of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA World) and a 2018 TED Fellow. The United Nations honored Kotch as a winner of the 2020 UN Global Climate Action Awards: Women for Results.

How did you hear about the GSD and what drew you to apply?

In Thailand, I studied landscape architecture at Chulalongkorn University. After graduating, I got a chance to work in the U.S. for a couple of years—which is quite hard to do as an international student, so I was very lucky. My landscape architecture profession started in the U.S. at Sasaki. My boss at the time, Alistair McIntosh, is on faculty at the GSD, and my professor Pornpun Futrakul MLA ’77 had graduated from the GSD, so I heard great stories about their experiences. The GSD seemed like a commonality among many people I looked up to, which made me think, “If I really want to be a great landscape architect, maybe the GSD is the answer.”

Was there a certain experience that you look back on as being helpful in finding the right practice?

A huge turning point was meeting my peers at the GSD. We were all questioning our place within the profession, and six of us founded an organization called the Kounkuey Design Initiative. It felt like my dream job to work for those in need of our services, rather than those who hired us for services they wanted. So, we wrote a proposal for a grant through the Penny White Project Fund—and we got it.

This was around 15 years ago—it’s remarkable, looking back. It wouldn’t have been possible without the platform the GSD provided; it wouldn’t have been possible without meeting the right people, [who became] my colleagues and friends.

Why is it so important to learn about the various cultures you’re serving when trying to come up with new design solutions?

We’re designing for humans, right? If we want to understand the needs of the people we’re designing for, we have to go and listen to them. We have to experience their culture, their food, their language—even if it’s just for a short period of time. Each unique site is so specific, and every project can vary dramatically depending on the location.

That’s why the option studios were such a great learning opportunity [at the GSD]. They gave us the chance to learn about another culture through real hands-on experience. Culture, climate, and people can vary drastically, and something that works in one country might not work in another. I feel that is what’s lacking in much of our practice. We talk to our clients, or whoever is paying us, but we don’t talk to the real stakeholders, who are the people being impacted by our work.

What goals and objectives did you have in mind when starting your current practice, LANDPROCESS?

There’s no “land process” without “people process.” I am very excited about the possible solutions for climate-vulnerable communities. I’m excited for the challenges that my team and I will face, even though they are very serious. For example, I’m from Bangkok; Thailand is [one of the 10 most] flood-affected countries in the world. Every year, our land sinks and goes missing because of rising sea levels. New buildings mean nothing if entire cities flood and sink in the near future.

The point that we are at now is “adapt or die.” The work that we are doing is helping to shift cities to a carbon-neutral future by prioritizing livelihood and utilizing neglected spaces.

Utilizing neglected spaces—can you expand on that?

Forgotten and unused spaces, like rooftops, can present opportunities to make a city more useful for everyone. My team at Thammasat University, working alongside the surrounding communities, has achieved this. We created the largest urban rooftop farm in Asia. The idea for this project was derived from the wisdom of landscapes of the past, when people used rice terraces to harvest the rain from the mountainous area.

Our goals for the project were to relieve flash floods and turn the urban heat island effect into clean energy. One solution [for flooding] was implementing a flood roof, equipped with rainwater tanks that are designed to flood, allowing water to flow up and down. Solar panels on the roof create clean energy, pumping out water from the retention pond, and gravity slows down the runoff to prevent flooding.

What would you say is the biggest worry or concern you have in your field right now?

The biggest global concern is climate change, by far. Thailand has tried to tackle its flooding problems by building higher and higher dams, but this is not the right solution because dams will eventually cause more problems.

There are 7,000 fishermen in villages along the coast of Thailand. These Thai people are not allowed to stay in their country, because their homes have been built into what’s now the ocean. These villages are in the most dangerous part of Thailand, next to Cambodia, so the people who live there have nowhere to go. The government has forced everyone in the villages to be displaced.

My work now is addressing these problems by helping villages design viable solutions and negotiate with the government. We were able to get the government to commit to a housing credit with UN-Habitat [United Nations Human Settlements Programme]. Eventually, we helped the first village secure a permit to let us enter and address the [housing crisis]. This all happened right before COVID, and unfortunately, they only granted a permit for one local community. This problem is ongoing and is some of our most important work.

With these climate concerns, what do you see as the biggest opportunity for global designers today?

There should be more concern around how we manage resources. I feel that only thinking about structure in the traditional way of “fixing things” won’t get us very far in regard to sustainable design.

Nowadays, the world needs a nature-based solution, or an ecosystem-based adaptation, which is an open opportunity for landscape architects. I think we need to push for climate-focused design in all departments. If urban designers, planners, engineers, architects, and landscape architects all work more collaboratively, we will strengthen our cities in very significant ways.

Why is it important for designers to give back to the younger generations—whether it’s through teaching or being involved in the broader design community?

Education is best transmitted by human-to-human interaction. We need humans to teach and pass on their knowledge to other humans, to the next generation, whether it’s through experience, practice, or academia. The transmission of knowledge between generations is crucial. The next generation is full of energy and potential.

And for us as alumni, we are part of the GSD culture. Even if it was a brief two years, it was such an intense period that shaped who we are as designers. It’s important to be involved in the community as alumni because it’s such a gift that we’ve already received, and we get to share it with a new generation of designers.

How are designers leaders, and why is it important that designers continue to be leaders across industries?

When I graduated, I asked my professor, Niall Kirkwood, “Why did [the GSD] choose me as a student?” And he said, “Because of your potential to be a leader.” I had no clue what he was talking about because I didn’t want to lead anyone; I didn’t want to be the head of any defined organization.

Through my practice and experiences after the GSD, I started to understand the word “leadership” more and more. It’s not about a title or position, it’s about action and impact. It’s about what you care for. I’m a designer who cares for the future of humanity, my homeland, my people, and my community. That’s what “leadership’’ means to me.

You can learn more about Kotch’s work and leadership below:

How to Adapt to Climate Change | Harvard Magazine

How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods | TED Talk

Landscape Processes Discussion Series | Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Meet the Woman Behind Asia’s Largest Urban Rooftop Farm | Bloomberg Quicktake

Architect Fights to Keep Bangkok from Flooding | Bloomberg Quicktake

Alumni Spotlight: Eric Shaw MUP ’00

“On our very first day of school, [GSD professor] Jerold S. Kayden [MCRP ’79] said to me, ‘Being a planner can be a curse, because you actually live in your work and decisions.’ As I’ve grown in my position, that’s something I think about often. It helps me to be aware of the responsibilities and gravity of my actions, because I’m a consumer of my own choices.” 

—Eric Shaw

Over the next couple months, we are continuing to share conversations with several GSD alumni, each of whom pursued different areas of study at the GSD and are now leading impactful careers in design.

We recently spoke with Eric Shaw MUP ’00. Eric has led planning and philanthropic organizations in major cities throughout the country, and has been recognized for his work in establishing strategic initiatives that support inclusive development and resilience in communities throughout the United States. A devoted mentor, he serves as an advisor to the GSD’s African American Student Union, the Harvard Urban Planning Organization, and Queer in Design, in addition to serving as a member of the GSD Alumni Council. Currently, Eric is the director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

How did you hear about the GSD and what led you to attending? 

I went to UCLA for undergrad, and that’s where I came across urban planning. I took a course taught by [former Massachusetts Governor] Michael Dukakis, who wrote my letter of recommendation for Harvard. He really got me thinking about planning and policy programs. He said, “If you want to be a leader, don’t be a lawyer.”

I learned the language of community from UCLA, but I learned the language of design from Harvard. It was horribly hard that first semester, but my professors and fellow students really invested in me, and [the GSD] gave us all the tools we needed to intensely engage with the program. Everything I learned that first year changed my life.

Are there certain courses or professors that you feel have shaped the work you’re doing today? 

Richard Marshall [MAUD ’95] was a new professor at the time. Like I said, I was really struggling my first semester, because I didn’t want to draw, and [back then] that was what the GSD was all about. Richard Marshall said, “Eric, I want you to succeed.” So instead of drawing, he made me write a five-page paper every time we met. He knew I knew how to write and speak, so he took my papers and made them into drawings for me. He was my Rosetta Stone that taught me how to bring those two skills together.

Oh, and I can’t forget M. David Lee [MAUD ’71], who I believe was the only Black GSD professor at the time. He’d say: “Go do it, brother.” Sometimes, that’s all you need.

Through your work on the GSD Alumni Council, you’ve spent a lot of time mentoring students. How did that begin?

I’ve been on the GSD Alumni Council for almost 10 years now; one time early on, [someone from the GSD] told me about this “Black in Design” conference, a three-day symposium organized by students. They invited Black designers, architects, and landscape architects from around the country and had one of the most prolific events around how we center Blackness and Black power. Telling the stories of Black accomplishment, Black innovation, and Black fame—I had never said “Black” so much at the GSD, as a student or alum!

The best thing was that it was run by students. The students came in and they felt empowered. A lot of them are my mentees now, and they’re also my peers. It was a single moment where the school was transformed. All those things really come from student leadership, [with students] mobilizing to shift the narrative of design.

“Black in Design,” hands down, has transformed [the GSD]. I probably know 85 percent of the Black students who have graduated in the past 10 years, and probably 60 percent of the queer students. I’m very proud to be paying it forward—like my GSD, UCLA, and professional mentors did for me. In every position I’ve held, I’ve committed to supporting future planning leaders with backgrounds not currently represented within the profession.

Could you tell us about the work you’re doing right now in the San Francisco’s Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development?

I have a community development organization in which I invest about $300 million a year in grants. Those grants go to supporting community organizations and cultural districts. We guarantee that anyone who’s up for eviction has the right to a lawyer, and we administer rental assistance for people with very low income to keep them housed. That’s my day to day—basically trying to align resources, policy, and politics to keep people in their homes, and making sure new homes are being built.

So, I’m functionally a realtor and a broker that matches low income people with apartments in buildings around the city.

Looking at the past decade, what have been the biggest changes and adaptations you’ve seen in housing and urban planning? 

For a long time, economic development was the crux of planning: how do cities make more money to do more business? So we started focusing on things like revitalization, green spaces, and bike lanes—because those things made a place “nicer” and caused more people to want to live there. But, it’s “nicer” because we wanted a certain type of person—someone with taxable dollars—to go eat at a restaurant in town. We call that beautification. The planning was very intentional: creating beautiful places for a certain type of person that had the means to invest in the city, which would convince businesses to come.

The problem was: we didn’t think about making more housing because the focus was on “livability” and creating community amenities. So then: what about the people? The people, themselves, demanded it, and planners and politicians finally responded: “Oh, you’re right.”

Housing has become the key implementer for a lot of our goals: community stabilization, wealth building, transportation, climate change, and so on. It’s now all of these goals versus only the economic development of a space.

What about government funding—and funding in general—for housing projects? 

The federal government has given us a lot less money. Now, a lot of communities have said, “We want to tax ourselves, but we want to have a plan for when we tax ourselves.” For the first time, there are a lot of local resources to advance planning. I think that, finally, the intentionality has changed.

San Francisco is one of the most expensive places to build—one of the most expensive places to live—in the world. Fortunately, we have a mayor who is deeply committed to advancing housing opportunities. My operating and investment budget is about $1.7 billion specifically for the investment in housing. I run an investment bank that invests billions of dollars with nonprofit developers to build new affordable housing throughout the city. We have a commitment that for any new large market-rate housing developments built in San Francisco, 20 percent of housing needs to go toward low-income residents. That’s been mandated for about seven years now; it’s called inclusionary zoning.

Why did you choose to work in San Francisco, specifically? 

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and it is nice to be back home. The older I’ve gotten, the more freedom I have had to choose where I want to be. I’ve been so blessed to work in a lot of places, but as the adage says, “There really is no place like home.” Professionally, when an opportunity arose to work with Mayor Breed [in San Francisco] I was excited to support her vision and leadership—to feel a stronger familiarity with the communities where my team and I work.

Also, I became a planner because I’m deeply committed to advancing opportunities for African-Americans. I want to make Black people’s lives better. Under [Mayor London Breed’s] leadership, we went from five Black people in five years getting homeownership through our homeownership programs to 25 this year alone, with 100 more in the pipeline for next year. It’s great to be in a city that I love, a city with a mayor who I trust, and means to be a responsible steward of policies and resources. First working for [Washington D.C.] Mayor Muriel Bowser, and now Mayor Breed, I’m one of the only people in the country to have worked for two mayors who are African-American women.

Could you talk a bit more about the importance of diversity when it comes to planning and understanding the needs of a community? 

In San Francisco, the housing authority director is a Black woman. The redevelopment director is a Black man. Our homeless director is a woman of color. We have a disproportionate number of Black people in homelessness, and we recognize that. And so there’s a deep sort of coordination around this. If the resources are there, I think we have a sense of urgency to act. And we did it. We had one of the lowest rates of unhoused people that got COVID. Everyone got a hotel room; 3,000 people have been housed. We moved them from the hotels and from their tents to permanent housing with more vouchers.

On top of that, as a Black queer person, it is so much fun to be subversive—to understand that there are layers to beauty, functionality, and usability that only discrete communities are going to use. That’s when I think the powers of design, agency, and leadership all line up.

How can planners continue to grow as leaders in their field?

By really, deeply engaging with the communities we’re working with. I always find it exciting when my training comes from organic moments working alongside a community.

I used to work as a development officer in San Jose supporting city investments in a predominantly Mexican immigrant community. One day, we had this barbecue in a park. Somehow, it got back to the women’s husbands that this non-Mexican man was trying to barbecue for their wives, and they were not happy about it. My Spanish is limited, but I knew they were saying: “No, you’re not going to cook for my community. We know how to do that.” They all came over with steaks and hot dogs, and you know what I did? I backed off, and just observed. I thought, “Okay, this space is different when women are with their husbands; so in our planning, we should have a bigger grill.” It was a beautiful space where men felt safe to engage with each other, express love for their families, and show grassroots leadership. My job was to pull back and observe, and I did.

My training as a student was so important—so, I’m going to tell one last GSD story. My first studio was with Alex Krieger [MCP ’77], and I remember he gave students 20 minutes to design our ideal town square. We drew them separately, and then everyone pinned them up on the wall. All of our town squares looked exactly the same, because we all came from western places—a park in the middle, a church here, and an ice cream shop over there. Every designer has an inherent bias. A trained designer understands that bias. From there, you either have to justify it, or learn the tools to unwind it and create the town square that the community actually needs. That’s the power of training; it’s an exciting power.

Alumni Spotlight: Paola Aguirre Serrano MAUD ’11

“My work is multi-layered and multi-disciplinary; sometimes it’s civic art, sometimes it’s planning, sometimes it’s community engagement, sometimes it’s architecture, sometimes it’s landscape design, and sometimes it’s a combination of everything.”

— Paola Aguirre Serrano

Paola Aguirre Serrano MAUD ’11, is a GSD Alumni Council member and the founder of Borderless Studio, an urban design and research practice based in Chicago and San Antonio, focused on collaborative, interdisciplinary projects and civic engagement proposals that address the complexity of urban systems, spatial justice, and equitable design. Her experience includes working with government agencies, non-profit organizations, universities, and architecture/urban design offices in Mexico and the United States in projects at various scales—from neighborhoods to entire regions.

Where were you in your life and career when you decided to apply to the GSD?

I went to undergrad for architecture; very quickly after graduating, I had this fantastic opportunity to work with the government in my hometown of Chihuahua, Mexico, a community along the US-Mexico border. The municipal planning agency I worked with (IMPLAN) reached out to Alex Krieger MCP ’77, [Professor in Practice of Urban Design] at the GSD; he had been working with riverfronts in cities all over the U.S, and we asked if he wanted to [engage his students] to study the Chuviscar River in Chihuahua. He said yes, and that was the start of our relationship with the GSD.

It was a fascinating experience to host students from the GSD while sharing the aspirations we had for our city. I was very inspired by the experience and started learning more about the program. I had been working in urban planning for a number of years, but I was basically self-taught. After the experience with the GSD studio in Chihuahua, I realized that I needed more training because—working with the government and for the public—I knew that it was only going to get more challenging.

What drew you to pursue a Masters of Architecture in Urban Design?

At the time when I started, there was a lot of enthusiasm around the urban design program because it’s very unique. It felt like this gray area in which everyone was still figuring out how to operate. I knew that I wanted to be more on the architectural side with an urban influence and understanding, but I was always very uncomfortable with being put in a box in terms of practice, people saying: “you can only be a planner” or “you can only be an architect.” I wanted to understand it all, and to practice horizontally across different areas of work.

Can you share with us the origins and evolution of Borderless as a design practice?

The idea for Borderless started at the GSD; a Latin student group that I was involved in organized small exhibitions and programs because we wanted an excuse to have a conversation about the border between the United States and Latin America. People always end up talking about the same things when it comes to border communities. Borderless came from a place of wanting to talk about how cities are connected in different ways—water systems, environmental aspects, economic dynamics, multicultural identities: a combination of everything.

Growing up in Chihuahua and now reimagining how we design and plan border communities—how is your upbringing significant in terms of the work you are doing today?

The Latino culture planning efforts and the U.S. initiatives are very different, and it’s really fascinating having to design these hybrid processes. My experience having worked in government was foundational. Right now, for example, we’re working on a housing project near the eastern border of Brownsville, Texas—the majority of the population is Mexican or Latino. Being from Chihuahua, I can empathize and understand their culture; I can speak their language. The conversations we have with people need to happen in Spanish, but they also need to be meaningful and engaging.

We’re always thinking: how do we make this accessible and relevant to the communities that we’re working with? Our priorities as planners and designers need to align with the priorities of the community. The combination of empathy, experience, and knowledge helps me to engage with communities in a meaningful way in order to better understand what those priorities are.

You have also taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. How would you say discourse and education around urban design have changed in terms of how it is taught today versus when you were a student?

Since I started teaching at the Art Institute, I started to engage students in thinking about inequities and wealth disparities as a way of pedagogy. In recent years, especially during the pandemic, the impact of inequities became more visible than ever. It’s not that they weren’t there, they just weren’t considered as relevant for research and work. As designers, we have a responsibility to educate ourselves. We have to understand the root cause of problems in order to think of effective repairs, and particularly the role that design has played in the inequities that we experience today.

Looking ahead to the next decade as a designer, how do we build a new best practice? What changes do you hope to see in the field as a whole?

Designers have not done a good job engaging with communities of color. The majority of my work has prioritized working with black and brown communities; it’s very hard to pitch design as something positive to communities who have experienced decades of racism, neglect, disinvestment. That needs to change.

Also, I’m highly invested in climate resilience. Living between Chicago, Chihuahua, and San Antonio—I’m gaining more awareness of how our communities are going to experience huge challenges to adapt to changing climate and environmental conditions that are putting pressure on our infrastructure. These challenges need to be addressed on multiple scales—food systems, health systems, etc. These systems are very connected to climate and we need to think about how the design system responds to climate change as well.

How can designers continue to act as leaders in their field?

Traditionally, designers have had very little decision-making power. We are often just called at the end of project processes for design production, when we have the capacity to contribute so much more in the early stages or incubation of ideas. That puts pressure on our ability to wear multiple hats, to be more engaged and collaborate with other sectors, and seek to be part of larger conversations impacting funding and policy in our cities. When it comes to climate change policy, as designers, we are going to have to leverage our understanding of urban complexity at the global scale, while being able to translate strategies to local contexts. In the next couple of decades, we are going to see very dramatic changes in the ways our cities are designed. So how do we, as designers, become more active participants in decision-making spaces? How do we propose new collaborative frameworks to advocate for spatial justice and equitable design? That’s what I’m interested in.

Check out the links below to learn more about Paola’s work:

Creative Grounds

Creative Grounds is an initiative led by Borderless to explore the role of schools after the largest public schools closure in Chicago’s history, bring awareness to the impact of this inequity, and to engage community in collaborative interventions reimagining the role of social infrastructure.

Reclaiming Space in Hamilton Park

The Reclaiming Space project features a design installation in collaboration with Chicago’s Park District’s T.R.A.C.E. program (Teens Re-Imagining Art, Community & Environment) to reactivate the area of an existing handball court at Hamilton Park in the Southside of Chicago.

Walkability Guidelines for Social Infrastructure

Borderless collaborated in the creation of these design guidelines for access to essential public urban facilities.

National Museum of the American Latino

Paola serves on the Scholarly Advisory Council for the National Museum of the American Latino in Washington, D.C. The committee discusses and advises in items related to museum content: curatorial, collections, exhibitions, public program, education approach, and community engagement.

Curatorial Team for the Exhibit Columbus 2023

Paola also serves as part of the Curatorial Team for Exhibit Columbus – a biannual design festival that commissions/features designers/design installations to celebrate the legacy and future of design; she was previously a featured contributor in 2019.