Role
Program Manager
Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab,
City of Boston

PARTNERS
Boston Society of Architects 
Department of Neighborhood Development 
Mass Bay Transportation Authority 
Boston Public Libraries 
WHAT’S IN Research Group 
Livelight Inc. 

Project Timeline
Mar-Dec, 2016 

Challenge

Boston is in a housing crisis.

• Zoning, permitting, and policy have played a serious role.

• As have standard operating procedures for real estate developers and construction companies.

• The conventional policy and development approaches do not meet the needs of low and middle income households.

• Exploration and experimentation with new approaches is necessary.

Approach

I led a co-design process with communities and organizations across Boston to design over 25 interactive and experiential participatory design, civic engagements.

Human Centered Research Process included:

• Ethnographic Interviews and observation;

• Cultural Probes;

• Experimental Civic Engagement Strategies.

I also led the synthesis, coding, and re-organization of findings into community-centered, affordable housing design guidelines.

Outcomes

Research findings and Design Guidelines enabled two major policy shifts:

Compact-Living Policy
Allows new buildings to include small, efficient housing units as long as they meet certain requirements.

Additional Dwelling Unit Policy
Allows owner occupants to carve out space within their homes to create smaller, independent units.

This project has also been cited as a precedent for civic engagement innovation and policy co-design, in:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review

• Bloomberg

• Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis, by K. Sabeel Rahman & Hollie Russon Gilman

• Meaningful Inefficiencies: Civic Design in an Age of Digital Expediency, by Eric Gordon and Gabriel Mugar