Alexis Plair leads our strategic consulting team in Los Angeles, California. With 10 years of experience, Alexis is highly skilled in design strategy and driving product and design strategy for leading, mission-driven organizations across infrastructure, technology, urban design, clean energy, and transportation sectors. Through her work with public agencies on sustainable infrastructure, she has been a champion for social and climate impact in the Los Angeles area.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself – your role and career journey   

I am the manager of the Los Angeles team for Strategy+, ArchTam’s design-led strategic consulting group. My team works to guide organizations through strategic planning, process improvement, and organizational transformation. We also focus on understanding people and communications dynamics within organizations and advancing equitable community outcomes.

As a participatory design strategist, I approach design by centering the people we’re designing for throughout the entire design process. I work to engage the people we’re designing for in every stage, from defining goals and methods, to brainstorming and iterating on different ideas, to implementation and monitoring results. My approach in design strategy comes from my background as a product manager where I managed products and customer experiences with a focus on people, ensuring their needs were central to the entire product design process.

2. Talk to us about a project that has impacted or been a major highlight of your career. How is it solving the challenges and issues our clients and communities are facing today?

One of the highlights of my career so far has been working with a local client on a move management strategy. My team led the design strategy and internal work planning through each stage of the project, from data collection and understanding, to solution ideation, to the development and delivery of the final study. We put the users of the facility at the center of the project from start to finish, by facilitating interviews, workshops, and feedback sessions with stakeholders to understand their required equipment, operations, and logistics needs to inform our recommendations.

3. The rise of AI and other emerging technologies are driving organizations to modernize and transform the way they work.  How does the work of Strategy+ help businesses to ensure their future success?

My career actually began at IBM, focusing on artificial intelligence technology in the form of text analytics and natural language processing. So now, nearly a decade later, it’s fascinating to witness the widespread adoption of AI across various sectors, including the public sector and our diverse client base.

Generally, when we think about technology, we perceive it as a facilitator for smoother processes, streamlined data gathering, and increased efficiency. The key, though, lies in understanding how people engage with and adopt these tools. Knowing where AI and technology generally provide the most value and how they can be optimally integrated into processes is more important than whether or not the technology is used. The tools by themselves are not valuable at all — the value is only realized when people use and adopt them effectively, maximizing their potential benefits.

So, this is where our Strategy+ team comes in, guiding the people side of technological advancement. We help clients understand the tools available to them. We draw expertise from digital specialists and help our clients to connect the dots — clarifying the objectives behind using specific technologies, identifying potential risks and disruptions to the business, and guiding clients in considering these factors as they plan their digital transformation strategies. We empower our clients to proactively embrace change, harnessing the potential of these innovations, and enabling them to thrive in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

4. Are there specific strategies or frameworks you utilize to assess and enhance the social value of infrastructure projects in Los Angeles?

Los Angeles is home to a diverse population, and it’s crucial that we prioritize communities that may have been overlooked historically and adversely affected by past investments as we design the future of infrastructure in LA. This shift aligns with the broader commitments of the City of LA and LA County to integrate equity into every infrastructure initiative.

At Strategy+, we embed this equity focus into our strategic planning process. When defining program success, we include equity as a fundamental aspect of our discussions. We approach equitable outcomes and social impact with the same rigor as we do business outcomes, ensuring they are integral to our project objectives. We’re actively partnering with our clients to drive tangible social change in Los Angeles. We establish equity-based objectives, make sure we center the right people and track the right data. This holistic approach is testament to our dedication in fostering meaningful social impact in the Los Angeles area.

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The coronavirus pandemic pushed the digital world forward as we worked collectively to find innovative solutions to keep us connected. However, it exposed and amplified the existing digital divide between areas with established broadband infrastructure and those without. This disparity grew as everything from remote learning, remote working, and telehealth activities required an effective digital connection. Reaching far beyond sheer convenience, an affordable and effective means to connect to data and information is now essential as it drives and influences our access to critical applications, innovation and opportunity.

In most cities across the United States, state, local and private infrastructure are separate or loosely connected, with organizations largely deploying their own broadband infrastructures. To advance our communities, we must collectively ensure quality and accessibility to these broadband networks, which can be achieved by converging what we refer to as public-private broadband stacks.

The Broadband Stack is the combination of physical infrastructures and technologies that public and private sector service providers use to connect to devices, locations, end-users and communities in order to improve quality of life experiences, enhance public safety initiatives, and increase economic development activities.

Image: The Broadband Stack

One part of the stack, or one entity, is not enough to be able to bridge this divide. A single form of implementation will not fix it, either. It requires the total partnership, integration, innovation and convergence of the entire broadband stack to create meaningful impacts on our communities, campuses and cities. This will ensure that everyone can address their most fundamental and critical needs and initiatives.

Moving toward converged stacks increases operational capability and lowers costs by reducing parallel infrastructures. The coalescing of state, local and private broadband networks  explores the potential that exists for these organizations to partner with one another in order to lay the foundation for wireless mobility, applications and transport needed to unlock access to knowledge, improvement and advancement for all.

Image: Convergence

We can strategically plan and design converged networks that meet the increasing needs for true broadband connectivity. By helping with governance and increasing interoperability, we can deliver significant cost savings for our clients while enhancing social equity for unserved and underserved communities. At present, many organizations operate in separate stacks, each having their own infrastructure. The goal is to move in the direction of a converged stack, which coalesces state, local and private networks and optimizes them through innovative and evolving partnerships. These partnerships guide a greater strategy of aggregation and allows meaningful accessibility through integrated and converged broadband infrastructures. Additionally, technology and public initiatives often extend beyond the means and reach of one organization or agency. These converged partnerships can maximize the existing budgets, unlock economic potential, and strengthen connection for those that are impacted by this digital divide.

Image: Planning for Impact

The pandemic has shown us the importance of enabling remote working, learning and living. An evolution in our approach will allow us to achieve the greatest impact in ensuring equity and connectivity for our communities, campuses, and cities. This transformation in partnership demonstrates the importance of integrating and converging broadband stacks to create positive social outcomes and advancing our communities. Getting to the possible is going beyond our self-imposed limits and capacity of our traditional partnerships, infrastructures and approaches so we can realize the full potential of achieving social equity and economic development opportunity, and improving the quality of life for all.

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Amani is an assistant social consultant on the Social Impact and Equality team. She specializes in the development of techniques to measure, evaluate and monitor social value outcomes and in the development of robust measurement frameworks for the valuation of non-market goods, specifically focused on community well-being, welfare, and public health.

What inspired you to join the industry? I have always been interested in finding ways to reduce inequality and improve community welfare. I believe projects should work to not only mitigate or minimize negative outcomes but create positive social impact. While pursuing my master’s degree in sociology, I began to think about how the spaces where people live and work can be sites for transformative social change, especially if projects deliver positive impacts beyond the bare minimum. This was my introduction to the relationship between social value, social impact, and the built environment. Shortly after completing my studies, I was hired at ArchTam.

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why? My favorite project so far has been the social value work we did for Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC). We developed a bespoke social value measurement matrix to measure the value of BPSDC’s flagship community outreach programs. They were doing amazing work as part of their community outreach endeavors and wanted us to find a way to communicate their impact in terms of social value. We had incredible support from BPSDC, got to interview a lot of amazing people, and hear all about the incredible impact they have been having on local communities – we even measured the social value produced by a local community choir!

For me, the most interesting aspect of the project was determining how to set up this custom framework. The process involved developing our own value bank, conducting primary research, and some trial-and-error. Finding ways to responsibly value traditionally non-market goods like wellbeing and happiness, for instance, can be complicated, and there are serious ethical questions around monetization that arise when constructing a methodology. But the opportunity to investigate precisely these tricky questions is what made this such an interesting project and a great learning experience. Social practioners, especially those interested in social value, need to strongly consider the ethics of monetization and valuation, particularly where data is not readily available, and think carefully about how social value measurement can be customized for every project. It’s not one-size-fits all.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community. A recent project I worked on alongside my manager involved the preparation of an Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) for the extension of the Bakerloo line for Transport for London (TfL). EqIAs are critical in order to ensure projects can deliver positive social impacts and that any negative impacts on various equality groups can be identified and mitigated early in the project lifecycle. The EqIA assessment identified several potential beneficial equality effects of the extension proposals, including increased connectivity, indirect and direct employment opportunities created from the scheme, and health and wellbeing impacts on local communities. The report was extremely well received, and we have been asked to conduct a workshop on EqIAs at TfL.

What career advice would you like to share? Learn as much as you can, on the job and off the job. I’m always signing up for MOOCs and webinars to build knowledge on subjects that interest me and striking up conversations with people both within my practice area and outside of it.

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Schools that use prototypes, such as the DeKalb County School District’s John R. Lewis Elementary School (pictured here), can stretch school district dollars while advancing educational equity.

Equity — it’s a word that holds different meanings in different contexts. In education circles, equity is defined as establishing resources and environments that ensure each school community member is provided fair, just and individualized learning and growth. School buildings set the stage for the educational environment and as a result, are integral parts of the equity equation.

With 53 percent of school districts across the United States reporting the need to replace or update multiple systems* and school construction budgets largely constrained, districts are working to find measures that advance equity across all communities regardless of socio-economic position.

School building prototypes — schools built using designs meant to be repeated at several sites — are increasingly important solutions in the effort to build and maintain equity. Here, we will explore how well-designed and well-constructed prototypes can serve as models for schools of the future, advancing equity and academic achievement across all communities.

Why are school buildings so important? Understanding the importance of the school building requires that we examine the impact architecture has on academic achievement. A growing body of research indicates that poorly designed, poorly maintained school buildings — which students from low income or marginalized families are more likely to attend — can have profoundly negative impacts on student health, behavior, engagement, academic achievement and growth across the K-12 spectrum. The focus on creating equity is becoming more mainstream with the recognition that poorly maintained buildings also adversely impact teachers and administrators, increasing turnover and contributing to reduced academic achievement.

Enter the prototype. Prototypes are a practical consideration, arising from the recognition of facilities’ impact on academic achievement and the limitations of funding. Prototypes can cut millions from capital costs and reduce maintenance and upkeep of HVAC systems, electrical systems and technology through economies of scale all while providing cost, quality and schedule assurance during the design and construction phases. The resulting cost savings enables districts to advance equity by delivering new prototype school buildings across the socio-economic scale that predominantly exists in large school districts.

Developing impactful prototypes. While prototypes hold great potential to provide facility equity, they cannot be designed in a vacuum. Developing and constructing successful prototypes requires significant expertise in planning, design and construction. Pre-planning efforts include examining district equity goals and including stakeholders such as parents, school mentors and community advocates as part of the program team. This provides insight into a school’s culture, challenges and strengths so that the team may develop prototypes that address specialized curriculum needs, meet design criteria and capture the district’s and stakeholders’ vision for optimal school buildings that blend into neighborhoods and adapt to fit varied sites.

We used these principles when we collaborated with leaders from the DeKalb County School District in Georgia, to manage the design and construction of their elementary prototype school buildings. The district’s Comprehensive Master Plan prioritized facility equity, diversity and inclusion, and focused on providing sustainable innovations and learning principles to promote academic opportunity. These include creating permanent student online learning options, developing a customized approach to learning, and strengthening Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) programs.

Can prototypes meet specific community and student needs? Amid the positive aspects inherent in using prototypes, there are concerns that prototype school buildings might not reflect the communities in which they are situated. Program management expertise and experience can alleviate these issues. The prototype schools, which ArchTam developed with the DeKalb school district, offer customizable finishes, enabling the community to convey the neighborhood’s culture and priorities and, importantly, are adaptable to specific area sites and cater to each school’s specialized curriculums. And because they are new buildings, the prototypes offer upgraded facilities and future-proof technologies often unavailable in the schools they replace, ensuring that all community schools have the facilities needed to enable learning.

As school districts seek to provide educational equity, prototypes offer a means to provide academic opportunity across district communities. These buildings, when thoughtfully designed and constructed, offer numerous advantages that can help districts stretch their resources and reach their goals for equity and academic advancement across socio-economic scales for their schools, now and in the future.

John Wright is the Program Principal for the DeKalb County School District’s Educational-Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax (E-SPLOST) Capital Improvement Program.

*According to the American Society for Civil Engineers 2021 Report Card on Schools

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Building Diverse Talent

To tackle the world’s most complex challenges, we attract, hire and develop talented people of all backgrounds, and ensure inclusivity and fairness in our sourcing, interview and hiring processes. Through our partnerships with nonprofit organizations and universities, we offer robust internships, graduate development programs and volunteer opportunities that help give underserved populations access to STEAM education.

Enriching Communities

Our Blueprint for a Better World platform reflects our responsibility to champion equity, diversity and inclusion in our communities through pro-bono work, volunteerism, philanthropy and strategic partnerships with global nonprofit organizations like Engineers Without Borders and Water for People. We deepen our engagement with communities through our commitment to supplier diversity, providing leadership to ensure that diverse-owned businesses are supported and successful.

Expanding Understanding

To help every employee feel valued and included, we’re fostering an inclusive workplace through community-building, training and family-friendly benefit policies. We conduct regular employee surveys and discussions to understand our employees’ experiences and provide a forum for deeper understanding and empathy. Our employee resource groups and networks create a sense of belonging and lead community outreach, and strategic mentorships promote ongoing dialogue and heightened awareness of ED&I issues and opportunities.

Thinking Without Limits

Promoting equity, diversity and inclusion can’t be done in a silo. By cultivating a workforce that more closely represents the clients and the communities we serve, we are able to better anticipate and respond to their needs. Further, we prioritize the social impact and benefits of equity, diversity and inclusion, factoring these considerations into every project we pursue and the innovative solutions we deliver.

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Over the next 50 years, the region is expected to gain as many as 4 million people and 2 million jobs. In a place where a crushing housing shortage is already threatening quality of life, how can we welcome new residents and jobs without paving over our green spaces or pushing out long-time community members? To keep pace, and make the region more affordable, the Bay Area will need almost 2.2 million housing units by 2070, according to research from SPUR, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association.

As part of the Regional Strategy, ArchTam collaborated with SPUR to examine what it would take to house everyone who wants to live in the Bay Area. We’ve published our research in a new report, Model Places: Envisioning a Future Bay Area With Room and Opportunity for Everyone.

To determine where growth should go, we used land use data to assign every part of the nine-county Bay Area to one of “14 place types” based on urban patterns that occur throughout the region — from open spaces and residential suburbs to industrial areas and dense downtowns.

Cul de Sac Suburbs of Tomorrow – Neighbors – both longstanding and new arrivals continue to live close to nature, streets are transformed to make play-space for kids and a place to gather, exercise, and stroll. Last mile mobility solutions move through at a walking pace, between native plantings and permeable swales.

Model Places envisions what six of these different place types could look like if they grew in ways that made them not just more equitable and more sustainable, but more livable and humanizing places to live and work.

Our analysis shows that the Bay Area has plenty of room to grow, but only if every urbanized part of the region is willing to accept its share of the change. The responsibility can’t rest solely with the low- and moderate-income neighborhoods that have seen the most growth in recent years. Affluent places also need to do their part to accommodate new housing and new jobs.

The good news for everyone is that new growth can make existing neighborhoods better places for people, supporting diversity and inclusion, public health, sustainability and community life while retaining many of their essential qualities and lowering our carbon-footprint. And if we do it right, we can grow without sprawl — protecting and restoring the Bay Area’s unique natural environment.

Office Parks of Tomorrow – 20th Century single-use parking dominated offices parks are transformed into complete communities, with places for people to live and work in an highly amenitized environment. Automated shuttles offer internal circulation and regional transit connections.

This vision represents a bold new direction for the Bay Area, so we invited five artists to help us bring it to life, lending their different sensibilities to imagine a region where every place does its part and everyone can thrive. You can see their work in the report.

A Call to Action
To realize this vision, the Bay Area must commit to collectively tackling the challenges of housing, transportation, equity and climate change. Getting there will require profound changes in policies, practices, laws and culture — recommendations SPUR will make in upcoming Regional Strategy reports. Real transformation will require a series of changes at different levels of government over many decades. It’s never easy for communities to commit to massive change, especially when they can’t see ahead to the outcome. We hope Model Places gives a glimpse of what’s possible — and inspires a commitment to what’s needed.

Read the Model Places report.

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“Urban Equity in Development – Cities for Life” was the focus of the seventh session of the World Urban Forum April 5-11. More than 22,000 practitioners and academics from 142 countries descended upon Medellín, Colombia, known for its climate of eternal spring and innovative urban interventions, to share experiences and develop new ideas on how to foster equity in our cities.  

The forum proposed that “equity” means leveling the playing field so that everyone benefits from the urban advantage and the prosperity of cities. In a rapidly urbanizing world, marginalized and vulnerable neighborhoods continue to grow and their populations are increasingly exposed to risk and left farther from accessing additional resources gained through the development of cities. UN Habitat estimates that two thirds of the world’s urban population live in cities where income inequality has increased since the 1980s. Tackling this challenge was the overriding objective of the group convened in Medellín.

It is common practice in Colombia to reuse and repurpose building materials and found objects at every scale, as this small home adjacent to a major thoroughfare aptly demonstrates. 

The city was an open lab for attendees to see firsthand through guided tours and unstructured wandering the implementation of initiatives now studied throughout the world: from emblematic libraries and schools, connected through efficient transportation systems that have catalyzed community-driven development in formally marginalized mountainside neighborhoods; to the projects of public utility companies infusing accessible cultural opportunities into communities once devoid of such civic engagement.

While the positive connotations of the city’s infrastructure achievements were visually clear, it was not entirely apparent how these targeted projects universally improved livelihood indicators for  citizens. Anecdotal discussions revolved around subsequent increase in crime, nearly 40,000 homes in conditions of risk and continued challenges of unplanned growth on the city’s periphery. When pressed, local architects suggested that there was a limit to what we could accomplish toward equity in the strictest sense, but that indeed we could improve quality of life. Equity, like perfection, is something to strive for. It may not be obtainable in our generation, but simply by working towards the goal we will make great strides forward.

A former landfill was developed as a demonstration site for converting brownfields into an environmental mitigation and awareness project that can be easily reached via a public transportation stop at its base.

One such path forward was a major subtheme of the forum. Talk of resilience as a concept and mechanism to increase equity touched every corner of la Plaza Mayor convention center. Scores of sessions addressed the topic, from the UNISDR’s Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities, a comprehensive and effective way to assess a city’s resilience to natural hazards, to the Rockefeller Foundation discussing how to build a resilient city and their 100 Resilient Cities initiative. Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank were there in force, the latter of which is spearheading the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative throughout Latin America.

Equally impactful initiatives were put forth as models, such as the American Planning Association’s involvement in the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change. Another recent but rapidly growing alliance is MAS Global Network, an open group of professionals and academics across the globe dedicated supporting urban practitioners in making their cities more livable and resilient. An initiative they adamantly campaigned for was the inclusion of “urban” as a unique goal within UN Habitat’s Sustainable Development Goals to guide Habitat III in 2016. As the world continues to urbanize, it is increasingly paramount that we recognize that by ignoring the urban we will continue to perpetuate inequitable cities. However by embracing the movement and by planning for and building in resilience we can arrive closer to more equitable cities.

 T. Luke Young is ArchTam’s director, Buildings + Places, Spanish-speaking Latin America

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