Role
Design Intern for client BART in partnership with Design and Innovation for Sustainable Cities
Skills
Site Research
Urban Design
Client Work
Physical Prototyping
Timeline
July 2022 - Aug. 2022 (7 weeks)
Tools
Adobe Creative Cloud
Rhino
SketchUp
ArcGIS
Project Background
Climate Change is REAL. Although there is no clear-cut answer on how to create a sustainable city, we can start with measures like renewable energy sources, efficient public transportation, green architecture, and much more. It’ll be crucial for more cities worldwide to adopt sustainable practices to create a safer, inclusive, and a more liveable built environment for everyone to enjoy.
Therefore, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is on a mission to contribute to a sustainable city by funding and adopting Transit-Oriented Development around their transit stations in the Bay Area through their Link21 Program. At Disc*, I worked collaboratively on a team of three to reimagine Mandela Station's Transit-Oriented Development based on the current residents' needs and pain points.
Understanding the History of West Oakland
01
Harlem of the West
Imagine walking down Seventh St. in Oakland in the 1940s, immersed in a vibrant community centered around the emerging Jazz and Blues scene. The streets are alive with music, and the air is filled with the spirit of community upliftment, driven by the pioneering efforts of the Black Panther Party. People are engaged, inspired, and working together to build a stronger, more resilient neighborhood.
Previously, in West Oakland...
Therefore, we asked...
How might we remodel a transit-oriented development to address current residents' needs and pain points, create a sustainable and inclusive city, and set an example for future projects?
Disguised Displacement
After the war, West Oakland lost its wartime production jobs, and rail travel declined with the rise of automobiles. The intra-city trains, which once brought people to the neighborhood, subsequently diminished, leading to the closure of local businesses. One resident recalls, “the businesses closed down, the streets looked shabby.” Black homeowners in this redlined neighborhood struggled to get repair loans from banks.
Soon, "urban renewal" became a focus. City administrators equated renewal with redevelopment, which completely reshaped the community as the government seized property for public use.
It started with the Nimitz Interstate Freeway that completely destroyed hundreds of homes, mainly occupied by the African-American community. A few years later, hundreds of homes across a 20-acre area were demolished to construct the nearly one-million-square-foot US Post Office regional distribution center on 7th Street. In 1974, the opening of BART’s West Oakland station "decimated" half of the business district along 7th Street.
West Oakland in 2022
02
Site Analysis & Interviews
Upon understanding West Oakland's history of policies that ultimately displaced the vibrant African-American community and destroyed the jazz and blues scene, we decided to look into what West Oakland looks like now and interview the residents of West Oakland and see if there is anything we can do to revitalize West Oakland to their needs and pain points instead of developing mindlessly.
Therefore, we conducted a site analysis on West Oakland by walking around and interviewed residents, small businesses, and just people passing by.
remnants of urban renewal
When I was tasked to be on the Cities team, design help wasn't immediately needed so I took the initiative to contribute by spearheading a survey and interview initiative for research purposes. This involved crafting insightful survey and interview questions tailored for a diverse research group, comprising esteemed architects such as HKS and HOK, industry leaders in construction management like Hensel Phelps, and influential entities including Autodesk, Uber, and prominent universities.
The primary objective of this research initiative was twofold: first, to find out which user groups exhibited the highest propensity for utilizing AR/VR tools in their presentations. This insight would inform us to tailor the UI/UX to align with these user groups' preferences first. Additionally, we delved deeper into the pain points experienced by all user groups, with the aim of identifying areas where Geopogo's technology could provide effective solutions.
Additionally, we adopted a comprehensive approach by analyzing user groups that demonstrated a lower utilization of AR/VR tools. By engaging with these groups and investigating their pain points, we sought to project their potential receptivity to embrace emerging technologies like AR/VR. This holistic approach encompassed understanding current usage patterns and anticipating future adoptions trends within the industry landscape.
