OUR APPROACH
Community leads, paradigms shift, and outcomes outlast us.
We work at every level a problem touches, side by side with communities, subject matter experts and the institutions that serve them, so the change holds long after we step back.
WAYS TO WORK WITH US
Whether you're looking for support on a single project or a long-term strategic partner
01
Commissioned Services
BEST FOR
Funders, government agencies, and public and private institutions
Commission our services for design, engineering, research, facilitation or consulting.
02
Continuous Engagement
BEST FOR
Organizations that want ongoing support
We establish a retainer for continuous design, engineering and community engagement support.
03
Project Partnership
BEST FOR
Nonprofits, CBOs and coalitions
We can work as partners to develop collaborative proposals. We work together to define the objectives, scope, timelines, budgets and roles, and seek funding together when necessary.
04
Strategic
Advisory
BEST FOR
Private organizations, foundations and public agencies
We provide guidance for leaders and teams on social innovation and sustainability.
WHERE WE FOCUS
We're deepening our work in three areas.
As we continue to work across social and environmental challenges, we're now focusing more of our design and engineering work on these three strategic areas:
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We partner with healthcare professionals and community groups to reimagine health and wellness beyond the clinic. We design innovative services, products and experiences that support patients, caregivers, and healthcare workers.
Work with us to build:
Community health services
Patient-centered and caregiver-centered health practices
Health services and spaces that reduce medical staff burnout
Reimagining our future health clinics
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As we navigate a changing demographic landscape, more and more older adults face challenges related to social isolation, mobility, access to healthcare, among other needs, while caregivers navigate increasing pressures and responsibilities. This is the moment to reimagine aging, caregiving, and how different generations interact within our communities.
We partner with organizations to design innovative spaces, services and initiatives that support older adults and their caregivers.
Work with us to build:
Aging and intergenerational innovation labs
Caregiver support for the sandwich generation
Alternatives to the traditional nursing home
Community initiatives that bring together the youth and the elderly
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We work with community groups to design community-level solutions for climate impacts - such as heat waves, wildfires, droughts, tropical storms and other effects of climate change , with the communities who experience them.
Work with us to build:
Climate innovation labs
Climate resilience hubs
Place-based ecological design
Environmental monitoring through citizen science
NOW LAUNCHING
Innovation Programs and Design Labs
Participatory Innovation Programs take a focused challenge from ideation to tested prototypes in a matter of weeks.
Community Design Labs bring communities and institutions together over several months to identify local needs and priorities, co-design solutions, and pilot community-proposed projects - all while building local innovation capacity.
Interested in developing a project together?
OUR PROCESS
Designing in service of social equity.
Design is not always a linear process. We get on the same page with our partners, understand and reframe the problem, build solutions together, share what we learn, and provide post-project support through pilots and beyond.
WHAT WE OFFER
RESEARCH + SYNTHESIS
We help you understand the people and communities you serve.
We specialize in engaging people whose voices are too often left out of decision-making. Whether you're exploring a new opportunity, validating a concept or evaluating an existing solution, we deliver actionable insights that reduce risk and uncover unmet needs. We do this through ethnographic research, expert interviews, secondary research, and other research and sense-making methods
DESIGN + ENGINEERING
We develop products and services from concept to implementation.
Our network of mechanical engineers, industrial designers, architects, and software developers supports every stage of the design and development process - from research and opportunity mapping to conceptual and detailed design, rapid prototyping, testing, and implementation. Over the years, we have partnered with organizations to develop physical products, digital platforms, and innovative services.
CO-CREATION + FACILITATION
The people most affected by a decision should help shape it.
We help organizations, local governments, and businesses engage communities, end users, and other stakeholders as active co-creators of the solutions that affect their lives. We use participatory design methodologies to facilitate tailored design workshops and community engagement processes, while working through a network of local design partners where our projects take place.
SUSTAINABILITY + SOCIAL INNOVATION
We help organizations build sustainability into how they work.
We help our partners move beyond sustainability as a goal and embed it into the way they innovate and make decisions. We also build design capacity within partner institutions and advise leaders on social innovation.
SYSTEMS DESIGN
The world's most pressing challenges are all interconnected.
We help organizations understand and redesign the systems that shape people's lives by exploring the relationships between people, institutions, technologies, policies, and environments. Through systems design, we identify opportunities for meaningful change and develop theories of change, strategies, roadmaps, and initiatives that drive lasting impact.
NEW RESOURCE
Design with Us
Design is more than a process. It's human work, shaped by the people involved, the challenges they take on, and the emotions that surface along the way. It asks us to sit with ambiguity, question our assumptions, and examine our roles in the systems we participate in, and that kind of work calls for emotional awareness alongside everything else.
Design With Us is the open resource where we've gathered all of it, for clients, partners, and community members designing alongside us.