*Insert Introductory Blog Post Title Here* | Micah Epstein, Industrial Design ’19

Today marks the end of my third week as a design fellow at the Providence Department of Planning and Development. I’ve fully settled in and finished my first couple of projects, so I have some tasty first deliverables and impressions for you!

I started the week before PVDFest 2018, which meant that the Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism (ACT) was in a huge crunch to finish everything for their biggest event of the year. As such, I got to help out in a couple ways for that event. One of my favorite things that I got to do was event photography. Photography has been a passion of mine for several years now, so I definitely enjoyed the opportunity to utilize my skill set. Also, getting to work with ACT was a blast! They are truly a dedicated, experienced, and hilarious team that are exactly the type of people that I was hoping would work in city government.

The size and variety of PVDFest made it an event photographer’s dream

One of biggest takeaways from the event came from the PVDFest Ideas Conference, which kicked off the weekend of festivities. Every panelist was incredible in their own way, but there were a few that stuck out to me. The keynote speaker, Sarah Williams Goldhagen, gave an overview of the findings of her most recent book Welcome to Your World. She has done an incredible job of compiling cognitive psychology and neuroscience research to effectively link the appearance of our built environment (architecture and urban design) with our own thought patterns and mental well-being. I could gush about her findings for the entirety of this post, but instead I’ll just encourage you to look into her work at the link above. In addition to Sarah, I also had the pleasure of hearing and meeting Julia Gold, the Chief of Sustainability, Autonomous Vehicles, and Innovation (or, as Julia calls it, the Chief of New Stuff) at RIDOT, and Dr. Sasha Costanza-Chock, a professor/researcher at MIT as well, as a one of the heads of the Design Justice movement. Together, these speakers really helped to affirm the importance of equity through design, and the fundamental framing of design as a public good.

After the craziness of PVDFest, I began to focus in on my work for the Planning department. I’m in the process of creating an education campaign for new traffic control devices (street markings and traffic signals) that are being put in throughout the city. You can see one of my very first drafts of this campaign below. I’ve developed the style and message significantly since this point, but the deliverables are still internal, which means you will just have to stay tuned in coming weeks for the final product!

My main goals here are for it to be eye-catching, readable, and accessible for a variety of road users. I was also curious about how to expand the reach of this campaign beyond the follower base of the city’s social media channels.

One of the biggest pieces of news is that this past weekend we had a truly wonderful demo day for the City Walk project (a walk/bike corridor going through Providence proper and one of my main focuses this summer)! This included a ground mural, the presence of a street team to answer any questions and collect input from community members, and a temporary bike lane that was true to the principles of Tactical Urbanism (a term developed and implemented by The Street Plans Collaborative, one of the major consultants for City Walk). Below you’ll find some photos I took the day of as well as some posters I designed for the event.

It was really inspiring to see the variety of bicyclists and community members that were interested in the project, from street artists to local shopkeepers to kids on bikes riding around their neighborhood.

This style of graphic design was certainly outside of my comfort zone. Really fun to be pushed towards different styles and types of content!

I think the event was really visible and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Not only did community members seem excited and interested in the project, but the murals and commotion had a noticeable traffic calming effect on Broad Street, which is typically quite aggressive towards pedestrians and cyclists. I learned a lot about planning a municipal event. There are a lot of boxes to check if you want to draw and maintain a crowd, such as food, water, bathrooms, music, shade, and of course something to do! However, it’s also important to think about what crowd you are trying to draw. For instance, if we went too far into the party atmosphere, we could have distracted from CityWalk as a project. This event seemed to be less about entertaining a crowd, and more about being visible and transparent to the community. I think I may just be spoiled from PVDFest.

I’m a huge tease, so of course I have saved the best for last. Below you can find a map that I am working on for the Urban Trail Network. The network is a future plan to connect the disparate recreational paths throughout Providence into a dense network that would let any pedestrian or cyclist get to most destinations in Providence safely. I think that if this project were to be implemented quickly and effectively, Providence would have the facilities necessary to begin to transition away from automobility.

My supervisor mentioned that I might get to work on signage and wayfinding for CityWalk and the Urban Trail Network. This is an exciting and intimidating opportunity to have a real impact on the accessibility of some large-scale city projects.

Thanks for reading! Until next time.

/ / micah epstein / /

p.s. here’s a bonus pic of me and my girlfriend at my first ever Pride Parade in Boston!