DEVIN VOWELS
A senior at the University of Michigan studying Urban Technology with a minor in Entrepreneurship.
I'm an empathetic and multidisciplinary thinker who is passionate about reimagining space and place-making for people—physically and digitally. I view design as a creative playground to build community and shape space for cultural progress.
01 Urban Street Planter Tool
02 Little Village Play Paths
03 Union Exchnage
04 Worldwide MI
05 Caution Signifier Devices
06 Apple Maps - Biker Awareness
-> other work
-> about me
`01 URBAN STREET PLANTER TOOL
MAR-APR 2023
Sophomore Design Studio
Collaborator(s):
>Audrey Tang
Role(s):
>Interface Design
>Data Modeling
>Research + Development
Tool(s):
>Figma
>FigJam/Miro
>Illustrator
>Excel
An interactive tool for reimagining urban streetscapes with planter designs, transforming car-centric streets into people-centric spaces.
--
In most U.S. cities the car has reigned supreme for decades, leaving the streets dead without the energy of pedestrians. Yet, people long for spaces for this energy to thrive: grabbing ice cream with family, sharing drinks with coworkers, or window shopping with friends—all without needing to touch a steering wheel.
Bridging this gap requires more than wishful thinking; it demands a cultural transformation. But culture doesn’t shift overnight—it evolves gradually. To create lasting, sustainable change, we must respect the pace of cultural evolution and find ways to gently guide cities toward prioritizing pedestrians.
THE CHALLENGE
Reimagine streets as spaces that encourage localized interactions through small-scale urban infrastructure
Re-green North Kensington -- LondonSuperblocks -- SpainOctavia’s Orchard -- London
TACTICAL URBANISM: THE PEOPLE’S URBANISM
The Urban Street Planter Tool is fundamentally guided by tactical urbanism--a temporary, low-cost intervention to trigger long-term change in a public space. The nature of tactical urbanism empowers people to shape their communities in an accessible way. Unfortunately, the history of community building--especially in America--is led by a select few of people, but neighborhood planning requires many voices to be effective; not just some. Therefore, planning choices should be transparent and accessible.
--
The Urban Street Planter Tool allows community agents such as businesses, local residents, and city government to design street planter configurations informed by the various of needs of local stakeholders, native ecology, and traffic flow data; giving locals agency in the design choices of their community.
DESIGN / DATA PROCESS
This project is an extension of my Caution Signifier Devices project. Taking the data produced from this project and my partner’s work, we developed a data schema as the foundation for the digital prototype. The schema is categorized on a macro, mezzo, and mezzo scale; it’s subsequently broken down by space, form and time.
THE SOLUTION
A digital prototype to help community agents visualize and understand their neighborhood interventions in three contexts--stakeholder negotiation, localized economy and ecology, and street-level events
01
Sharing the decision-making process with community stakeholders
--
We developed profiles listing the needs of stakeholders impacted by the project. These profiles are used to generate a list of project priorities determined by weighing the stakeholders’ needs against the project owner’s.
02
Encouraging the use of reclaimed street furniture and native ecology
--
We developed a planter assessment that scores the street planter design and configuration based on the project priorities generated prior. Staying aligned with our guiding principles, the planter material data used in the assessment is limited to plants native to Ann Arbor
03
Testing the inquiry by modeling street-level interactions and scenario events
--
The planter design and configuration is then simulated and assessed based on pedestrian and vehicle traffic data. Once complete, a concluding analysis of the planter design will be provided, along with resources to help the project owner implement the design.