DISC*2019 Lecture Series
guest speakers*
July 16, 2019
July 18, 2019
July 23, 2019
Disc* 2019 - Speakers
Abigail Thorne-Lyman | Program Manager TOD, BART
Susan Swartzenberg | Photographer and visual artist, Exploratorium
Abigail Thorne-Lymam is the Program Manager for Transit-Oriented Development in the Real Estate and Property Development Department at the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). She provides policy direction and strategic oversight of housing and commercial development on BART’s 250-acre real estate portfolio, and managed the creation of BART’s Affordable Housing Policy and Transit-Oriented Development Policy update in 2016. Prior to her role at BART, Abby was the director of the national Center for Transit-Oriented Development, where she supported regional agencies in strategic planning for development near transit stations throughout the United States, and oversaw the publication of technical resources on best practices in transit-oriented development for the Federal Transit Administration. Abby presently represents BART on the Rail~Volution National Steering Committee, and has a Masters in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College.
Susan Schwartzenberg is a senior artist at the Exploratorium, where she leads the development of the Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery. She has been a curator, photographer, designer, and artist, and served as director of media for the museum. She has participated in many exhibit development and Webbased projects. Susan was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, the California College of Art, and Stanford University. As a photographer and visual artist, she has received numerous awards, and has taken part in residencies and exhibitions worldwide. She is known for her public art, including recent works at Stanford University and San Francisco’s McLaren Park.
July 25, 2019
Roman Mars | Radio Host and Podcast Producer, 99% Invisible
Peter Calthorpe | Architect, Planner and Urban Designer, HDR Calthorpe
Roman Mars is the host and creator of “99% Invisible,” a short radio show about design and architecture. With over 70 million downloads, the “99% Invisible” podcast is one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Fast Company named him one of the 100 Most Creative People in 2013. He was a TED main stage speaker in 2015. His crowdfunding campaigns have raised over $1.16 million, making him the highest-funded journalist in Kickstarter history. He is a cofounder of Radiotopia, a collective of ground-breaking story-driven podcasts.
Peter Calthorpe was born in London and raised in Palo Alto. He attended the Yale School of Architecture. In 1986 he, along with Sim Van der Ryn, published Sustainable Communities. In the early 1990s he developed the concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) highlighted in The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream. He has taught at U.C. Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and the University of North Carolina. In 1989, he proposed the concept of “Pedestrian Pocket” an up to 110 acres (45 ha) pedestrian friendly, transit linked, mixeduse urban area with a park at its centre. The Pedestrian Pocket mixes low-rise high-density housing, commercial and retail uses. The concept had a number of similarities with Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, and aimed to be an alternative to the then usual low-density residential suburban developments.
July 30, 2019
Robert Ogilvie | Oakland Director, SPUR
Kristy Wang | Community Planning Policy Director, SPUR
Over the past 20 years, Robert Ogilvie has worked extensively in community development and planning to help improve low- and middle-income neighborhoods. Prior to joining SPUR, he was vice president for strategic engagement at ChangeLab Solutions. He has served as a faculty member in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley; as a consultant to city and county governments, nonprofit organizations and neighborhood activists; and as director of volunteers at the Partnership for the Homeless in New York City. He is the author of Voluntarism, Community Life, and the American Ethic (Indiana University Press, 2004), coauthor of Opening School Grounds to the Community After Hours: A Toolkit on Joint Use and editor of Community Development Approaches to Improving Public Health (Routledge, 2013). Robert has served on the editorial board of Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society, the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research Program and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Post-Disaster Recovery of a Community’s Public Health, Medical and Social Services. Robert holds a PhD in political science from Columbia University.
Kristy Wang leads SPUR’s work in community planning and housing, splitting her time between San Francisco and San Jose. She co-wrote Room for More, SPUR’s housing agenda for San Jose, and SPUR’s white paper Cracking the Code, which makes recommendations for raising the bar for urban design in downtown San Jose and other areas designated for urban growth. Prior to joining SPUR, Kristy was a project manager at BRIDGE Housing Corporation, one of California’s largest affordable housing developers, where she worked all around the Bay Area, including on projects in the three central cities of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. She currently sits on the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation Board of Directors. Kristy earned master’s degrees in city planning and real estate development from MIT and a bachelor’s degree in architecture and urban studies from Yale. She was also a Public Policy Fellow at the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. A Palo Alto native, Kristy lives with her family on the border of Bernal Heights and Glen Park in San Francisco.
16
August 1, 2019
Disc* 2019 - Speakers
17