Mabelle Zhang Design & Planning Portfolio '24

MABELLE ZHANG Planning and Design Portfolio Masters of City Planning 2025

Hi, it’s Mabelle I’m interested in using design-thinking and participatory planning to create more equitable and climate-resilient places. I aim to blend equitable visions with deep understanding of stakeholder needs and local context to create executable and practicable plans. I’m currently pursuing my Masters in City Planning at the Massachusetts School of Technology where I’m focusing on City Design and Development and pursuing the Urban Design Certificate.

My approach to planning is informed by my experience in mission-driven planning, design, and development work. Before this, I worked a New York State agency on facililating urban planning and develop projects in New York City. These included affordable housing, public realm design, and master planning. I also worked at a community non-profit in Boston’s Chinatown where I built resident power through placemaking, housing, and organizing.

I started my career studying Public Policy and Economics at Duke University for my undergraduate degree.

In my free time, you can find me at makers spaces making prints, paintings, and more. You can also find me strolling around Cambridge on the lookout for the perfect cup of matcha or cooking up a new dish in the kitchen.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Projects

Skills

01 Magazine Terrace - Mixed Use Development Proposal

01 Infographic & Data Visualization

02 Bernard Rudolph Square - Open Space Design 03 Hudson Street Stoop Placemaking Project 04 Resident Leadership Workshop Series - Community Engagement

02 GIS Spatial Analysis 03 Site Analysis 04 Modeling and Massing

PROJECTS

01 MAGAZINE TERRACE Type: Student Work | Team Year: Fall 2023 | MIT DUSP Instructor: Eran Ben-Joseph, Mary AnneO’Campo Team: Web Farabow, Alejandra Martinez, Yiwen Huang

Completing the Char

3-D Site Model

Context: Cambridge is in a housing crisis. Our site is a uniquely underdeveloped 7-acre site home to Trader Joe’s and Microcenter on the Cambridgeport. Magazine Terrace is an opportunity to maximize one of the few underdeveloped waterfront parcels by providing a housing oriented community to complete the Charles River water.

Magazine Terrace prioritizes housing and community assets through playful use of towers.

The project will provide 570 units of housing, with 30% of units being affordable. As existing community assets, Microcenter and Trader Joe’s are relocated on-site.

Individual Contribution: I led on 3-D Massing and Modeling, Site Sections, Axonometric Drawings, and Housing Program Design. I collaborated on project ideation.

Section view: Skyline

Precedents live

Peabody Terrace Cambridge

Wooden Housing Proposal Tham & Videgard, Stockholm

work

live

shop

eat

rles Riverfront Design Features

Program Details: Above-Ground Land Use

FAR: 2.3 Housing: 570 Units 474,000 sqft.

Studio: 140 1-Bed: 206

live meet

2-Bed: 169 3-Bed: 55

40% Family-Sized 30% Affordable

Commercial: 200,000 sqft.

Retail/Commercial: 106,000 Office: 94,000 Educational: 9,000 sqft.

Parking: 708 Spaces

Site Plan

Walking th

live work shop

Precedents

bike park

ing

Entering M

he Woonerf

learn

Memorial Drive

N 0 ft

10 ft

20 ft

02BERNARD RUDOLPH SQUARE Work: Year: Instructor: Team:

Academic - Urban Design Skills Fall 2023 | MIT DUSP Eran Ben-Joseph, Mary Anne O’Campo, Alula Hunsen, Khadija Ghanizada, Milan Chuttani

Context: Bernard Rudolph Square is a proposal to create commercially viable, people-centered, climate conscious square between Cambridgeport and MIT’s far-west campus.

This design builds upon Fort Washington Park by expanding green and public space into existing surface parking lots. This green space will include a free urban garden, addressing local food needs.

Transit and mobility options will be expanded and include transforming the CSX rail line into a Bus Rapid Transit.

In uplifting local histories, our proposal is named after Bernard Rudolph, a Cambridgeport resident who was instrumental in preserving Fort Washington Park, which locals affectionately call Bernard Rudolph park.

Individual Contribution: I created site renderings, participated in drawing out the site plan, and conducted site analysis and opportunity and constraints mapping.

Site Analysis

Fences

Land use

Natural Systems

Precedents MBTA’s Columbus Ave Bus Lane

E Making Cambridge’s Next Big Square

Stepping Off the Bus

Entering the Fruit Forest

Urban Farming Institute in Mattapan

Atlanta Beltline Trail

03 HUDSON STREET STOOP A Placekeep Professional Work: Asian Community Development Corp.

Year: 2021-2022 Role: Project Manager

Spring 2021: Install Storytell

Context: Hudson Street Stoop (HSS) is a rotating public art initiative to activate One Greenway Park. The project convenes residents and local artists to co-create art that reminds working-class individuals and families they belong in Chinatown. HSS is part of ACDC’s ANCHOR placemaking and placekeeping strategy.

The 2021 inaugural installation, “Storytell and Sway” by artist Gianna Stewart, pays homage to the Hudson Street’s 1950s and 1960s vibrant neighorhood stoop culture. Before highway construction demolished the homes on this site, immigrant families from China, Lebanon, and Syria gathered and played on the streets, sidewalks, and stoops.

Individual Contribution: As project manager, I sunset “Storytell and Sway” and planned the future installation. In sunsetting, I oversaw two site activations, faciliated an interview process where residents shared memories, and coordinated de-installation. Subsequently, I led the call for artists, where I organized selection process, laid out project vision and scope, and oversaw three community visioning sessions. Additionally, I managed project budget, two project interns,and funding applications.

As the inaugural installation, Stor Sway involved a long community feedback process. Residents we tell their stories, which where etc benches.

Summer

HSS activa for people Day, Open Reading Ca gether a w elderly, res grants and

ping Initiative to Create a Neighborhood “Stoop”

l and Sway

Fall 2022: De-install and Preserve Memories

rytell and y design and ere invited to ched into the

Storytell and Sway became a beloved community landmark by many. To honor this as we de-installed, we hosted listening sessions where we heard and preserved memories of this installation

2021 - 2022: Activate Through Play

ations focused on celebrating play of all ages. Activites included Field n-Mic Night, Art Night, and Chinatown art. These activations brought towide range of people - children and sidents and non-residents, immid long-time Bostonites.

Fall 2022: Co-Design a New Installation

Residents engaged in a series of visioning and designing workshops with artists to co-create the next installation.

04 RESIDENT LEADERSHIP WOR Professional Work: Asian CDC Year: Summer/Fall 2022 Role: Project Manager Collaborators Mel King Institute, CCLT

Workshop 1: Intro to Organizing

Context: The Resident Leadership Workshop Series was a pilot series that aimed to develop leadership and organizing skills for residents in ACDC buildings.

The series consisted of 4 two-hour bi-lingual (Cantonese & English) workshops.

The Series was born out of identifying several challenges among resident engagement including no official tenant associations, lack of familiarty among residents, and ongoing issues with property management.

In total, 11 residents participated and provided overwhelmingly positive feedback. Following training, residents will be plugged into a working group, where they can share issues and work on campaigns.

Our first session opened with a introduced residents to Chinato Chinatown has experienced ma engaged in acts of resistance a invited to add personal feelings experiences in post-it notes to

Workshop 2: Building Po

Individual Contribution: I led program creation and strategy, program logistics, outreach, and recruitment. I also assisted on curriculum creation and workshop faciliation.

Our second session highli power comes from relatio neighbors. Residents enga exercises simulating mobi different situations.

Inaugural Resident Leadership Cohort

RKSHOP Building Resident Power in Chinatown Concepts and Chinatown History

Workshop 3: Radical Inclusion

a Gallery Walk Activity, which own organizing history. While any injustices, residents at each turn. Residents were s, questions, and family histories/ the timeline.

Our third session focused on resident stories where residents were asked to share stories of exclusion and inclusion. From these stories, trainers pulled out similar themes and used them to talk about the importance of inclusion.

ower

ighted grassroots onships with aged in role-playing ilizing neighbors in

Workshop 4: Network Building

Our last session focused on applying workshop lessions to identify organzing goals for the group. This included identifying campaigns such as rent stabilization, safe streets, and Parcel R-1 for residents to mobilize around.

SKILLS

01 INFOGRAPHIC & DATA VISUALIZAT SKILLS: InDesign, Census/ACS Data, Data Visualization, Graphic Design I created a comprehensive rent stabilization report for Asian Community Development Corporation when I was worked as a community planning and policy associate. The aim of the report was to inform ACDC’s own policy decision on how to best support rent stabilization.

These pages are selected samples from the entire report showing my infographic design and data visualizations skills. Information was pulled from the census, community organizations, and research.

COMMUNITY PROFILE:

Housing&Rentingin Chinatown As construction of market-rate units outpace affordable units by 9 times, Boston's Chinatown is gentrifying and increasingly unaffordable for the Chinatown family, with a median salary of $40,210.

Despite an increase in Boston Chinatown’s housing stock from 2000 to 2020, this increase is largely driven by construction of market-rate units.

From 2000 to 2020, the number of market-rate units increased by 246.75% whereas the number of affordable units increased by 33.12%.

Year

Affordable Units

Market-Rate Units

Total Units

2000

1,911

909

2,820

2010

2,094

2,095

4,189

2020

2,544

3,152

5,696

for 91% 1in 4 58%

Chinatown & Downtown Residents

Of Residents are Renters

Percent Change

Residents spend over 50% of income on housing

33.12%

246.75%

101.99%

Chinatown has a great unmet need for affordable housing, especially for extremely low (<30% AMI) to very low income (30% to 50% AMI) units.

60% of Chinatown and Downtown Households are considered low-income, very low income, or extremely low income. However, only 45% of housing units in Chinatown are affordable.

Of Residents are BIPOC

Source: : 2011-2015 Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 20132017 ACS 5 year survey, U.S. Census Bureau Table B25091 and B25070 Chinatown Land Trust Housing Construction Tracking Dataset, last updated 12/2019

Impactof

RENT STABILIZATION Source: Rajasekaran, Prasanna, Mark Treskon, and Solomon Greene. "Rent control: What does the research tell us about the effectiveness of local action?." (2019).

1

2

Rent stabilization programs have achieved their goal for lowering and maintaining rents at belowmarket rates. In studies on San Francisco, New York, and Cambridge, all showed rent stabilization programs lowered rents for controlled units (Autor, Palmer, and Pathak 2014; Diamond, McQuade, and Qian 2018; Early 2000; Heskin, Levine, and Garrett 2000; Sims 2007).

Tenants in rent-stabilized units are less likely to move out than tenants in uncontrolled units, demonstrating increased housing stability (Diamond, McQuade, and Qian 2018; Glaeser and Luttmer 2003; Gyourko and Linneman 1989; Heskin, Levine, and Garrett 2000; Sims 2007).

3

4

Rental regulations have been shown to be related to a reduction in overall rental units. Studies find landlords reduce rental supply through converting rental units into owner-occupied units or condominium units (Diamond, McQuade, and Qian 2018). However, this type of conversion suggests it can be limited by proper policies (Pastor, Carter, and Abood 2018).

No clear relationship has been found between rent stabilization and new housing construction (Gilderbloom and Ye 2007; Turner 1990).

However, this may be impacted by policies that exempt new constructions from rent policies ((Early 2000; Glaeser 2003).

MAINTAINS BELOWMARKET RENTS

REDUCES RENTAL SUPPLY

INCREASES HOUSING STABILITY

These policies aided tenants to avoid de facto evictions from higher rents (Gilderbloom and Ye 2007; Pastor, Carter, and Abood 2018).

MAY EFFECT NEW CONSTRUCTION

Impactof

RENT STABILIZATION Source: Rajasekaran, Prasanna, Mark Treskon, and Solomon Greene. "Rent control: What does the research tell us about the effectiveness of local action?." (2019).

5

6

MAY EFFECT HOUSING QUALITY

MAY IMPROVE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

Rental policies may discourage landlords from maintaining the quality of their units or from capital improvements (Arnott and Shevyakhova 2014; Gyourko and Linneman 1989).

Residential stability, a proven outcome of stabilization programs, is associated with long-term physical & mental health outcomes (Bures 2003; Gilman et al. 2003). However, residential stability does not have the same positive effects in poorer neighborhoods (Ross, Reynolds, and Geis 2000).

However, policy changes such as as policies that enforce strict code violations or that allow rent increases only if landlords maintain upkeep has show to encourage maintainence (Pastor, Carter, and Abood 2018; Sturtevant 2018)

Additionally, it is unclear whether these programs have an effect of lessening gentrification ( Autor et al. 2014; Sims 2007)

7

8

Rent stabilization programs have not been successful in targeting its benefits to lower income residents. Studies show middle to high income residents and families benefit at similar rates to low income ones (Pastor, Carter, and Abood 2018; Sturtevant 2018). Additionally, tenants tend to be older and single, rather than families (Glaeser 2003).

People of color are more likely to be renters and low income compared to white people. However, evidence is mixed on whether people of color access rent-stabilized units in proportion to their population share or housing need (Sims 2007; Gilderbloom and Ye 2007). Racial discrimination may play a factor (Carpusor and Loges 2006; Massey and Lundy 2001).

MAY NOT HELP THOSE MOST IN NEED

MAY REDUCE RACIAL DISPARITIES

TION

CHINATOWN PROFILE:

BY PEOPLE

BY HOUSEHOLD

15,801 PEOPLE

5,124 HOUSEHOLDS 40%

39%

53%

FAMILY

ASIAN

BIPOC

$47,779 MEDIAN ANNUAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME

BY INCOME Under $15,000

$15,000 to $34,999

$35,000 to $74,999

19%

15%

26%

$75,000 to $149,999

11%

Over $150,000

28% HOUSEHOLD

16%

18%

28%

8%

29% FAMILY

RENT PAYMENTS AS % OF INCOME High rent burdens disproportionately fall on lower income households. Severely rent burdened households, who pay over 50% of income on rent, are concentrated below $75K, and especially below $35K Less than 30%

30% to 50%

50% or More

POVERTY RATE

2in 5

1,500

Households spend over 30% of income on rent

1,000

1in 5

500

e or M or

Households spend over 50% of income on rent

$1 00 K

$1 00 K to

$7 5K

$5 0K

to

$7 5K

$5 0K to $3 5K

$2 0K

to

$3 5K

$2 0K to $1 0K

th an

$1 0K

0

Le ss

20.5% FAMILY

Source: : 2011-2015 Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 20132017 ACS 5 year survey, U.S. Census Bureau Table B25091 and B25070 Chinatown Land Trust Housing Construction Tracking Dataset, last updated 12/2019

02 GIS SPATIAL ANALYSIS Skills: GIS, American Census and ACS, Geoprocessing Tools

I conducted spatial analyses on language and demographic in the Bronx for the Bronx River Watershed Alliance, my hypothetical client. These findings were translated into a policy recommendation.

The Case for Multilingual Signage in the Bronx River Greenway Multilingual signage in Spanish and English along the Bronx River Greenway could better accommodate local language needs.

% of Spanish Speakers by Census Tract

Demographic data from the American Community Survery mapped on to the Bronx shows high % of Spanish speakers throughout the Bronx.

Even more specifically, 50% of residents living near the Watershed speak spanish. To identify this, I joined demographic data with the Watershed shape, then analyzed languages spoken at home.

2014-2019 Census Tracts

% of Hispanic or Latino/a Origin by Census Tract

Data Source: 2014-2019 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

2014-2019 Census Tracts

Languages Spoken at Home in Tracts Intersecting the Bronx River Watershed English 39% -

- Spanish 50%

Examining Enviromental Risks to the Bronx River Watershed Land Use by Parcel in the Bronx CSO Watershed with the Largest Land Area for Industry

To begin, I joined land use data with parcel geometries.

Then for each of the five watersheds in the Bronx, I summed land area used for industry. Finally, I was able to identify which watershed has the largest landarea for industry and map out its land use Potential Point Polllution Source Cluster in the Bronx

Data Source: NYC PLUTO

To identify potential point pollution sources, I mapped all garages and gasoline stations in the bronx. I then found the highest concentration of these points in a ten-block radius.

03 SITE ANALYSIS

Gree

SKILLS: QGIS, Adobe Illustrator, Graphic Design I conducted these site analysis for a site in Cambridgeport, MA. These selected analyses demonstrate my workflow, from pulling spatial data in QGIS to editing and analyzing trends in Illustrator.

GIS Green Space Data

Land Use

GIS Land Use Data

Pede

GIS Circulation Data

Water Flow

en and Open Space Network

GIS Contour Lines

Auto-Circulation

estrian Circulation

GIS Circulation Data

Me

mo

ria

lD

riv

e

04 MODELING & MASSING

SKILLS: Rhino, 3-D Modeling, Massing

Initial Ideation

I led 3-D modeling for a team urban design project. These diagrams demonstrate my modeling workflow.

As a team, we brainstormed massing and site design using physical blocks.

Based on our ideation, I confirmed measurements for our buildings and streets to ensure they were realistic and matched existing typologies/best practices.

Confirming Measurements and Typologies

After confirming measurements, I modeled our design in Rhino.

I brought our finalized axon rendering into Illustrator to clean our model up and add graphic elements. This axon would serve as a base to further explain aspects of our design.

Modeling and Rendering in Rhino

Cleaning and Editing in Illustrator