Portfolio

UX Strategy and Research | Mobility systems Design | Climate Design

Lakshmy Narayanan

Resume

Email: lnarayanan@inside artcenter edu Ph 626) 567- 9731 https //www linkedin com/in/lakshmy-narayanan-78aa73128/

Education

M.S in Transportation Systems and Design Sep 2023 ArtCenter College of Design Pasadena, California

B.Arch in Architecture (5 year course) Aug 2020

R V College of Architecture, Bengaluru, India

Integrative thinking Strategic Planning | Co-creation Creative Leadership Decision Making Cross-Disciplinary Communication Team building Project Management

Facilitated and co-organized design workshop at CoMotion LA ‘22, aimed at Bringing streetcars back to LA, A future visioning Exercise

Concept Design Research and Design trends Mapping Future Casting | UX/UI Design strategy Stakeholder Mapping User Experience Design Quantitative and Qualitative Research Analysis Service design Wireframing

Designed and Co-presented Mobility Vision project as part of Pan do Populus ‘22 with a team of four designers Participated in ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) LA Conference

Presentation: Figma, Microsoft Office, MS Office, InDesign, Zotero, Miro

Visualisation: Maya, Vred, After effects, AutoCAD, Adobe Creative Suit, Sketchup, Lumion, Twinmotion, Revit

Leading the Indian Student Association at ArtCenter as the Club President

Founded ‘@revv__art - An Artistic initiative for Transportation renderings and visualizations, 2016 Volunteer at Humanity United together (H.U T), Volunteer and Design Team member at a charitable trust, based in Bengaluru, India

Conducted Solo and Group Painting Exhibitions for 6 years, Published Poetry Collection - Midnight dreams 2012

Design for me is about initiating a dialogue around change

Recognition Tools Strengths Workshops Extra curricular Skills

Play to Win framework. Get to know me.

What is our winning aspiration?

Where will we play?

How will we win?

Transportation Systems and Design (M.S) Architecture (B.Arch)

What capabilities must we have?

What management systems do we need?

Hi! I am Lakshmy, a Multidisciplinary Designer actively involved in identifying opportunities and gaps in the Mobility ecosystem. Today, we are witnessing a substantial cultural shift in how society approaches Transportation. Being a mobility designer, now understand that Transportation is interlinked with various Social Systems on a macro level. That is where the Systems Thinking perspective helps identify insights and develop opportunities for a long-term vision for the future. And currently, what is missing is the overlap of creative designers with Policy Design which I believe is a pivot to initiate this transformational shift. I am also passionate about climate design and am currently searching for opportunities at the intersection of Urban Mobility, Climate change, and Systems Thinking. I practice a bottom-up design methodology that focuses on human-centric design language where cocreation and co-design are key steps in the process.

Design for Social Systems

Co-Design

Ecosystems of Mobility City/Urban environments Mobiltiy as an enabler

Build strategies for Human-Centered environments

Offer Creative Leadership, Strategic Planning, Future casting-create roadmaps

Develop Creative Platforms for Research, Validation multidisciplinary collaboration and Co-creation

Contents.

LA Mobility Vision 2050

Campus Biking

Strategy Sprint

Strategy

Mobilizing Resilience capacities for the future

Research, Finding gaps in literature

Urban Forms Term Project Academic Thesis (ongoing) Design Studio Project

Systems Design, Visioning, Team Building Research and Design

Space station Mobiltiy Interaction Design UI/UX Research and Design

Suburban Mobility

Gallery

Miscellaneous, Extra-curricular

Visual Development

LA Mobility Vision 2050

Description: Urban Forms Term Project

Presented at Pando Populus ’22

Role: Collaborated with a team of 4, Led the project during the Vision and Development Phase

Brief: The Design Brief was to develop a far future vision for Los Angeles 2050 using 2028 LA Olympics as a transition point. LA is a Mosaic of cultures, activities and identities, this is all empowered by the ability to move from one place to another, unfortunately the only viable way to do this is ‘The Car’, that dominates the city. The car system is impeding and limiting human freedom and the future of LA. Owning a car is a necessity- What began as a mechanism for individual and social empowerment, ended up as a prison for mobile freedom - climate, right to breathe.

Freedom = access to car = wealth

Our vision is to Decouple freedom from wealth.

We studied the LA28 Olympic Games Plan and visited places in the city; event venues, transportation projects under development. We identified key insights and opportunities through experiencing first-hand a variety of forms of urban mobility. We identified five relevant themes that need to be addressed.

new ways for people to live, move and interact Accessways Strategies Problems Connect LA Slow Mobility Mobility Devices Mobility System Enablers FlexFlats River Corridor System Components Service Equity Localization Wise City Environmental Justice Car Dominant Freeways Repurpose Public Transit Decline Flexibility Hostile Streetscape Localize High Cost of Ownership Co-Locate Paved Over N ature Rewild

Imagining

How might Mobility co-exist with Nature?

The River

Corridor rethinks the experience of walking in Los Angeles

Car centric infrastructure of the past affected people in a way that created segregation among communities. This also created problems of Environmental Justice where only certain communities carried the burden. The current climate emergency begs for us to rethink the way we move. Walking is the most natural form of commuting and more spaces need to be dedicated to it

Nature is nurtured through a series of habitat developments along the river. Nature takes over and humans become guests.

2050

Walking as a mode of commute.

Encouraging the River corridor as a regular commute route. Walking in LA becomes an asset.

Currently, the Accessibility and Visibility to the river are blocked which impedes the potential of the river as a community resource.

Active Mobility + Rewilding

By 2050, Eventually this system scales up to a model that revives all the natural assets of LA through mobility.

By 2028, the river becomes an active corridor connecting Olympic venues and 51 miles of public space - serving communities all along the way Currently, The LA River represents a massive untapped resource and is a bleak image of a concrete jungle. By revitalizing the river, a natural asset is given back to the city

The human-centric corridor activates the space economically by co-locating flex flats and working spaces along the river. This rethinks not only the way we move but also the way we work and live. It shows how the urban landscape responds to the space. This helps develop the river as a community asset directly serving the population living adjacent to it.

Partnerships with private organisations like we work and zoom with NGOs and community organisations that work in the interest of the river communities would help develop these co-working spaces and creates opportunities for people to expand and explore their work culture

Community Organizations x x

2050

Mobilizing Resilience

the Future Intangible Narrative Tangible Narrative Disaster Management and Mitigation Dominant Narrative Balance Efficiency Planning tool Inherent Narrative Focus Area People’s perspective and frameworks of Resiliency Disruption Recovery Building Potential Pre-disruption planning Mobilizing resources Space for Introspection Mobilizing support Post-recovery planning Adding Value Rethinking Narratives How might we discuss resiliency as an everyday construct? How do we bring qualities of normality and ingenuity to the conversation? Identifying Gaps 1 2 3 What are the new intervention possibilities that would help the communities prepare for adaptive capacity? How might resiliency be a criterion for future transformations in Mobility? Build Interventions How might resilience be a way of co-planning and governing Mobility systems through the dea of Mobility Justice Socio-political lens Buffer Capacity Resilience Description: Academic Thesis (Ongoing) Role: Research and development Stage How does Resilience thinking create opportunities for new system dynamics and transformations in Mobility ? Re-imagining Mobility Resilience in Bounce forward capacity vs Bounce-back ability

Capacities for

Suburban Mobility

Description: Studio Project, Presented at Pando Populus ’22

Brief: The Design Brief was to develop a mobility system for sustainable suburban mobility for the year 2050

Future Trends

No ownership trends

People owning less stuff and using more service Freedom to access services anytime anywher Shift from Ownership to Usership

Futurecasting

How might we tackle Car dependency | Single Occupancy Trips

Suburban sprawl

From ‘me to we’

Social Consciousness shift that establishes a sense of collectivenes

People wanting to be a part of a communit

Environmental Urgency

Ability to connect and build a network Embracing Environmental Justic Building Resilient communitie Incorporating policy changes for climate change

Changes in zoning as a consequence of climate crisis has brought differences in the residential experience of a suburb. Housing is now based on subscription basis and this has led to the emergence of a huge rental community. These changes has also transformed the spatial structure into a more flexible order

Flexible | Resilient | Collaborative What is the future of the ‘The American Dream’? Change n Mythos Automobile and the American dream

Idea of Collective

The

Outcomes

Approach

Mobility as a Third Space

1

Encourage

Personal Space Social Space Mobility

Third Space

How might we celebrate Spatial Experience as an everyday suburban practice? How might we enable the interaction between the Different Spheres of Spaces using mobility?

2

Re-imagining spatial experience through mobility 3

new avenues of social interaction and social equity using mobility

Identifying systems for spatial throughJusticemobility

Introduce Mobility as a connecting sphere between personal and social spheres of spaces to be used as multipurpose platforms of interaction

Active Zones Quality of Life Service economy

Neighborhood nodes as community spaces People valuing experience and desirability Increase in Personal Access

as a

Social Mobility

Mobility

space for social interaction

City has a system of bikeways includin Class II and III facilities. Only ¼ of these bikeways are class II bike lanes so most of the time bicyclists are sharin the road with vehicular traffic.

How mi ht we provide equitable access usin mobility?

LA Metro Pasadena

DOT Oversee Provide

Enhancin last mile connectivity

How mi ht we introduce biking as an acti vity?

Increased social interaction

How mi ht we improve the Environmental quality?

Reduced carbon footprint

Set

Strengthen

Connect bikin network to the LA metro network

Expand

Create multimodal hubs like Pasadena by prioritizin bikin

Pasadena Students bikin networ

Oran e ot Networ

Inside ArtCenter loop

Connect the bike corridors to Filmore el Mar metro station

Create similar bike networks in cities connected to the old line Metro

Expandin the public transit system in LA usin a hybrid bike-train networ Metro to include Bike compartments

City to identifiy major transit hubs alon the bike corridor

Hubs to be developed as urban hotspots of the city

Build a Student bikin network in Pasadena In Motion

Infrastructural

Micromana

Campus biking

support Provide Intelli ent systems and tech. support

ement of the system

LA DOT

Provide and esi n bikes

Pasadena Students ArtCenter Caltech Residents Stakeholder Mappin

Description: Strate y sprint- Winnin Team collaborated with a team of 3 Brief: The esi n Brief was to develop a bikin vision for ArtCenter students in Pasadena.

Unique Value Proposition

Goal: 10% of students bike to campus

Students actively participating in biking get benefits - Discounts in stores, Eg. Trader Joes, Blicks etc.

Encourages students to bike more

Goal: 10% of people in a neighboorhood actively bike

Communities that support biking and biking infrastructure earn benefits. Incentives for utilities; Free credit towards gas bill, 100 miles of metro bike usage=Acquire new bike

Encourages residents to support biking more, Pushes towards more bike ownership

Geofence created from the Delineators alert vehicle drivers if they drive too close to the bike lane.

Sensors detect ArtCenter ID card to indicate presence of bikers. Similar concept as Givemegreen.

Geofence created from the bike for added safety.

Space station Mobility System

harbour

Extended presence in deep space Gateway New ecosystem

Value shifts

People will begin Living and working in Space

Growing Food in space in Mass

Deploying Rovers to remotely work at planet base from SS

Future Scenario

Space industry has become another sphere of activity. An innovative model of economy has been devised for the settlements in space where AI has become commonplace Space tourism has encouraged investors to expand the commercial businesses and Investments into 3D printing. Data from space-based platforms has allowed for more informed decision making and increased productivity back on Earth. In effect Space has become the primary support system for Earth’s sustenance.

AI assistance will be common