Our mission is to transform how infrastructure is designed and constructed with the goal of building resilient cities and communities.
Physical Infastructure
Infrastructure of the Commons
Physical Infastructure
Infrastructure of the Commons
urb-in is a practice specializing in infrastructure and design. We seek to recast how infrastructure projects are planned, designed, and constructed. We believe a successful project relies on practices that meet or exceed core programmatic goals, achieve standards of design excellence, and engage with community stakeholders honestly and transparently.
Our practice focuses on changing how people experience infrastructure. We challenge the status quo which has relegated many of these essential facilities to the periphery, placed out of sight, and often becoming blights on the communities they serve. Our work seeks to re-write this narrative by creating a new process that delivers projects with a high degree of performance, design, and cohesion into the urban fabric.
OUR PROCESS
Our process begins with a period of examination and analysis of
the project brief. The unpacking of the brief’s constraints and opportunities
guides our team in the creation of a project approach. We craft our strategy to
address each project’s unique set of criteria, focusing on the most salient
issues to produce the best outcomes.
We have been fortunate to work on projects at a variety of
scales. Over time, through experience and observing best practices, we strive
to achieve the following key principles in our work:
Core Program Meet and exceed programmatic goals. Deliver a project that is on time, on budget, and built to last.
Leadership At the outset of the project, provide clear direction to align goals between the project team and the client to keep the overall vision on course.
Outreach Stakeholders vary with each project; in each instance, identify which communities or groups benefit from or are impacted by the proposed project. Devise strategies to engage these communities and stakeholders early and often.
Jonathan Manzo is the owner and founder of urb-in , a practice specializing in infrastructure and urban design. His past work has ranged from large-scale project design management and master planning for institutional clients within the utility sector, to work on residential and commercial projects.
The projects Jonathan and urb-in oversaw within the utility sector delivered facilities that set new standards for design, community engagement, reliability, and resilience. Most notably, urb-in has overseen the design process of five new substation facilities and developed the master planning and disposition strategy for a thirty-two-acre property on the site of the former Hunters Point Power Plant in San Francisco.
Jonathan is a graduate of Connecticut College and received his Masters in Architecture (M.Arch). from California College of the Arts.
Andrew
Guenzer is Project Director at urb-in, where he works to support design
excellence and project success through rich communication and clear
organization.
Andrew came
to urb-in with a commitment to its mission of building resilient cities and
transforming the urban fabric. In a previous career as a therapist and social
worker, he witnessed how neglect and lack of investment in the built
environment impacted the health and well-being of entire communities.
