Constructive Discourse
The Origin Story
I think best in sentences.
In the slow, deliberate work of writing things down to understand them more fully. Writing is how I wrestle with complexity, synthesize scattered ideas, and, however roughly, arrive at some kind of clarity. I panic in oral debates, but when writing I am able to build an idea with more coherence and precision, slowing down the chaos and giving shape to the fog.
That’s the impulse behind Constructive Discourse, this Substack. Here, I’m going to consolidate my thoughts on cities, architecture, planning as facilitation, design politics, social / spatial justice, the odd foray into applied spatial analysis, mapping with QGIS, or modelling with Rhino. It’s part field journal, part think-aloud, part sketchbook.
It’s also, in many ways, a reconciliation of my unusual path: from teaching high school English and drama, to writing, to architectural design, to spatial planning, and facilitation. There’s a throughline, even if it’s not always obvious (even to me), and with this blog I hope to trace it and in the process consolidate a bit of my generalist / t-shaped thinking.
Why Constructive Discourse?
I like that it holds a dual meaning.
Constructive nods to the built environment: architecture, planning, urbanism. But it also speaks to the co-constructed dialogue that I think we need more of in cities today: generative, critical, forward-looking, co-created, transactional, dialogic.
Discourse captures this too but it also combines the everyday and the academic: casual conversations about the neighbourhoods we live in, as well as deeper inquiries into spatial justice, power, participation, and design’s entanglement with all of it.
Put together, I want Constructive Discourse to platform a multitude of explorations on how we build cities, both physically and politically, through design, governance, planning, and public debate.
Follow me into the dark
What you’ll find here
I hold on to ideas for too long before I let them out into the world (if at all). With this substack, I’m tackling that inertia and letting things go before they’re ready. So, expect some work-in-progress thinking. In general, topics will surround:
Urbanism + design practice: Placemaking, human-scale design, and how equity can be an integrated design input, the results of a parametric modelling tutorial
GIS + spatial analysis: Using spatial data to surface inequalities, visualise patterns, and rethink planning workflows
Urban equity + access: Who gets to live, thrive, and belong in the city? I’ll look at housing, infrastructure, and the distribution of urban opportunity
Civic planning + governance: How city policy, public engagement, and planning cultures shape what gets built, and for whom
Meta-practice: Reflections on process - writing, design, research, facilitation - making complex ideas legible to a broad public.
A note on intent
This is an ongoing, organically-developing, and not an entirely cohesive project.
Writing here helps me think out loud and in public. It’s a practice in discipline, clarity, and also just doing it. I’d like it to contribute to the wider conversation about how we design fairer, more inclusive urban futures, but let’s see where this goes.
If these ambitions resonate with you, by all means, stay tuned, or better yet, subscribe.