Luisa Munera, a liaison in the art community, and Sabrina Dorsainvil, an industrial designer who is passionate about the complexities of the urban, met at the MS of Design & Urban Ecologies program at Parsons and collaborated to develop a cohesive framework that questions the physical, social, historical, and economic makeup of New York city to imagine alternative futures. They realised a disconnection between theory and practice in the urban sphere and drawing from their thesis projects, together created the Urban Atlas project as a mediation platform for residents and artists to share their stories of a city in constant flux.

As a mediation platform, the Urban Atlas allows a conversation to emerge between local artists, residents, and the youth in order to reimagine processes for urban development through the five lenses of Stories, Boundaries, Power Dynamics, Networks, and Imaginaries. These lenses aim to provoke the interest and requestioning of residents about the future of their neighborhoods. Luisa and Sabrina are currently focusing their efforts on creating relationships and partnerships with existing organizations and interested individuals in New York, Miami and Boston to build their online presence and expand to multiple cities in the future. The Urban Atlas is now a grantee of the Parsons Entrepreneurial Lab and have recently obtained full time working space at the Center for Social Innovation, leveraging their available technical infrastructure and provided network of entrepreneurs.

Stay tuned to this project and other future news.

Urban Atlas @Urban_Atlas
CSI NYC @csiSL
DESIS Parsons @desisparsons
SDS Parsons @SDSParsons
SDM Parsons @SDSDesignManage
SDM Parsons eLab @ParsonsELab

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The Urban Atlas Project participating in the No Longer Bored Family Day: ‘Telling My Story’ event.