Looking back, much of what shaped the way I think about design did not happen only inside a studio.

It happened by being in places.

When I studied Landscape Architecture in San Francisco, I lived within the city I was learning to understand. I spent a great deal of time visiting different neighborhoods and different types of open space, sometimes because of school and sometimes simply because I was curious.

Parks, plazas, waterfronts, gardens, streets, neighborhood spaces, overlooks, and small leftover spaces all became things to observe.

I often visited the same places more than once.

I saw them in the morning and afternoon, during weekdays and weekends, and at different times of the year.

That repetition mattered.

The same park could feel completely different depending on when I was there. A quiet space in the morning could become crowded later in the day. A place dominated by local residents during the week could attract visitors on the weekend. Weather, light, vegetation, events, surrounding businesses, and the people using the space could continually change its character.

At first, I was mainly looking at design.

I looked at materials, planting, circulation, topography, seating, edges, and spatial composition.

But over time, I started paying more attention to behavior.

Why were people gathering in one part of a park and avoiding another?

Why did one entrance feel natural while another remained almost unused?

Why did a particular program make sense in one neighborhood but feel inappropriate somewhere else?

Why did some spaces feel deeply local while others became destinations for tourists and visitors from across the city?

These questions made me realize that an open space cannot really be understood in isolation.

The surrounding neighborhood matters.

The buildings around it matter.

The street network, transportation, local businesses, demographics, history, topography, climate, and everyday routines all affect how that space works.

San Francisco made this particularly visible because its neighborhoods can feel remarkably different from one another.

Moving across the city could mean moving between different topographies, architectural characters, microclimates, commercial patterns, communities, and rhythms of life.

The open spaces within those neighborhoods often reflected these differences.

Some parks functioned almost like outdoor living rooms for their communities. People returned repeatedly. Children played there. Residents exercised, met friends, walked their dogs, or simply occupied the same familiar places day after day.

Other spaces performed a very different role.

Their location, views, history, landscape character, or programming made them destinations. They became part of how outsiders understood San Francisco.

This distinction interested me greatly.

A public space could express the identity of a neighborhood, but it could also help create that identity.

It could give a community a center.

It could make one neighborhood feel different from another.

It could become an image associated with a particular part of the city.

It could strengthen local life, attract visitors, or sometimes do both.

This was when I began to understand Landscape Architecture as something much broader than designing attractive outdoor spaces.

Landscape could participate in making a place recognizable.

From Observation to Identity

When I later moved to Providence for graduate school, these observations became more focused.

My interest turned toward how outdoor spaces can strengthen identity, legibility, and connection through design.

I began to think of outdoor space as a spatial framework capable of expressing the identity of something larger.

A public landscape can help communicate the character of a city.

A campus can reinforce the identity of an institution.

A museum landscape can begin shaping a visitor’s experience before they enter the building.

Through independent studies, I explored these questions using precedent research, drawing-based observation, and design testing.

My thesis developed this interest further through the idea of branded spatial design.

I was not particularly interested in branding as a logo or graphic identity.

I was interested in how identity could become physical and spatial.

Could repeated materials make separate spaces feel connected?

Could circulation create a recognizable journey?

Could a sequence of thresholds, views, planting, and unexpected moments make an environment more memorable?

Could someone understand something about an institution or city simply through the way they moved through its outdoor spaces?

These questions led me toward ideas of memory, sequence, consistency, and experience.

A place can become recognizable through repetition, but it can also become memorable through surprise.

Sometimes a material creates continuity.

Sometimes a particular view creates orientation.

Sometimes a shift in scale or an unexpected moment becomes the thing a person remembers.

The journey itself can become part of the identity of a place.

Reusing What Already Exists

I explored related ideas further through a competitive, grant-funded adaptive reuse design studio.

The project examined how existing transportation infrastructure could be transformed into a public space accessible to pedestrians.

The challenge was not simply to replace an old use with a new one.

The more interesting question was how existing infrastructure could take on a new civic role without erasing the history already embedded within it.

Through an interdisciplinary design process, we explored how the structure could become part of public life while strengthening connections to the city’s history, identity, and tourism.

That project reinforced something I had gradually learned from studying cities.

Places rarely begin with a blank sheet of paper.

There is almost always something already there.

History.

Infrastructure.

Existing communities.

Patterns of movement.

Memories.

Physical traces of previous uses.

Design is often less about inventing an entirely new identity and more about understanding what already exists, deciding what should remain, and finding ways to reveal new possibilities.

From Design to Practice

After graduate school, I continued working in landscape architecture practice in the Boston area.

The range of projects widened considerably, from gardens within historic environments to waterfronts, campuses, residential communities, and larger master plans.

Working on projects across different countries also made context even more important.

A design approach that feels appropriate in New England cannot simply be transferred to the Middle East or Asia without understanding climate, culture, development patterns, social behavior, and local expectations.

Visual communication also became increasingly important in my work.

I spent a significant amount of time translating early ideas into diagrams, drawings, and 3D visualizations.

I began to understand that representation is not simply what happens after a design is complete.

Drawing something forces you to understand it.

Making a diagram forces you to decide what matters.

Building a model forces you to confront relationships that may have remained vague in words.

Visual storytelling therefore became part of how I think, not simply how I present.

Looking at Cities Today

Today, working in Abu Dhabi across Urban Planning, Urban Design, Public Realm, Master Planning, and Landscape Design has expanded the scale of these questions.

I may now be looking at an entire district rather than a single park, but I still find myself returning to many of the same observations I first made while walking through San Francisco.

What makes this place different?

Who is it for?

How will people move through it?

Where will everyday life happen?

What should remain consistent, and where should difference be encouraged?

What will make someone recognize where they are?

And, perhaps most importantly, what will make them remember it?

The more cities I experience, the less I think design begins with drawing.

It begins with observation.

Before deciding what a place should become, I believe we first have to understand what it already is.

San Francisco was where I first learned to look at cities this way.

I am still learning.