Designing For People: A Vision For Human Flourishing in Wheeler District

What happens when we design for people first? When the "why" behind everything we build is to facilitate human flourishing? In this episode we tour Wheeler District, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) just a mile from downtown Oklahoma City, the 20th largest city in the United States, to explore how design choices, informed by the desire to improve peoples' lives,  can have a radical effect on how people live-and feel. Can you imagine living in a neighborhood where you actually know who your neighbors are? Where community happens organically, rather than forced through special and sporadic programming that almost always fall flat because no one knows each other? Where kids can roam freely, and you, as parents, know they're safe-while they're able to adventure and be real kids. We all know free range chickens are happier and healthier when they're allowed to roam and have some freedom. How much more so with our own kids?You can't build relationships, community or a sense of belonging by waving at your neighbor from inside your car as you pull into the garage. And then after that…how do you even MEET your neighbors? You certainly don't want to invite every neighbor to dinner or into your home to "get to know them". That's too intimate for the vast majority of relationships. Casual relationships are incredibly important in forming community, safety and a sense of belonging. We have a very limited capacity for close relationships. So how do we have looser, but still meaningful and essential relationships with people outside our intimate friends and family? The way we build our suburbs, it's almost impossible, because you never even get the CHANCE to interact with others.

This is just the first episode as we introduce some new concepts, but we will be diving in over the next few episodes, examining how we build shapes how we live. We hope you join us!If you find this video helpful or inspiring, PLEASE subscribe and share. We know you get asked that a lot, but for a small company like ours it's SUPER helpful. We hope to build this channel so that we can pursue ever cooler and more impactful projects out in the real world, all while sharing the information and how-to with you all.Our goal is to build a movement, to rethink how we approach architecture and building in this country, so that one day we can build towns and cities again that are rich with beauty, connection and meaning.  We want people to visit the places we've built, and things built in your city, 500 years from now and marvel at the richness. We want people to be inspired, and enriched, generations from now by what humans were able to build today in the 21st century.

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