Julia Day

Associate, MSc City Design and Social Science, Gehl New York

Julia D Day has focused her experience on developing projects across design, policy and advocacy to demonstrate streets as public spaces. Her educational background and eight years of design and applied research experience equip her to facilitate projects where urban leaders from multiple sectors can collaborate to improve quality of life. As Associate, Julia works with cities to identify how urban design can address broader community challenges, and to collect new data to inspire and empower the piloting and implementation of policy and design change.

Julia has worked with city agencies and community leaders in New York and London to implement Public Space Public Life studies – most recently in East Midtown, Manhattan – to repurpose streets as play spaces in communities lacking open space, to develop neighborhood design plans that support better walking and biking, and to organize catalytic events, such as Open Streets London, to help decision makers to find the courage to prioritize places for people.

Her interest in Gehl was sparked not purely by a love for design (or at least how she understood it in the traditional

sense), but by a desire to understand how people genuinely engage in shaping the environments around them. It was during one of her first jobs – as a voter organizer in Missouri in 2004 – when she came to believe that public spaces, inclusive to all, were a critical element to foster participation in local politics as a way to shape the environment around us. She realizes engagement involves more than design, and is thrilled to be a part of a company that values working across fields, fostering leadership capable of making bold, innovative decisions, and identifying how design can inspire participation in one’s city.

When not at work, she enjoys exploring her native New York City’s streets, looking for remnants of Keith Haring’s sidewalk drawings and eating olives of any kind.

She holds a Bachelors of Arts (BA) in History form Washington University in St. Louis and a Master of Science (MSc) in City Design and Social Science form the London School of Economics.

Web: www.gehlpeople.com