Ifeoma Ebo of Creative Urban Alchemy | The Perfect New York Street in New York City | Optimizing Urban Streets
Courtesy of Creative Urban Alchemy
The Perfect New York Street
Today, I’m joined by the Founding Principal at Creative Urban Alchemy, Ifeoma Ebo. Ifeoma is a Brooklyn native with a background in architecture, urban planning, real estate development, and environmental sustainability. In our conversation, we dive into the details of her latest project, The Perfect New York Street, which is a modern take on the streetscape of Third Avenue between 33rd and 34th Street. She walks us through what people might see, hear and feel when walking through this re-crafted space, and highlights the ripple effect it can have on the local economy and neighborhood safety.
Ifeoma and I discuss the large-scale focus on equity and infrastructure in various global and domestic cities, with a particular focus on New York City. There's a movement towards how we're reconfiguring cities in the public realm to address damaging practices, such as redlining, in city development. Ifeoma has a unique perspective on the intertwined issues of sustainability, criminal justice reform, and housing affordability due to her upbringing between Brooklyn and her mother’s village in Nigeria, as well as her studies at Cornell University and MIT.
We talk about the design challenges that cities across the population spectrum are facing to make streets efficient for vehicles, productive for businesses, and accessible for residents. I get Ifeoma’s take al fresco dining on city sidewalks and ideas for how that experience can be improved. We also touch on where funding is typically sourced from for urban transformations and the challenges with maintenance and operations in the public realm.
“There’s a movement towards how we’re reconfiguring cities in the public realm to address a more just practice and to build equity in city development.”
About Ifeoma Ebo
Ifeoma Ebo is the Founding Principal at Creative Urban Alchemy, a NYC-based studio that specializes in strategies and frameworks for design, engagement and spatial planning in the areas of architecture, urban planning, real estate development and environmental sustainability. Ifeoma teaches at the graduate level at Columbia University and Syracuse University, and has taught at Cornell University and the University of Cape Town. She is also active with community initiatives, including with Architecture for Humanity and the BlackSpace Urbanist Collective.
Episode Timestamps
2:41 – You began your design studies at Cornell. Tell us about your time there.
14:40 – You have had the opportunity to work for urban design firms, a nonprofit organization, and a university in the early part of your career. And on projects, both in the United States and abroad, what were your biggest takeaways from this wide array of experiences in design that you had in this formative part of your career?
20:57 – Tell our listeners why you launched your firm initially and the steps along the way for you deciding to do that full-time.
25:29 – Are there statistics or the things that you see being very emblematic of voter changes going forward?
32:14 – Tell our listeners about the prototypical streetscape that you chose for the subject of The Perfect New York City Street project.
35:49 – You mentioned that you had the opportunity to collaborate with an incredible team. Tell us who you worked with, what each person did, and how the overall process went.
40:46 – Help our listeners understand what they would see while they're walking through The Perfect New York city Street when it's completed. And also maybe what they’d hear, what they’d feel, and maybe what they smell as they walk through this
45:47 – What are the design challenges that cities across the population spectrum face?
48:14 – What are your hot takes on outdoor dining? How can that be integrated into the perfect New York city street?
50:27 – What are the typical funding sources for urban transformations?
Connect with Ifeoma Ebo:
LinkedIn (Ifeoma Ebo)
LinkedIn (Creative Urban Alchemy)
Creative Urban Alchemy
About your host:
Atif Qadir is the Founder & CEO of Commonplace, a technology company making it easy for commercial real estate professionals to find and use the $100B of real estate incentives given out every year in the US.
His work has been covered by Technology Review, The Real Deal, Commercial Observer, and Propmodo. He’s also a frequent speaker on the future of buildings and cities on popular industry podcasts and at conferences, including this past year at the Commercial Observer National DEI Conference, Yale AREA Conference, Columbia Real Estate Symposium, Open Data Week NYC and Austin Design Week.
About Commonplace
Commonplace is a founding sponsor of American Building. It is a 100% minority-owned, real estate technology company founded in 2020 to make financing social impact development projects across the US easier. It is funded by venture capital investors Hometeam Ventures, Park West Asset Management, New York Ventures and Shadow Ventures.
About Michael Graves
The world-famous design firm Michael Graves is also a founding sponsor of American Building. Its namesake, the iconoclastic designer Michael Graves, FAIA was a fierce advocate for people-centric design. His work defines a generation of American architecture and includes the Portland Building, the Humana Building and the Denver Public Library. The 1st season of American Building was filmed live at The Warehouse, his historic home in Princeton, New Jersey:
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