What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience?

Participating in "Housing Reimagined – Making the Homes We Need within Planetary Boundaries," hosted by WeCanMake, provided me with a greater understanding of how housing can be reimagined as both social and ecological infrastructure. I learned about how innovative design and policy approaches that address not just the number of homes needed, but also their quality, sustainability, and ownership models.

The event marked the launch of MultiMax — an open-source, homegrown timber kit-of-parts for low-rise apartment blocks. These systems are designed to be adaptive, community-centered, and capable of existing within planetary boundaries.

The emphasis on localized production, material circularity, and community stewardship reshaped the way I think about development. I now better understand how policies like Bristol City Council’s Community-Led Housing Land Disposal Policy can enable communities to co-design and co-develop housing that meets local needs. Hearing from council representatives and speaking with directors of similar organizations helped solidify these ideas and sparked further curiosity about the intersection of planning, community power, and spatial/urban/social justice.

Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you?

One of the most impactful figures during this experience was Melissa Mean, Executive Director at WeCanMake. Working alongside her and the rest of the team has been an incredible opportunity to learn from truly visionary leadership. Through my time with them, I was able to attend events and retreats, participate in council meetings, engage with local residents, work on construction sites, and support surveying and planning proposal edits.

Melissa’s leadership demonstrates how grassroots innovation and care-driven action can become transformative. She leads with lots of humor, humility, clarity, and a grounded belief in people’s right to shape the places they live.

What have you learned about leadership from this individual and/or from your adopted community and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

From Melissa, and from others I met through the event, particularly Indy Johar of Dark Matter Labs, I learned that leadership can look radically different from traditional top-down models. True leadership in this space means creating space for others, amplifying local voices, and holding systems accountable. It’s about enabling and empowering, not directing! In my future work, I want to be able to adopt a more collaborative, co-designed approach.