Future Forward

Seyi (00:10)
Hello, hello, hello Reza, how are you today?

Reza (00:12)
I'm good, Seyi how are you doing?

Seyi (00:14)
I am doing well. I am excited about today's episode because we have a guest.

Reza (00:20)
Yes, yeah, we have a special guest, Darshan, where our topic is going to be the future of architecture and sustainability. Very excited to have you on, Darshan. Maybe take a minute and just say who you are and then we'll introduce the episode.

Darshan Shah (00:32)
hi, I'm Darshan. I'm an architect and I work in the space around data and architecture, particularly around information about how people use spaces and how we can use that to better inform design. And then on the flip side, I teach a course on architecture, the environment and ethics, delving into what is the balance of using data versus using our emotions and community and how we connect with the spaces that surround us.

Seyi (00:49)
you

Reza (01:02)
That's so cool. That's so cool. So Seyi tell our listeners about Future Forward and then we'll start having Darshan share some of his knowledge with us.

Seyi (01:02)
I think. Yeah.

Knowledge. Yeah. So welcome, welcome to our new listeners. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Future Forward and to our old listeners. Thanks so much for coming back. We love that you keep coming back and reaching out and Future Forward is a conversation Reza and I had been having for a long time centered around sustainable cities and the thriving communities within those cities.

and where we think those cities are going. So the history, the past of the city, where we are current day and the forces at work and then strategic foresight about where those cities are going. We've brought on a few experts now and today we're super excited, as you've just heard, for us to have a conversation with Dasha. So let's dive right into it.

Reza (02:03)
Yeah, so Darshan, you have a very interesting story. We talked a little bit about it before the episode. So, what's your story? How did you get into architecture and where you got today?

Darshan Shah (02:15)
Yeah. So I actually started my career in agricultural engineering, really looking at natural resource conservation, water conservation. I worked in a couple of different roles, just looking at how can agriculture impact the environment and how we can be the best stewards of resources. And as you dig into that, you suddenly realize that agriculture does pretty good, but urban development is where we have the least

concentration when it comes to putting effort towards making the right choices for natural resources. So then I was like, OK, wait, I need to pivot a little bit. I need to go to a profession that, one, thinks broad about urban development, and one that is in the urban development space, not so much agriculture, so much architecture school, and really found this broad thinking of what does it mean to

Seyi (03:05)
you

Darshan Shah (03:12)
to build space, what is community. Architects love, like, even the smallest project we think of in the context of everything, right? It's like, this pavilion is a commentary on all of society. And it's great because it's what the profession is, what inspires people in the profession, myself included, right? Every project has like, what is the intention? What is the point? And I love that level of thinking, I think.

Seyi (03:23)
you

Reza (03:23)
Hahaha

Darshan Shah (03:38)
engineering doesn't always think as broadly as architects love, which is why the two always, you know, they clash. So I went into architecture, I started to practice architecture and got really into the design side. And it just was maybe a little too far in the other direction where architects are always a little less, let's say grounded, really thinking big picture, which is amazing for the profession. There's that

Seyi (03:45)
plug your heads,

Reza (03:45)
ha!

Darshan Shah (04:06)
it wouldn't be a profession if people weren't that way. But I found for me, there's this happy medium between the logical data-based engineering and the thinking around natural resources in that way, and then the big picture creative thinking of architecture. And so that's where I found my little happy place.

Reza (04:26)
Yeah, that's super interesting. So I'm curious about what you're doing today. You you're focused on design and storytelling, you know, and you told a little bit about why you gravitated towards it. But tell me a little bit about like what impact are you having? Maybe you can pick a couple examples of the work that you're doing, because I'm very curious about how you've taken both, you know, this journey that you've been on in your career and bringing that into the work that you do.

Darshan Shah (04:52)
Yeah, like my half of my career is in the world of data. So I work at a startup where we collect data about how people use space. And we do it without a camera. So it's not like we don't know who the people are. We just know there's a person here. But we use that data in a couple of different ways. And I get to play the role of like, well, how do you use this data? How does it go out and make?

make change and how people can use and operate space. The pandemic did this wonderful moment where suddenly office space was significantly utilized differently. And so it opened up a whole new part of the practice of architecture, which is optimizing and better utilizing space. And so I play in that space a lot. How do you use this data to make an informed decision about real estate?

Reza (05:20)
.

Boy.

Darshan Shah (05:42)
helping a lot of companies make little changes to get the most out of the real estate. If we think about from a sustainability perspective, you want to make the space fit the people, but also be as minimal impact as possible, right? So things like just changing the basic layout of an office space to better match how people work, you can get.

Reza (05:55)
That's it.

Darshan Shah (06:04)
you know, one and a half times the people in the space without it feeling uncomfortable or feeling foreign, right? And then the other half of my career is teaching and I work with students on how to bring in community and to bring in storytelling into the practice of architecture, particularly around sustainability. Most of my students are either immigrants or first generation Americans, second generation.

And they all come from places where natural resources were like top of mind, right? I think in America, we have a certain layer of luxury and sometimes when people have been brought up in different cultures, it's so much more front of mind for them. And so it was really fun to work with students that are like, oh, like if you would just like honor this part of my culture and my community, I could, you know, a building would work.

Reza (06:32)
.

Darshan Shah (06:59)
10 times differently, right? I wish I had the data to show it, but it's very clear that when a space is of the people, it has a much higher rate of utilization. There's so many wonderful projects in the world where it's like, this is a community space. And guess what? 12 different community things happen all day, every day. And then suddenly you've got this really well utilized space.

Reza (07:00)
Hmm.

That's super

interesting. I'm actually going to go back to the work that you do in offices and tie it to the work that you do in teaching. Is there a way that you involve, you know, the teams that work in those places to make it a better place to work? Because I, you know, I hear you say that like, how can we make the space better utilized? But I'm also curious about bringing in the

Like what makes it an optimal space for teams to thrive in it?

Darshan Shah (07:55)
Yeah, it's a tricky game actually, right? Particularly in the workspace or like corporate real estate. Most companies will do a survey, for whatever reason, everyone loves surveys. you know, not to like discount a survey, but we've done enough comparisons where people say, I use my desk a lot. And then we look at like the utilization data. It's like, no, you actually don't.

Reza (07:59)
Mm.

All

Seyi (08:08)
you

Darshan Shah (08:19)
use your desk as much, you use the meeting rooms or you use a cafe and like you move around a lot more. That's not to say like we're going to, you know, make some big change and there's going to be no desk. But I think that the thing that is really important is to then have conversations. that's like the next layer, which is whether you're talking about workspace or anything, it's how do you engage people in a meaningful way that they feel like they're part of the

the process, part of the design process. For a while, we would have your basic focus group conversation and give people the data when it's like, here's what we learned. Help us add color to it. And when you approach it with that level of humility of this data is the truth, that doesn't. Let me say that again.

When you approach it with humility where this data is something, but it's not the full story, help us add to it. People come with so much more authenticity, right? And they'll tell you, oh yeah, like I don't use my desk as much because I have so many meetings and I would love for that to change. Right. And the reason I have so many meetings is because I'm not in the office at the same time as my peers. That's something we can solve. Right. It's like, oh.

Reza (09:11)
Mm.

Darshan Shah (09:35)
How do we help you be in the same time as your peers without like some crazy forced policy, but basic communication tools, right? We can help people kind of build those muscles and then you get to see that change. And we've seen it in the data. We've seen, you know, things go from, I'm never here at the same time. And then, what if you just put it on the invite? Like, hey, I will be in the office this day, right?

Reza (10:00)
Hmm.

Darshan Shah (10:02)
That little change is enough for people to like, I want to talk to Reza in person. So I'm going to be in the office today, right? So it's just stuff like that. And that takes conversation, right? It takes really coming to the table with help us figure out this layer and the gap that we're seeing.

Reza (10:20)
Interesting. Yeah, and then to your class that you teach, it's got a very interesting topic. says, architecture, ethics, and the environment. Tell me a little bit about the framing for it and why is it important to teach this approach to students? And you also mentioned a lot of students are first generation immigrants. I love that power. If you could pull a little thread on that too.

Darshan Shah (10:46)
Yeah, so in most of the like practice of architecture right now, when people say sustainability,

The first thing that comes to mind usually is like lead or fit well. They're one of these like, accredited, yeah, building standards and accreditation, which are, don't get me wrong. They're wonderful. Like they give a really nice structure on how to approach sustainability and how to like, be accountable to it. But it.

Seyi (10:57)
Yeah. Standards and yeah.

Darshan Shah (11:13)
It leaves the architect with, I can just put in really nice fixtures that are a low flow. can put in better glass. can, you know, reduce electricity by putting in LED fixtures, all these things that are very measurable, very tangible. And then they can at the end of the day say, this building is 60 % more efficient. Which is, again, wonderful, but there's no human element to that.

Reza (11:34)
Hmm

Darshan Shah (11:41)
The class really, the premise of the class is well, if you start with the people, if you start with the community, if you start with who are the people that will use the space, who are in the community, what can they tell you about what they actually need, right? If you start with the usefulness of a building and the like, applicability of a building to the community, you can just.

achieve all kinds of efficiency just by nature of people using the building, right, and having it meet the needs of the community. If you go into like a corporate developed kind of suburban shopping center, right, it's like an example of something that's just so lacking of local culture. It's just, here's the thing. And I think if you

Reza (12:22)
Hmm

Darshan Shah (12:26)
look at some of the better examples where like a community came to the table and was like, Hey, we want a place for live music. We want a place for local vendors, breweries, whatever the thing is that the community wants. Then the architecture looks fantastically different and you don't have vacancy anymore, right? Cause you, you've figured out like what the community wants. And so instead of having really,

Reza (12:46)
the

Darshan Shah (12:51)
expensive real estate that's spent a lot of energy to build and then no one uses it. And then in 10 years, it's like, well, we need to tear it down and build something different. Why not build the thing that the community wants? It's that simple. And so that's what the class is. It's like, how do you engage the community ethically? And then I think that's a big part of like, how do you not come in and say, I'm the architect and I know the answer, but rather, how do I

connect with the community, listen to what they are looking for and what the life is, and then build in response to that. Yeah, there's obviously so many knock-on effects of, well, if you don't do that, if you don't listen to the community, you end up in situations where suddenly real estate became really expensive and people can't afford to live there. The people that are

the original residence or you end up in situations where like there's just like turf wars and there's a lot of like just mistrust between the people and the government and community and all of that can really easily be solved by just starting with listening, right? Like just listen to the people of the community. And, you know, when I started teaching the class, I

I came in with a little bit of like, this is the right approach. when my students that have been brought up in other communities, other cultures came to the table, they were like, you know, I think I would want to be heard in this way. And so one of the things is like,

everyone knows what a town hall is. And one of my students like very directly was like, I've been to so many town halls, but English isn't my first language. And then architect gets up there and starts using all these words that I just, I have to like sit there and translate and I can't keep up. And I was like, yeah, if we're trying to listen, I have to find a way to communicate with you in a pace and a language that works. And so,

Reza (14:24)
.

Darshan Shah (14:44)
a simple flip of how you engage,

Have that engagement last a week. it be something where the residents can kind of come digest, take the time to give feedback and give it in whatever language, whatever medium works for them, and then go back as the designer and try to respond.

Reza (14:49)
.

Darshan Shah (15:06)
In an ideal world, the designer is from that community. Unfortunately, the practice of architecture

doesn't always afford us that, right? The way that things work.

Reza (15:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Seyi (15:17)
Wow, I just had to chime in. Thanks so much for sharing that. As you kept talking, it just kept popping in my mind that that approach is exactly what the city of Round Rock, Texas, which is right north of Austin, has done. The downtown is this very organic.

Reza (15:24)
.

Seyi (15:42)
space filled with different organic spaces such that you have the library is one that got a lot of input from the community as it was before it was built and as it was being built and the architects, the designers paid a lot of attention to what the people said they wanted because

Reza (15:53)
Okay.

Seyi (16:06)
It didn't just become this building in the middle of downtown. It recognized everything else that was around it. There's this small art gallery that is right next to this coffee shop, probably one of the original coffee shops and hasn't tried to be like every other coffee shop.

You have a bunch of the small local single location businesses that are just by the library that benefit from it. And the request everyone had was as much as possible, don't forget what was here. As you build this new modern building, let

Reza (16:49)
.

Seyi (16:47)
it blend with everything else. And that's exactly what they've done. So.

It's pretty fascinating. hadn't thought about it from that perspective. So thanks for sharing that. Yeah.

Darshan Shah (16:57)
Yeah, think similar like the city of Taylor is on the precipice of like a lot of change. I wish I was involved, I'm happy to not be. But if you follow the news, like the city of Taylor is doing so much to make sure that like the local fabric

Seyi (17:08)
Yeah.

Darshan Shah (17:13)
is held. Right. And it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of strong kind of defenders of the people, right. To say like,

Reza (17:16)
.

Darshan Shah (17:23)
Hey, there's a way to listen and we just have to spend the time and the resources up front to hear community. Yeah, it's a tough one to push for in the face of like big development, right?

Reza (17:37)
So that's one other thing that I want to pull the thread on is what you just said. There's this tension between what developers and owners want to do versus what architects and communities want to do. And what have you seen that's worked? Because sometimes the incentive of a developer is really financial. Obviously, they're in business and they have a financial incentive for what they're doing. So how is that?

tension reconciled.

Darshan Shah (18:06)
I wish I had like a good answer of like, when is it reconciled well? But I don't think anyone has perfectly cracked that. But I do think, so like, places where there's already a pretty strong community at bay, tends to just push things further. And community can come in any form, right? It can be

the municipal government, can be the school, it could be the library, like in Round Rock, like any kind of cultural anchor can really be a strong voice. when you start a project at that cultural anchor, right, so if we take like Round Rock saying, let's start with the library, right, like let's get the library right, and then everything around it will fit, it tends to go a lot further because the cultural anchor has a

thriving force in everything that happens from it. If you look through the history of time, it typically happened around some religious institution. But because of that, the culture of that institution permeated in society. Whether that was appropriate culture, that's a whole other conversation.

Reza (19:09)
Yes.

Seyi (19:10)
Yeah.

Reza (19:22)
but

Seyi (19:20)
separate podcast.

Reza (19:22)
it had an impact. had some kind of bringing together of people, whatever it was. And we certainly have lost those religious institutions. And so we have cultural anchors that may be stadiums or libraries or museums maybe. And then you just have a ton of offices and then, you know, so.

Darshan Shah (19:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Reza (19:43)
the way to centralize that cultural impact or community anchor is much more difficult these days than it used to be.

Darshan Shah (19:53)
Yeah, there are so many great examples of towns that have really like prominent farmers markets or just like local markets, right? Not just food, but everyone in the community. And when a city tries to go to do redevelopment, it's like the first thing they'll build a really incredible space for a farmers market. And I think that's like one of the best like steps for a city. It's like,

Reza (20:01)
Mm.

Hmm, interesting.

Darshan Shah (20:20)
the thing that people feel connected to that local people can show up and be their authentic self and drive their, you know, whatever their craft is. Then everything around it like turns into the right type of development. Usually not always, but I think that's like a, you know, one of the ones that we're seeing a lot of good, good promise.

Reza (20:34)
Very interesting.

Darshan Shah (20:40)
I had a thought.

Seyi (20:42)
Cape Town is one, to your point, they have this fantastic market where even as you come from outside of, as a tourist or something, to visit the market, and this probably applies in a lot of places, but to visit the market is to fill the...

the soul of the city because it's so central. It's so critical to everything that the locals pay attention to and they're interested in that when you come, you recognize that quickly and you honor that to a certain extent because of how critical it is. Yeah.

Reza (21:27)
Mm-hmm.

Darshan Shah (21:28)
And it's a very delicate balance. if you make it, like if we keep in the kind farmer's market realm, if you make the farmer's market really nice, then suddenly it becomes a tourist thing, right? And suddenly

Seyi (21:41)
Yeah, yeah.

Darshan Shah (21:42)
you lose the authenticity of the place. Like Barcelona, I forget the name of their main market there, used to be such a big part of its culture around food and...

Seyi (21:52)
Roll.

Yeah.

Darshan Shah (21:53)
eating and it became this tourist thing and that's why locals are so upset about it. It's like, hey, you messed up this thing that was so authentically us because it became too attractive, right? So it's a tough balance and I wish there was a way to like balance that better, but it's hard. I think the other thing just having local people

part of the design process. It'd be amazing if it was a local architect, but local architects aren't always equipped just by nature of the number of people it takes to deliver a big project. Most firms are 10 people or less, and you have a big building, you need a bigger firm, unfortunately, to keep up with the pace of

Reza (22:26)
Bye.

Seyi (22:33)
Hmm.

Reza (22:34)
Okay.

Darshan Shah (22:42)
construction and delivery and all these things.

And that's a tough one, right? But if there's a way to keep the design process local, it goes a long way. It goes a long way of preserving the people and the community.

Reza (22:56)
Mm. Yeah.

Yeah, that's fascinating. So Darshan, this has been really helpful. What I'm curious, just a slight segue into a, you know, adjacent topic, which is I'm curious about like, what are your favorite cities or experiences in cities, given that you spend so much time sort of thinking about it, designing, you know.

Darshan Shah (23:23)
Yeah. So my, my like outside of work hobby is dance or just kind of the arts, but particularly dance. I do some Indian folk dance, classical dance, Bollywood, kind of all those things mixed into one. And I think the thing that like is really wonderful when you go to a city, any city is when the local art or the just any

art form that reflects the people is prominent, right? Like, I live in New York City and there's Broadway and Broadway is wonderful and it's, you know, it's Broadway. But I don't think it captures the kind of culture of the city. But the minute you kind of like dig into other parts of New York City, you find these other performers, people that are performing of

Reza (24:05)
Mm.

Darshan Shah (24:14)
of their experiences as immigrants, as people new to the country, people that are in the chaos of New York City, right? I love those moments. I love finding those moments. And it can be visual art, it can be performance art, it can be any version of expression. And I think some cities do a much better job of elevating or creating the space for that.

Reza (24:25)
.

Darshan Shah (24:38)
especially like, Mumbai is a great example. think the art culture in Mumbai is, it's so strong, right? You like feel you're in this place with a bunch of people that are just going after something that they're passionate about and a fashion or, you know, music, film, dance, that you've just like, hits you. You're walking in the city and you can tell like,

Reza (24:45)
Good.

Mm-hmm

Darshan Shah (25:05)
there's people here to do amazing things. And I think that's my favorite. Whenever you're in a city and you can feel that. And it doesn't have to be a big city. You see it in all kinds of places. Actually, when I was doing agriculture work to go into some of the smaller towns around Florida, and you can tell that agriculture is so core to that community.

Reza (25:28)
Hmm

Darshan Shah (25:29)
you feel it, right? Everyone's all about like, the entire process of agriculture, everything from growing to, you know, country music, all these things like fit in the culture of agriculture. And I like, I love being able to seal that, right? And sometimes it's not my culture, right? And it's

Reza (25:49)
Mm. Mm.

Darshan Shah (25:55)
You have to go into that space and enjoy it and appreciate it, but not take away from it. That's, think, my favorite part of going anywhere in the world.

Reza (26:05)
I love that.

I love that description.

Seyi (26:06)
We literally,

last episode with Letty Lozano, an architect in Mexico City, that literally came up. That be of the experience, the culture of the place, and don't try and impose your expectations.

Reza (26:20)
Yes.

Yes.

Seyi (26:25)
just

enjoy and help it thrive and improve. So it's so beautiful to hear you say that, yeah.

Reza (26:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

She said, you know, she was describing how going to a beach in Mexico and how some recent residents didn't like, you know, what the beach experience was like with the band, you know, musicians. And she said, this is how we beach in Mexico. And I love that. I know that stays with me. This is what you're describing is that every place has a way of expressing their culture.

Seyi (26:48)
you

Reza (26:56)
And so living that or experiencing that is a really good way of experiencing the city.

Darshan Shah (27:03)
Yeah, I mean, to get back to like that, idea of listening, right? If we are trying to design and response, what better way to learn about a culture of people than through the medium to express that, right? And so arts are the way that we reflect culture, we challenge culture, we put it out there. And as someone who's not from that culture, that's the perfect way to listen, right? To like,

Reza (27:30)
Mm-hmm.

Darshan Shah (27:31)
to feel the struggles of the community, the achievements, the things that make it run, right? The heartbeat, the literal heartbeat, right?

Reza (27:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. That's, I love the way that you describe it, you know, that inspire, that's inspiring me. You know, Seyi and I are working on a book and one of the things that Seyi is suggesting that I do is write a poem, to write poems for this book. you know, poetry for me is listening. And so I'm trying to listen to the things that make cities thrive and try to bring that through my poetry. So I love how you're describing sort of that

really deep listening to understand the place in a way that you wouldn't if you weren't. So I love how you're describing that.

Darshan Shah (28:14)
Yeah.

The first assignment, so my students, they get like a site to research through the semester and we work on like different ways to do research. But the first assignment is like, go find art of that community of what is around your site, right? And so like my students would come back with like music videos and things on Instagram that people were posting, know, song lyrics, poetry.

Reza (28:30)
Hmm.

Seyi (28:30)
now.

Darshan Shah (28:42)
you know, all kinds of things, right? And it's like, when you put all those things together, the understanding and the like, like the connection you feel to that community is the baseline, right? To me, that's where all design should start. It's like, everything else will come, right? And but if you if you start with this, like real connection to the people and the community,

Reza (28:57)
Mm.

Darshan Shah (29:05)
everything else just falls into place. And then to like, to go to the realm of like, the environment and sustainability. The almost immediate next step and I love it because my students didn't even need the direction. They're like, yeah, then these are all the building materials that mean something to this community, right? One of one of the students had a site that was in central Texas and there was a brick factory and she was like,

Reza (29:22)
Mm-mm.

Darshan Shah (29:30)
brick, like brick is such an integral part of how this town became a town because there were brick factories, right? And guess what? That would be the most sustainable way to build, right? The material is right there. That's from dirt. That's local. And you're supporting the local business, right? It's like the answers to sustainability are right in front of you when you start with the community.

Seyi (29:56)
That's

fantastic.

Reza (29:56)
Wow.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. What a good sort of circle you've come through, you know, going in, you know, with water, starting there, a little too deep, you went very abstract with architecture and have found this happy medium of grounding yourself, not in abstract architecture, but in what a community needs and what

data you can gather from that to design a community in a sustainable way. And I love that the way that you think about sustainability is not this, again, not an abstract or a standard or this thing that we think about, which is about a better environment or less energy on this or that, but it is truly about the people that are in that community. I this is the ethos of our podcast, which is Thriving Communities. And so if you create

and design in a way that helps that community thrive. You are gonna do it in a sustainable way. So I love how we've learned all of that.

Darshan Shah (31:00)
I'm going to quote one of my students. He's like, we always say, if you build it, they will come. But it should actually be, if they build it, they will come. It should be their space, not me. I loved that moment for my student, just this like, yeah, exactly.

Seyi (31:11)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Reza (31:15)
Yeah.

Yes,

yes. Yeah. So Darshan, anything else that you'd like to share before we close out? This is we've learned so much. I've so enjoyed talking to you because this is I, you know, who knew that the way that we were connected was quite random. But it was your sister who connected us was prescient in her thinking that this would be a great guest for our podcast. So

Seyi (31:24)
That is great.

It's so good.

Darshan Shah (31:45)
You

Reza (31:47)
Thank you, Davey, for doing that. But anything else that you'd like to leave our listeners with before we do a couple things to close out the episode.

Darshan Shah (31:55)
Yeah, so like the one piece that like

It just keeps coming back. As a designer, you've gone, you've done the research, you're building in response to community or with the community. And then what ends up happening is all of that gets lost in translation. And so I think there's a whole other layer of how we talk about architecture, how we talk about cities, that storytelling piece that...

Reza (32:20)
Okay.

Darshan Shah (32:21)
for many years existed and for whatever reason in the last two decades, we've lost it. We've really lost the appreciation for the art of architecture, the architecture as an art form. I really like,

I don't have, I think that's where my mind is at next is like, that's where we need to figure out like, how do we get back to that?

storytelling and architecture, that layer of what does it mean to communicate or to have a building communicate the people and the culture to really embody the space that it exists. Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect and there were right after a bunch of earthquakes, he built community centers and he was building these like very quick sort

Reza (32:52)
Hmm

Darshan Shah (33:09)
short timeline community centers and places where everything was devastated. People were living in, you know, makeshift housing, trailer housing. And he's like, if we keep a community center, it doesn't matter if it takes time to rebuild the housing, the community won't get lost. I I love that. I love that, like, very strategic thinking of like, what is the little intervention? And how does it tell the story of the people so that while they may be living in

Reza (33:24)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Darshan Shah (33:38)
that don't have a story, the story can live on, right? that. storytelling is a big part of where this goes.

Reza (33:45)
Love.

I love that. love that. Darshan, this has been amazing. You know, we do a couple things at the end of our episode. One of them is a call to action. I am inspired by your call to action that you give your students to go into your community and find the art of your community. And so that's the call to action for our listeners. Go and listen to your city, understand the art, the culture of the city. will be an experience to help you be a better community member.

and contribute to building your community in a sustainable way. So thank you for that inspiration. And Che, do we have a mail back for this episode?

Seyi (34:22)
Yes, we do. Before I dive into it though, I just want to just echo what Reza just said. That was fantastic in its thoughtfulness and just the broadening of our perspectives here. How can people reach you if they need to?

Darshan Shah (34:41)
Yeah, LinkedIn is great. I'm happy if you want to share an email address. I'm always open to it. If anyone else is playing in this space or has expertise, I always love a guest lecturer in my classroom. So the invite is open to the world.

Reza (34:56)
That's awesome. That's awesome.

Seyi (34:56)
That's

great. Yeah, so really, really, hope our listeners have enjoyed the episode. And one of our returning listeners, Amani, she sent a pretty substantial email, because one of the things we're doing is previewing the book to some of our listeners. And she had this

amazingly thoughtful response to a few of the chapters and the episodes where it goes, actually ties back to what you were saying, Dasha, and that what, as we write about cities in the book, and as we talk about cities on the episode, that the question we should sort of bear in mind, and I'm paraphrasing here is, what do the people want from their city? Like, if you can answer that question.

the city will be sustainable and the people will thrive. So it's kind of amazing to me that your message on this episode ties directly to, she had this long response, which is great and thoughtful and we're considering it, but fundamentally, what do people want from their city and can we give it to them? So thanks so much for that, Armani.

Reza (35:50)
Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you, Darshan, again. I want to thank all our listeners for listening. Please rate and review. This is how our podcast

grows for other listeners, like and subscribe on YouTube if you're watching, and then share this with someone that you think will enjoy the episode. Thank you for listening and we'll see you all next time.

Darshan Shah (36:37)
Thanks for having me.

Reza (36:39)
Thank you, bye.