Baumer Series: Maki Kawaguchi

Maki Kawaguchi will discuss the topic of designing places for human flourishing and how to enable a collaborative and inclusive design processes to achieve a people-first outcome in the built environment. Through examples, she will discuss what it means to design for experiences and emotions.

Maki Kawaguchi is an international design leader passionate about transforming places and building thriving communities. She has extensive experience in urban transformation and place strategy in the Americas, Europe, and Asia and brings an interdisciplinary approach to the built environment with backgrounds in urban design, architecture, and innovation consultancy. Maki is an urbanist dedicated to unlocking the potential of community and place to improve people’s everyday life. Her approach to building vibrant cities is human-centered where community needs, local context, and inclusive engagements are the cornerstone of her design process. She has previously held positions as director at Gehl, a Danish urban design and strategy consultancy as well as Fundacion Metropoli, a European urban innovation think tank. She has served as juror on prestigious design awards and as guest speaker at renowned universities.