Toban Shadlyn

Field States

Project

Field States is a strategic design firm working with public and private sector organizations to steward place-based transformation and create lasting civic value. Based in the US, our team and work spans from the US, Canada, and Europe. 

The Field States team includes Toban Shadlyn, Matthew Claudel, Ryan Conlan, and Sol Tangvik, along with a diverse constellation of incredible collaborators.

Below is a selection of collaborations and projects we’ve had the privilege to support.

Clients include: Evergreen Canada, Bloxhub, The City of Vernon California, Boston Public Schools, Michigan Central Detroit, University of Michigan, Cornell Tech, and others.

Boston Public Schools Youth Athletics

Sports have the power to positively influence the lives of students – but the design and implementation of athletic programs determine whether that potential is realized or left untapped.

In 2023, Boston Public Schools (BPS) made a bold commitment to “ensure that every student we serve learns and thrives in schools that support a holistic and high-quality student experience.” Physical activity and athletics play a pivotal role in this vision, serving as a cornerstone of a high-quality student experience that nurtures physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

However, this raised key questions: What does a high-quality, inclusive athletics program look like in the context of BPS? How can such a program be delivered in a district as diverse and dynamic as Boston’s?

Together, the Boston Mayor’s Office, Boston Public Schools Athletics Department, and Field States engaged students, teachers, coaches, parents, and academic partners to assess current athletic offerings for grades 7-12 in service of sketching an athletics program that is student-centered, culturally responsive, and supports physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

This effort focused on assessing the quality, diversity, and relevance of existing programs, identifying who is currently underserved and how, understanding the barriers they face, and exploring opportunities for BPS to expand its capacity to deliver inclusive and high quality athletics.

Field States led a comprehensive discovery and design process that included cross-departmental engagement, multi-stakeholder workshops, and research. By integrating insights from BPS stakeholders and analyzing best practices from other cities, the collaboration created a roadmap for leveraging existing resources and designing new systems where necessary.

Personas are fictional characters that typify the most common ideas and experiences that surfaced from the research. As a set, these are designed to be representative of the BPS student population. The personas’ fictional stories echo those expressed in surveys, interviews and focus groups; the lived experience of athletics as it exists today.

City of Vernon Health Services

For over a century, the City of Vernon has been an industrial zone with a reputation for environmental hazards. In 2023, Vernon’s leadership committed to becoming a city for production and living, through significant redevelopment. They came to us for urban design strategies to enhance public health.

Together with a public health consultancy, we created an analysis and report on Place-based Factors of Public Health. Creative and high-impact solutions will align urban design and economic development with the wellbeing of Vernon’s future population.

︎︎︎ Read the Case Study

The University of Michigan’s Urban Technology program is a new undergraduate degree preparing students to become the future urban leaders. Students focus their studies on understanding place, technology, and design to respond to the urban needs of today and tomorrow.

The program, which launched in 2021, is graduating its first ever cohort in 2025. As this is an emerging program, it is developing in real-time alongside the cohort, involving a continuous process of learning and refinement.

The program’s final design studio - Strategic Design - is one of the few (if not only) in the world to offer such a course at the undergraduate level. Field States worked with Urban Technology staff and faculty to design the first delivery of this course. Our work positioned the class for students, identified and communicated with prospective instructors, and prepared for a Fall 2024 course delivery.

Michigan Central, Detroit

Designing a new workplace model to enhance creative, inclusive, technical, and social innovation

Michigan Central (a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company) was converting a historic train station and surrounding buildings into an innovation campus for mobility and society. The CEO came to us to design a workspace in the station building.

We conceptualized and designed the “sprint studio”—a unique work environment, technology stack, and service offering that is purpose-built for the future of creative, inclusive, technical and social innovation.

Over the course of the studio’s existence, our team spent time designing our studio structure, governance, systems, and values. 

As a result we developed and shared our thinking, experiments, and material publicly with the aim of supporting our broader communities of practice.Less reinventing the wheel means more time spent doing good design work in the world. We refer to all this as legible practice. 

︎︎︎Read about the Responsible Project Portfolio (RPP)