Toban Shadlyn

FIELD STATES

Field States is a strategic design studio working with public and private sector organizations to steward place-based transformation and create lasting civic value.

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.

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.

City of Vernon Health Services

For over a century, the City of Vernon’s motto has been Exclusively Industrial! That dedication to powering industry in Los Angeles slowly calcified Vernon’s five square miles into a dense urban fabric of warehouses and manufacturing facilities, with zero green space and a reputation for environmental hazards.

In 2023, Vernon’s leadership committed to change. They envision the city’s transformation from an industrial zone to a dynamic, mixed-use area for working and living.

Alongside our partners, Wellness Equity Alliance (WEA) and the City of Vernon, we developed research-based strategies to align urban design and economic development with what we call place-based factors of public health—helping both Vernon and WEA think about their future in a new light.

The City of Vernon is an essential manufacturing and logistics hub with a massive transient workforce and small residential population, nestled between some of the trendiest districts and poorest neighborhoods in California. Its industry-driven strategy for economic development has resulted in a warehouse-dominated landscape rife with health hazards, including air and chemical pollution, extreme heat and noise.

The city has hopes of growing, increasing and diversifying their residential population, as well as shifting their historic manufacturing activity to sustainable businesses. This has massive implications for urban form, economic activity, and public services. Thousands of decisions by leadership—related to real estate development, anchor industries, transportation and more—can all be designed to advance public health objectives. This is a rare opportunity to embed an expansive public health agenda in the urban form, using tools and strategies from outside the conventional playbook.

The City of Vernon brought the Wellness Equity Alliance—a leading public health strategy and service provider with a focus on historically marginalized populations—to conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) and establish a municipal public health department. Field States joined the collaboration to contribute to their research, planning and strategy process. Our three organizations laid groundwork for transforming Vernon’s industrial zone into a vibrant, inviting home for thousands, and improve conditions for workers commuting to the city each day.

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.

Urban District-Scale Development 

In a historic district undergoing urban transformation in an American city, the neighbourhood is being designed to support mobility related innovation and piloting. Our collaborators leading the district redesign had a keen sense of the shifting landscape of corporate work. They asked us to discern the patterns in and direction of high-value, impact-focused knowledge work, and design a radically new space, service, and technology model to support it. 

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)