MakE Your Space
A Destination
Signature installations that turn underutilized spaces into amenities — driving foot traffic, tenant retention, and the kind of press coverage no marketing budget can manufacture.
The developments that win aren't always the ones with the best specs. They're the ones people want to be in, come back to, and tell others about. The lobby that stops you mid-stride. The plaza that draws a crowd on a Tuesday afternoon. The amenity space that closes the lease before the tour is over.
I partner with developers, property managers, business improvement districts, and corporate campus operators to transform underperforming spaces into genuine destinations: visually distinct, technically robust, and designed to evolve with the life of the building around them.
When Every Building Looks Like the Next One
Real estate has a differentiation problem. When a competitor can break ground on a near-identical building down the street, the amenities arms race accelerates — but most developers are still reaching for the same solutions. Another coffee bar. Another coworking lounge. Another abstract sculpture in the lobby that nobody photographs.
Meanwhile, the spaces with the most potential sit underactivated. Lobbies that feel transient. Atriums that echo. Public plazas that empty out by noon. Transition spaces that move people through rather than drawing them to.
And the pressures are multiplying. Percent-for-art requirements are expanding across more municipalities. ESG mandates are demanding demonstrable community investment. Remote work has raised the bar for what it takes to make people want to show up. Tenants are choosing spaces that feel like somewhere they want to be — and leaving the ones that don't.
The developers navigating all of this successfully share one thing: they understand that the experience of a space is no longer a luxury add-on. It's a competitive asset.
Who I Work With
I work best with clients who understand that the built environment is an experience — and who are ready to invest in making that experience exceptional. Ideal partners in this vertical include:
Real estate developers: particularly those working on mixed-use, Class A office, residential, and retail projects where differentiation is a strategic priority
Property management companies: looking to activate underperforming amenity spaces or create seasonal programming that drives tenant engagement
Business improvement districts (BIDs): with dedicated placemaking and arts activation budgets and a mandate to drive foot traffic and community investment in commercial corridors
Corporate campus operators: competing for talent through environmental design and workplace experience
Architects and interior designers: seeking a technical creative partner to realize ambitious experiential elements within their larger project scope
How I Can Help
Every installation and experience is bespoke designed for the space to deliver on a specific set of outcomes — not just to look impressive.
Permanent Installations & Spatial Activation
From the landmark installation that anchors a development's identity to artistic environmental elements that makes a lobby worth lingering in, I design and build permanent spatial experiences across the full spectrum of the built environment. Whether the brief calls for a custom interactive centerpiece that becomes synonymous with an address, immersive atmospheric design for a mixed-use common area, or environmental lighting that transforms a transit hub from a space people pass through into one they stay in, every solution is purpose-built for the space and the outcomes it needs to deliver. Playground, an installation built for Grubhub at One Center Plaza serves as a benchmark: a permanent installation that defines the identity of one of Boston's most prominent commercial addresses and engages every visitor that enters the space, every single day.
Public Art & Percent-for-Art Commissions
For developments navigating municipal art requirements, I convert compliance obligations into genuine competitive advantages — rather than an uninspired abstract sculpture that satisfies the requirement and disappears into the background, I create signature works that become landmarks and give a neighborhood something worth photographing, returning to, and talking about. Designed with community input where appropriate, these pieces build the kind of goodwill that protects projects, opens municipal doors, and generates the ESG narrative that increasingly matters to institutional investors and community stakeholders. The result is a percent-for-art spend that functions as a marketing asset rather than a line item.
Pop-Up & Temporary Activations
Seasonal activations, opening events, and temporary installations that generate buzz, drive foot traffic, and demonstrate a development's commitment to the community it's building in — community impact without the capital commitment of something permanent. Across two consecutive holiday seasons at Boynton Yards in Somerville, my temporary light installations transformed underutilized outdoor spaces into destinations that anchored a community music event series and built lasting neighborhood affinity for an emerging mixed-use district. The right temporary activation doesn't just generate opening-week coverage — it establishes a development's identity in the neighborhood long before the permanent amenities are in place. I leverage over two decades of event production expertise in tailoring experiences to fit the unique esthetic of your particular project.
Corporate Campus Environments
The return-to-office equation has fundamentally changed: a company can no longer mandate attendance and expect engagement — the workplace has to earn it. I design campus environments that make the physical space worth choosing, from permanent interactive installations that give employees something to show visitors, to programmable visual systems that can transform a common area into an event venue or branded experience space at a moment's notice. Beyond design and installation, I also produce the programming itself — bringing the same experiential event production capabilities that have defined some of Boston's most memorable live experiences to the corporate context, creating the cultural moments that build genuine organizational identity and make showing up feel like a privilege rather than an obligation.
I Think Like a Developer, Not Just a Designer
Most designers who work in the built environment have only ever been on one side of this conversation — the creative side, pitching vision to clients who are trying to run a business. I've been in your shoes.
As the Managing Director of Cicada, I spent years in the work of developing an arts venue destination from nothing: envisioning an identity for a space before it had an audience, making the case investors who needed the numbers to match the vision, and navigating the gap between what a place could be and what it would actually take to get there. As a board member and later Executive Director at Artisans Asylum, I helped steward a 40,000-square-foot community institution through a complete relocation and reopening — understanding firsthand what it means to rebuild a place's identity and draw a community back to somewhere new.
That experience changes how I design. I don't think about your lobby installation as an art project. I think about it as a tool your leasing team uses on a tour, a line item that earns its keep in tenant retention and lease premiums, and a long-term operational asset your facilities team will manage for years. I design for that as a core principle, because I've been the person who had to make a space work as a business, day in and day out.
Let’s Make Your Space Worth Coming Back To
Whether you're thinking of ways to elevate your development concept, navigating a percent-for-art requirement, or looking to activate a space in your building that hasn't been living up to its full potential — I'd love to hear about it.
Related Works
Playground - One Center Plaza, Boston
A permanent 18,900-LED interactive installation for Grubhub's Boston headquarters, featuring Azure Kinect depth-sensing cameras and a custom TouchDesigner/Unity game engine. Visitors become avatars in a simulated world, playing games and interacting with the space in real time. A signature amenity for one of downtown Boston's most prominent commercial addresses — and a daily demonstration of what it means when a workspace has genuine character.
BOynton Yards - Somerville, MA
A series of large-scale outdoor light installations that transformed parking lots and lawns in Somerville's Boynton Yards district into destinations for two consecutive holiday seasons. Anchoring community events that brought together local businesses, performers, and residents, these activations demonstrated how temporary placemaking investments generate lasting neighborhood affinity and foot traffic for an emerging mixed-use district.
Spicy Hunan Kitchen - Woburn, MA
An immersive architectural art installation featuring 32,000 LEDs embedded into custom designed decorative millwork. The installation washed the main entryway to the dining area in thematic colors, replicating scenes in nature, through intricate three-dimensional patterns of light and color. This installation transformed a liminal, transitory space into a hallmark feature with a singular goal to create “Instagrammable” moments.