Dallah Design
Who are these people?
Who are these people?
Who are these people?
Glad you asked! We are Dallah Design. We believe that if something is beautiful, make it last.
Glad you asked! We are Dallah Design. We believe that if something is beautiful, make it last.
Glad you asked! We are Dallah Design. We believe that if something is beautiful, make it last.
We transform unused lots in cities into community spaces to improve walkability. There is a lot of art that is visually appealing, but nothing is as beautiful as a community sharing experiences in a well designed neighborhood. Whether it’s a festival, people at separate tables embracing the ambiance of the sidewalk outside a cafe, or a neighbor looking after a group of kids while their parents are at work, each of those scenes appeals to the human condition. We design that built environment.
We transform unused lots in cities into community spaces to improve walkability. There is a lot of art that is visually appealing, but nothing is as beautiful as a community sharing experiences in a well designed neighborhood. Whether it’s a festival, people at separate tables embracing the ambiance of the sidewalk outside a cafe, or a neighbor looking after a group of kids while their parents are at work, each of those scenes appeals to the human condition. We design that built environment.
We transform unused lots in cities into community spaces to improve walkability. There is a lot of art that is visually appealing, but nothing is as beautiful as a community sharing experiences in a well designed neighborhood. Whether it’s a festival, people at separate tables embracing the ambiance of the sidewalk outside a cafe, or a neighbor looking after a group of kids while their parents are at work, each of those scenes appeals to the human condition. We design that built environment.
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Design driven by community
There is a very important distinction that was made by the way we worded the sentence above: “...nothing is as beautiful as a community sharing experiences in a well designed neighborhood.” Community comes first. Both the experiences and the designs themselves have to be driven by the community. The built environment is simply the structure that allows community to grow. If the neighborhood or the experiences are overdesigned, they run the risk of killing community or leaving parts of the community behind. Jane Jacobs expressed this perfectly when she stated, “if you can understand a city, it is dead.” and additionally noted, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody”.
That is where we get our energy, helping to design the building blocks of community alongside the community itself
Design driven by community
There is a very important distinction that was made by the way we worded the sentence above: “...nothing is as beautiful as a community sharing experiences in a well designed neighborhood.” Community comes first. Both the experiences and the designs themselves have to be driven by the community. The built environment is simply the structure that allows community to grow. If the neighborhood or the experiences are overdesigned, they run the risk of killing community or leaving parts of the community behind. Jane Jacobs expressed this perfectly when she stated, “if you can understand a city, it is dead.” and additionally noted, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody”.
That is where we get our energy, helping to design the building blocks of community alongside the community itself
Design driven by community
There is a very important distinction that was made by the way we worded the sentence above: “...nothing is as beautiful as a community sharing experiences in a well designed neighborhood.” Community comes first. Both the experiences and the designs themselves have to be driven by the community. The built environment is simply the structure that allows community to grow. If the neighborhood or the experiences are overdesigned, they run the risk of killing community or leaving parts of the community behind. Jane Jacobs expressed this perfectly when she stated, “if you can understand a city, it is dead.” and additionally noted, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody”.
That is where we get our energy, helping to design the building blocks of community alongside the community itself
We are a team from different backgrounds
We differ in both the way we grew up and live and in our professional experiences. Our designs reside at the intersection of art (architecture and city planning included), technology, policy, and business.
Hyper focused on holistic design solutions
There is a wealth of successful concepts and projects in each discipline, so we focus our energy on assembling those puzzle pieces together to create holistic solutions. And we cannot emphasize this enough, we help bring the pieces together, but we cannot assemble them correctly without the effort being driven by the community we are designing for.
Retrofit first design process
Our work is not about recreating iconic cities in other places. It’s about revitalizing cities into the best versions of themselves. Paris cannot exist in Georgia and Rome cannot exist in New Mexico. And the worst thing to happen is for us to create cookie cutter cities everywhere that do not match the culture or needs of the people that live in them. When the community drives progress, it is possible to unlock the beauty that is a city's unique culture, aesthetic, and aura.
In our design process we believe in retrofitting first as the starting point for all designs. If you tear down and build back up something will never be the same as it originally was, so we use what we have, no matter how sparse it is, and revitalize what already exists to unlock its beauty.
To learn more about our design process, read our definition of great design, but to summarize, we consider one of our designs successful if it is beautiful, it is effective in its purpose, and it is sustainable.
Retrofit first design process
Our work is not about recreating iconic cities in other places. It’s about revitalizing cities into the best versions of themselves. Paris cannot exist in Georgia and Rome cannot exist in New Mexico. And the worst thing to happen is for us to create cookie cutter cities everywhere that do not match the culture or needs of the people that live in them. When the community drives progress, it is possible to unlock the beauty that is a city's unique culture, aesthetic, and aura.
In our design process we believe in retrofitting first as the starting point for all designs. If you tear down and build back up something will never be the same as it originally was, so we use what we have, no matter how sparse it is, and revitalize what already exists to unlock its beauty.
To learn more about our design process, read our definition of great design, but to summarize, we consider one of our designs successful if it is beautiful, it is effective in its purpose, and it is sustainable.
Retrofit first design process
Our work is not about recreating iconic cities in other places. It’s about revitalizing cities into the best versions of themselves. Paris cannot exist in Georgia and Rome cannot exist in New Mexico. And the worst thing to happen is for us to create cookie cutter cities everywhere that do not match the culture or needs of the people that live in them. When the community drives progress, it is possible to unlock the beauty that is a city's unique culture, aesthetic, and aura.
In our design process we believe in retrofitting first as the starting point for all designs. If you tear down and build back up something will never be the same as it originally was, so we use what we have, no matter how sparse it is, and revitalize what already exists to unlock its beauty.
To learn more about our design process, read our definition of great design, but to summarize, we consider one of our designs successful if it is beautiful, it is effective in its purpose, and it is sustainable.
So, that's who we are.
We work with both public and private entities that own land or are looking to improve their community. If you are interested in designing with us, reach out to team@dallah.design.
Twitter: @_dallahdesign