Architect, urbanist joins OPED through Bloomberg Harvard City Hall Fellowship program

Springfield is one of seven U.S. cities selected to participate in the Bloomberg Harvard City Hall Fellowship program.

Sai Joshi, an architect, urbanist and researcher, joined the city’s Office of Planning & Economic Development on Monday.

Joshi's two-year fellowship is funded by Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.

Monday was also the first day for Lynne Wooden, OPED's acting director.

More:Lynne Wooden was set to retire. Now she's Springfield's economic development director

Joshi's focus will be on developing a"whole block restoration” strategy for the city. That will include analysis of current city practices, systems and workflow, while understanding community development growth and needs through conversation and research.

Joshi is a graduate of Harvard Graduate School of Design.A recipient of the dean’s merit scholarship at GSD, she has focused her work on emergent questions of social equity and climate change in the built environment, using the tools of urban design, planning, policy and advocacy.

She also studied at Mumbai University's College of Architecture, where her concentration was in urban design and planning.

Prior to coming to Springfield, Joshi worked through the Norman Foster Foundation in Madrid where she in part helped develop a preliminary phased 25-year strategy for the city for clean energy transition for housing and transit sectors.

Other cities selected for the fellowship were Boise, Idaho; Pueblo, Colorado; Charleston, South Carolina; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Syracuse, New York and Knoxville, Tennessee.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Architect joins Springfield planning through Bloomberg Harvard fellowship