After more than a decade of working on projects throughout Michigan, Toole Design is putting down roots with a new Michigan Market Lead: Paul Lippens, AICP, NCI. Based in Grand Rapids and supported by staff in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Indiana, and beyond, Paul is leading projects and guiding the firm’s expansion in the region. As Principal Urban Designer, Paul also represents our growing urban design practice in the Midwest. Keep reading to learn more about Paul and Toole Design’s presence in Michigan.
What’s Your Urban Design Philosophy?
Go out, put your feet on the ground, and see how the place feels. My music and creative writing background taught me to explore what makes people and places tick. Good design draws from a place’s history and follows the cues toward a future that feels authentic.
What’s Your Best Advice for Making Things Happen?
Always tie goals to metrics, and make those metrics about people. Every plan is an opportunity to connect data to how people think, feel, and move through their communities. Instead of measuring the number of housing units in a new development, measure the number of people who will live there and what their daily lives will look like. Human metrics make it easier for decision makers to follow through and support projects that actually make places more livable for more people.
What’s An Exciting Michigan Project Right Now?
The Peninsula Township Non-Motorized Plan in the Traverse City area. Peninsula Township is both a rural farming community and a top bicycling destination, so we’re designing for everyone from locals on tractors to tourists on bikes. Through focus groups, safety analysis, and public workshops, we’re developing recommendations that will serve and respect all those different people using the same roads.
What Can Toole Design Bring to Michigan Communities?
I’m particularly excited to be bringing Toole Design’s unparalleled active transportation planning to more communities in the whole Michilliana region: Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. One thing that sets our plans apart is our attention to human emotion and complexity. We understand that people have complex relationships to the places where they live and travel. And we connect the human side to data: Our data science team is constantly evolving and improving how we analyze things like level of comfort and level of traffic stress — and training DOTs to carry that work forward.
