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Meet Pratt Institute's MS in Sustainable Environmental Systems’ Fall 2024 NATURA Network Fellow, Franklin Kirimi! In this interactive presentation, Franklin will share his work with Kounkuey Design Initiative - Kenya, focused on nature based solution (NBS) co-production with informal and frontline communities in East Africa. Focusing on case studies that employ KDI’s public space participatory approach, Franklin shares how co-design and participatory approaches applied in watershed NBS interventions address and intersect with the backdrop of government development in river rehabilitation and affordable housing projects.

Through a discussion of the ‘Rivers + People’ plans in Nairobi, Franklin engages us in his past and ongoing work in co-design and participatory planning for ecological restoration, climate adaptation and resilience. The recent El Niño floods have exposed Nairobi's low-income residents to urban flood risks, leading the government to rehabilitate the Nairobi river basin. Demolitions of settlements in the river corridor have increased residents' vulnerability. In an interactive presentation, we’ll discuss an approach to river rehabilitation that can ensure community involvement through community-informed spaces and action plans.

This presentation is coordinated with the MS in SES program’s Sustainable Communities faculty and students, as part of their ongoing engagement with Mr. Kirimi.

About Franklin Kirimi and the NATURA Network Fellowship

This presentation is the official public beginning of Franklin Kirimi’s Fall 2024 NATURA Network Early-Career Fellowship, hosted by Pratt Institute's MS in Sustainable Environmental Systems. As he begins a knowledge exchange and fellowship research agenda, we hope you’ll join us to learn more about his work and how to engage and exchange!

Franklin Kirimi

Senior Design Associate, Kounkuey Design Initiative, Nairobi, Kenya

Mr. Kirimi is a Kenyan Landscape Architect focused on co-producing contextualized nature-based solutions (NBS) in collaboration with at-risk communities. At Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), he has worked on community-focused participatory planning and design of urban public spaces, particularly within informal and refugee settlements across East Africa.

Through the 15-week NATURA Network’s Early Career Fellowship, Franklin is diving into the complexities of participatory design and planning strategies in NYC. His research is centered on innovative pathways for a just transition to nature-based solutions, ensuring all community members have access to safe and inclusive environmental amenities. He aims to uncover potential unintended consequences of implementing green infrastructure, and co-create frameworks that empower communities in their efforts to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

If you’re interested in engaging further with Franklin, especially during his time in New York this Fall and Winter, please review his bio and summary research agenda, and connect with him at fkirimi@pratt.edu.

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Pratt Institute MS in Sustainable Environmental Systems

The Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Systems (SES) is one of the nation’s most innovative, interdisciplinary, systems-based sustainability programs. This STEM certified degree program is designed to meet today’s increasing demand for environmental professionals, uniquely combining environmental science, sustainable design, and climate policy. Students learn the interdisciplinary skills and systems-thinking approach needed to assess contemporary environmental issues; catalyze innovative environmental problem-solving; uphold environmental and social justice; and engage diverse stakeholders in designing and developing sustainable communities.

The Nature-based Solutions for Urban Resilience in the Anthropocene (NATURA) project links networks in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, North and Latin America, and globally to enhance connectivity among the world's scholars and practitioners and improve the prospects for global urban sustainability. NATURA exchanges knowledge, shares data, and enhances communication among research disciplines and across the research-practice divide to advance urban resilience in face of growing threats of extreme weather events.

Kounkuey Design Initiative is a community development and design nonprofit. We partner with under-resourced communities to advancew equity and activate the unrealized potential in their neighborhoods and cities. We are a team of landscape architects, urban planners, civil engineers, architects, community organizers, and researchers working around thew world across four service areas: design + build, plan + program, research + test, advocate + educate.

Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment

Faced with climate change, systemic racism, and growing inequity, communities need forward-thinking approaches to urbanism now more than ever. Practice-based and rooted deeply in the network of communities we serve, our alliance of four graduate-level programs works to address these evolving threats, working in partnership to build asset-based solutions at the intersection of environment, equity, culture, and economy.

We see the design, planning, and management of the built environment as tools for addressing the critical issues of our time—from social justice to the climate crisis. As a student at the School of Architecture, you’ll build the skills and knowledge you need to respond to these complex and evolving challenges in a uniquely versatile, innovative, and ethical way. As you do, our goal is to prepare you to lead a life of consequence within each discipline, both today and beyond.

Blending theory and practice, our curriculum weaves creative studio work with critical reflection on social impact. It’s this dynamic approach that challenges students to reach their full potential here—to think and to make, to lead and to collaborate, and evolve continually above all. In the process, you’ll engage with issues of justice, sustainability, resilience, and global citizenship, developing fluency across disciplines and the skills to solve problems creatively, at Pratt and beyond.

Franklin Kirimi: Rivers + People; Nature-Based Resilience and Co-Production With Informal East African Communities

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