Masterplanning

Delivering a successful masterplan requires dynamic listening and inspiring leadership. Throughout his career, Engblom has worked closely with clients at a broad range of scales to deliver successful places. His Architectural leadership style is more about orchestrating the best performances from the entire team of consultants rather than being the loudest soloist.

Masterplanning happens in three steps: Analysis, Alternatives, and Design

Current / Recent Work:

Sonoma County Climate Action and Innovation Center Business Plan - 2024

Florin Corridor Affordable Housing Strategy - Sacramento, CA - Ongoing

Houston Metro, Energy Corridor TOD for Addicks Station - Ongoing

Cities

Making the most of urban infrastructure investment requires cities and consultants to work together to break down silos between bureaucracies and budgets, and to consider in parallel the impacts a program or project will have on people, the planet, and profit. Engblom has decades of experience consulting with cities and large-scale private sector entities in the Architecture, Engineering, and Real Estate world.

San Francisco

This study looks at how a trillion-dollar infrastructure program can accommodate 2 Million more inhabitants by 2050 while addressing the threats of sea level rise, severe storms, drought, flooding and earthquakes, as well as issues of affordability and inequity.

Los Angeles

LA River Gateway, Los Angeles, California. Integrated vision of how to restore the LA rive as a 21-century symbol of Los Angeles as a global city while modernizing regional and local transportation and water infrastructure.

New York

Southwest Brooklyn Red Hook Regeneration Framework – Developed an integrated infrastructure and land use plan for one of the world’s most underutilized waterfronts.

Chicago

Chicago Green Infrastructure, HUD Community Redevelopment Grant - positioned the city to apply for a US $200M grant by facilitating a multi-agency approach to governance and funding for this city-wide program. Developed an innovative approach to integrating design guidelines and engineering constraints analysis for the Chicago River South Branch.

Sydney

Sydney Manifesto: How Sydney can grow to more resilient as it grows to a city of 8 Million. By simultaneously considering major transportation corridors and Value Capture from Private Real Estate, along with environmental and Equity concerns, a high level guiding principles document was developed

Sao Paulo

Historic Urban regeneration strategy for the Nova Luz District of Sao Paulo now being which has now become a model for sustainable regeneration strategy in Latin America.

Teaching, Lectures + Presentations

• Faculty Member, University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Masters of Real Estate Design and Development Program, 2020-present

• “What Cities are doing now to realize a more resilient, de-carbonized, and equitable future,” US Conference of Mayors, 2021

• “Scaling Up: How Regional Planning Informs Infrastructure Delivery and Catalyzes Real Estate,” ULI Fall Meeting, Virtual, Panel Organizer and Moderator, 2020

• “An Equitable Approach to Infrastructure at the Neighborhood Scale,” ULI Fall Infrastructure Forum, Panel Organizer and Moderator, 2020

• “Resilience: Are our towns and cities prepared to meet the challenges of today,” AECOM Talking Infrastructure podcast, 2020

• “Flood Protection + Real Estate: Reducing the Risks”, ULI Spring Urban Infrastructure Forum, Panel Organizer and Moderator, 2020

• “Transit Recovery & Resilience”, SPUR Virtual Workshop, Organizing Committee, 2020

• Covid 19 and the future of Cities; A conversation with New London Architecture Leader Peter Murray

• In conversation with the Hill School's headmaster, Zac Lehman: Why Cities matter more than ever as we battle Coronavirus, 2020

• Financial Innovations Labs in Partnership with the Milken Institute: LA, NY, London, Chicago, 2018-2019

• Panelist: Deloitte Smart Cities Panel – Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, January 2019

• Session Leader/Presenter, “Design-Led Urban Infrastructure: Realizing a Resilient Public Realm,” AIA National Conference, New York, 2018

• Keynote Speaker, “What’s Next in Making Cities Resilient,” ICE Bicentenary Hong Kong Innovation Summit, 2018

• Presenter, “Global Cities Update,” Property Council of Australia, Melbourne, Member-only Breakfast, 2017

• Lecturer, Department of Architecture Design for Sustainability Colloquium, UC Berkeley, “What’s Next in Making Cities Resilient?,” 2017

• Opening Address, Imagine 2060: Imagine 2060: Delivering Tomorrow’s Cities Together series, Imagine Los Angeles, 2017

• Key Note Speaker “Future of City Infrastructure,” ULI Executive Breakfast, San Francisco, 2017

• Presenter, Milken Institute Bay Area Regional Leaders: Moving Beyond Coordination to Implementation, San Francisco, 2017

• Presenter, “Future of Smart Infrastructure and the Triple Bottom Line,” Imagine 2060: Delivering Tomorrow’s Cities Together series, Imagine Manila: At the Water’s Edge, 2017

• Keynote speaker, Cities Initiative Breakfast: “Lessons learned from NYC/SW Brooklyn Red Hook and application to Melbourne,” Melbourne, 2017

• Keynote international address, “Frameworks for smart infrastructure value capture ,” Value Capture in Infrastructure 2017 Conference, Sydney, 2017

• Presenter, “The Future of Urban Infrastructure: Catalysts for Change,” World’s Fair Nano Conference, San Francisco, 2017

• Moderator, “Finding the Perfect Mix,” ULI Fall Meeting, Dallas, Texas, 2016

• Speaker, “California Cities: Engines of Growth,” Milken Institute California Summit, Los Angeles, California, 2016

• Moderator, “’There’ There: New Place-Making Paradigms in Hot U.S. Suburban Markets,” ULI Spring Meeting, Houston, Texas, 2015

Publications

• Business Plan for the Sonoma County Climate and Innovation Center: Permit Sonoma 2024

• “Nine Ideas for a Connected San Francisco: How better transportation can link San Francisco neighborhoods to each other and the region.” SPUR Regional Strategy The Bigger Picture series, 2021.

• “Ten Ideas for Equitable Transportation in Oakland: Leveraging the next generation of transportation investment to better serve and connect Oakland.” SPUR Regional Strategy The Bigger Picture series, 2021.

• “Five Ideas for Transforming the San Francisco Waterfront: How to protect communities from climate change, restore shoreline ecology and improve waterfront access – for everyone.” SPUR Regional Strategy The Bigger Picture series, 2021.

• “Seven Ideas for Downtown San José: Making the most of the big plans for new development, a major rail expansion and a project to re-envision public green space,” SPUR Regional Strategy The Bigger Picture series, 2021.

• “Scaling up: working beyond borders to overcome the challenges of today and tomorrow,” with Alicia John-Baptiste, SPUR; MarySue Barrett, MPC; and Tom Wright, RPA, published by AECOM, 2020

• “Re-imagining transit service in California’s Bay Area post-coronavirus,” with Ian Griffiths, Seamless Bay Area; and Jordan Karp and Veronica Siranosian, 2020

• “Model Places: Envisioning a future Bay Area with room and opportunity for everyone”, SPUR, 2020

• “Paying it forward: Why Resilience is a Rising Priority”, with Caitlin Maclean, Milken Institute, AECOM published 2020

• “Cities matter more than ever as we battle the coronavirus pandemic”, published 2020

• “How Houston can reinvent itself and be bigger and better”, with Bill Fulton, The Kinder Institute, published by the Kinder Institute, 2020

• “Water has no boundaries”, 2019

• “Healing the urban/rural divide, one hour at a time”, published 2019

• “Right here, right now: the future is Mobility as a Service”, with Veronica Siranosian, AECOM published 2019

• “Houses in motion”, published 2018

• Under Stephen’s direction, AECOM worked with the Milken Institute to organize a series of four innovation labs to examine opportunities to make more effective use of public and private capital for financing resilience projects (2018-2019):

  • In Los Angeles, we focused on Link Union Station. Report is available here. Short article is available here.

  • In Chicago, we focused on affordable housing. Report is available here. Short article is available here.

  • For the London City Region, we focused on complete communities. Report is available here. Short article is available here.

  • In New York, we focused on resilience in Lower Manhattan. Report is available here. Short article is available here.

• “Should I stay or should I go?” Article on flexible curbside management, AECOM published 2018

• “Binary to Brilliant: Building people-centric cities in the age of resilience,” published 2018

• “The Death and Life of Great American Infrastructure,” published 2018

• “Sydney on the global stage – 10 big moves,” with James Rosenwax, AECOM, AECOM published, 2018

• Sydney Manifesto, forward and contributor, AECOM publication, 2018

• Cities the Next Chapter, AECOM published, 2016

• “What’s Next in Making Cities Resilient,” AECOM publication, 2015