DANIEL PAROLEK

Berkeley, California

AFFILIATION: Opticos Design, Inc., Berkeley, California

AREA OF EXPERTISE: Neighborhood design (infill and greenfield), building type design, traditional and classical building design, and the creation of Form Based Codes

BACKGROUND & EXPERIENCE: Daniel is the founding principal of Opticos Design, Inc. As the winner of several major international design competitions and a participant in professional and academic forums, he has established himself as a generational leader in urban design and New Urbanism. He has applied his expertise to projects including a model 450-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development for the Sierra Region at Loma Rica Ranch, a city-wide Form-Based Code for the City of Grass Valley, California, a model green infill project in a historical neighborhood in Napa, California, a transit-based revitalization strategy for the community of Isla Vista in Santa Barbara County, California, and the evolution of the Town Square and beachfront of Seaside, Florida.

In addition to his design work, Daniel has taught, lectured, and participated as a design critic at several universities. His work has been published in The Washington Post, A&C International, Learning from Palladio, and Competitions Magazine. Daniel is currently leading a group to establish the Northern California Chapter of New Urbanism and is a board member of the San Francisco Architectural Club. He was one of thirteen practitioners recently invited to participate in a Form-Based Code Summit during which the Form-Based Code Alliance was established to set standards for the application of Form-Based Coding as an alternative to conventional zoning for municipalities and development standards for private development.

RESEARCH INTEREST: Daniel’s research topic will be “Programming, Financing, and Regulating Neighborhood Centers.” His objective is to establish a set of tools that can be used by developers, municipal planners, designers, and policy makers to create, implement, finance, and regulate successful pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use neighborhood centers within new neighborhoods, while assisting in the revitalization of existing centers. Daniel’s research will focus on centers within primarily single-family neighborhoods that have the following characteristics: a program of mostly locally owned and operated businesses; an overall program that ranges between several thousand square feet for one small shop to a maximum of 25,000-35,000 square feet; and, no conventional anchor tenant. The study will begin with the collection of physical and statistical data of existing centers. It will culminate in a clear definition of a Neighborhood Center based on program and context and the creation of prototypes for the design and regulation of new centers. Since financial constraints seem to be a large obstacle in creating such centers, an emphasis will be placed on creative implementation and financing strategies.

E-MAIL: daniel.parolek@opticosdesign.com