Biography
Aron Chang is an urban designer, researcher, and educator based in New Orleans. He is a co-founder and co-lead of the Water Leaders Institute. He is also a co-founder of Civic Studio, a cooperative (formerly the Blue House) that seeks to create bold ideas and solutions through storytelling, art, design, and community-based planning, and that provides a place for learning and mentorship, civic dialogue, creative exploration, and co-creation.
From 2014 to 2018, he served as co-founder and co-director of Ripple Effect, an organization that promotes water literacy through teacher training and curriculum development. From 2011 to 2017, he worked as an urban designer, resilience planner, and project manager at Waggonner & Ball Architecture/Environment, where he was a design team lead and outreach coordinator for the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan. Aron moved to the Gulf Coast in 2009 after studying architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Research
Water Map New Orleans is a multimedia platform for exploring the past, present, and future of our relationship to water in this delta city. The purpose of the map is to connect the region’s residents and visitors to information critical to building water literacy, and to provide a platform for building towards a collective vision for “living with water” in the years ahead.
In digital and paper forms, this map will provide access to key data layers, including information on the city’s waterways, waterfronts, and wetlands; drinking water, sewerage, and drainage systems; topography; and also levees and other flood control mechanisms. Custom-designed graphics will highlight geographic features, histories, technologies, and cultural references. The map’s hyperlinks -- and accompanying social media, live events -- will highlight the knowledge, initiatives, leadership, and imaginations of the region’s scholars, artists, designers, and environmental stewards. There will also be public workshops throughout the research and design process for gathering community and public agency input to inform the content and distribution of the map.
