About

Geeti Silwal is the Urban Design Principal at Perkins&Will’s San Francisco office. As the Head of the West Coast Urban Design practice, Geeti brings vision and design leadership that establishes the foundation of transformative changes for livable and sustainable environments in cities. She strongly believes that urban designers hold the responsibility to inspire integrated, multi-purpose design solutions of innovation and beauty that create healthy and inclusive cities.

Building and revitalizing communities, she lays deep emphasis on placemaking, regenerative design, equitable accessibility, and social justice. Her experience covers a vast breadth of scales, including regional high-density transit-focused planning, downtown revitalization, waterfront redevelopments, urban mixed-use infill projects, research/innovation district planning, and public realm enhancement along heavily challenged infrastructure corridors.

Geeti is currently leading multiple projects in the cities of San Jose, Santa Clara, Portland, Austin, and Salt Lake City, that leverage transportation investment to deliver high-density, mixed-use, vibrant, equitable communities around transit stations. Prioritizing low-carbon modes of travel in these transportation projects, to connect people and communities seamlessly is important to deliver on the aspiration of an equitable city. She believes designing cities around the fundamental organizing principle of 'people first' delivers a more humane, inclusive, socially connected and a healthy city.

Geeti is also working with cities, institutions, and private developers to envision successful innovation ecosystems. The focus being the interrelatedness of economic, cultural and physical dimensions that combine to deliver a complete community and instill an authentic and lasting sense of place. She has led planning efforts for life sciences communities of innovation, including the University of Utah Research Park Strategic Vision Plan, University of California Santa Cruz MBEST Innovation District, San Carlos East Innovation District, Los Angeles Biomed/Tech Focus Area Study, and San Diego State University Innovation District visioning session.

Geeti is deliberate in her design approach to reveal the unrealized potential of nature and natural processes. This lies at the core of her push to deliver regenerative solutions that address climate change issues of water scarcity, food security and social equity. Her research on the Resource Infinity Loop discusses a solution for a closed-loop water and nutrient infrastructure within our cities. She believes that the pursuit of carbon neutrality is, at its heart, a clarion call for a culture change —one that heeds our delicate relationship with nature and gives back to the environment more than it takes.

Geeti holds a Master of Urban Design degree from University of California, Berkeley. She is a Board member of 501c3 AREA Research, and SPUR (San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association) — a nonprofit public policy organization. She is actively engaged in the Urban Land Institute (ULI) as a member of ULI San Francisco's Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee, member of ULI Public Development and Infrastructure Product Council, and has been a jury member of ULI Hines International Design Competition 2022 and 2021. She was also co-teaching the 2022 Spring Semester design studio for the Master of Urban Design students at University of California Berkeley with a focus on “Rethinking Declining Shopping Malls to Initiate New Paradigms for The Built Environment”.

Geeti Silwal is the Urban Design Principal at Perkins&Will’s San Francisco office. As the Head of the West Coast Urban Design practice, Geeti brings vision and design leadership that establishes the foundation of transformative changes for livable and sustainable environments in cities. She strongly believes that urban designers hold the responsibility to inspire integrated, multi-purpose design solutions of innovation and beauty that create healthy and inclusive cities.

Building and revitalizing communities, she lays deep emphasis on placemaking, regenerative design, equitable accessibility, and social justice. Her experience covers a vast breadth of scales, including regional high-density transit-focused planning, downtown revitalization, waterfront redevelopments, urban mixed-use infill projects, research/innovation district planning, and public realm enhancement along heavily challenged…

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