Community-engaged design does not necessarily equals ‘small-scale’. We focus on co-creating projects with communities across multiple social-spatial scales, because we believe that the best urban design strategies that are truly inclusive (e.g. avoiding involuntary displacement) AND consider higher-level urban demands (e.g. addressing large-scale housing shortages and/or infrastructural decay) — start with the recognition of local capacities.

Counter-mapping revolves around the visualization of multiple stories embedded in a place. Unravelling these stories happens in a process of co-creation. We guide planners, designers, organizations, and/or communities in co-creation processes grounded in spatial knowledge. During workshops and community gatherings we document and expose existing practices and efforts for social inclusion carried out by residents, grassroots organizations — and any other individual or group who uses, resides or moves through the urban living place — to eventually translate collaborative knowledge to spatial hypotheses, strategies, scenarios.

Counter-maps have an incredible communicative power. Our goal is to build bridges between mapping — as an art and a practice — and communities who benefit from it. We focus on visualizing and spatializing complex urban trajectories grounded in solid critical research, making previously inaccessible, underexposed or incomprehensible urban data, accessible.

Sharing experiences from research and practice, and exchanging critical thoughts on inclusive urban development with student designers is important AND very inspiring to us. Currently, Olga is involved in teaching urban sociology in the Master of Urbanism at the Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí (ULEAM), previously she has acted as external reviewer and guest speaker related to community-engaged design in various educational institutions (SUNY, LAHN, RAVB, KUL, IHS).