ABOUT SHE :)

Xio Alvarez (she/they) is a resident of White Center/Highland Park (District 1) and a designer at LMN Architects in downtown Seattle, where she works on projects that bridge between planning and architecture. In addition to project work, she co-leads the firm’s resilience research group. She is interested in leveraging quantitative data about climate, geography, and the built environment with qualitative experiences and stories of neighborhoods and places to tell more complicated and nuanced stories about what it means to adapt to change. An innovative and collaborative designer, she is interested in finding resilient and sustainable ways for people to live together. She approaches her projects with an emphasis on community empowerment and excels at creating accessible spaces for technical and non-technical stakeholders to talk about complex problems. She is particularly passionate about youth involvement in city design processes.

Previously, Xio worked on heat and flood resilience projects with social justice communities in the Boston area, looking at ways that the design process for plans and projects can build coalitions between communities of color, environmental advocates, and government stakeholders. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies as well as a Master of Architecture and a Master in City Planning. Her joint Masters thesis research studied how people experiencing homelessness adapt the public spaces of the city, and what the design community could learn from these adaptations in designing a more resilient public realm for all residents.

Outside of the office, Xio can be found biking and busing around the city, hanging out along the Duwamish trying to spot new birds, and taking on ambitious cooking projects.

EXPERIENCE

LMN ARCHITECTS

Designer, Resilience Research Group Lead || Seattle, WA || November 2021-Present

• Design lead on master planning project for 150 acre redevelopment of former aerospace office park into transit-oriented, mixed use housing development with 3,000 units of housing and ecologically minded open space amenities
• Construction administration on a phased, 8,500sf waterproofing replacement project for an existing university medical center building and a new-build, 175,000sf university data science and computation research building

CITY OF BOSTON : ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT

Rappaport Public Policy Fellow || Boston, MA (remote) || May 2020 - August 2020

• Developed department standards for equitable community engagement in implementation of resilience plans, evaluating and recommending both asynchronous and synchronous methods to increase equity in processes both during and post-pandemic
• Secured $300k in grant funding from the state to do the first Heat Resilience Planning Study in the city; scope centers environmental justice neighborhoods and incorporates capacity building of community-based organizations for near-term extreme heat events

KENNEDY & VIOLICH ARCHITECTURE LTD

Design Research Intern || Boston, MA || May 2019 – August 2019

• Supported research, design, and fabrication of custom detailing for projects ranging from a high-efficiency greenhouse to a private home
• Led design research and overall strategy on successful competition and RFP responses for flagship buildings on university campuses