Josh Bacigalupi

Josh’s vocation is to understand how people and their environments maintain vitality and thrive on this planet. As an undergraduate, he studied environmental science and physical chemistry at UCSB. Not convinced that a strict science career would be the best way to understand how complex biological systems operate within their environments, he went on to study architecture. He earned a master's degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and studied municipal and urban space design in Finland and Italy. On return, he served as head designer for a $7.5 million municipal police station in Denver that earned AIA and industry design awards. This design success reawakened his interest in science, and cross-fertilization between science and design led him to a rigorous theory about how life systems can maintain vitality in context of their places. In joining the Studio for Public Spaces, he found a great opportunity to try implementing these ideas in the public realm. Working with the studio, he most recently served as Design Lead on the first Living Innovation Zone.