Design collaborative Architecture Commons‘ initiative miLES works with residents of the Lower East Side, a diverse neighborhood in New York, to transform the area’s unused stores. 212 lots and stores are vacant, and through a collaborative process with residents, miLES is attempting to open stores that best serve the community, not big business.

MiLES is a multi-disciplinary initiative that facilitates an open process of temporary transformations of underutilized sites by listening, co-creating, prototyping and operating with residents of the Lower East Side. Our ultimate goal is to build a movement for open and bottom-up urban planning, one neighborhood at a time.

Architecture Commons is the project lead in collaboration with OpenIDEO, Fourth Arts Block, City API, Design for America, Listenin Pictures, Tythe Design, and The Value Web.

Architecture Commons