Episode 27: Marla Torrado

About a year ago, I happened to be in Washington, DC visiting the National Building Museum, one of my all time favorites. There, in an exhibition on, the changing idea of home in contemporary America, I learned about Austin’s Alley Flat Initiative. This innovative effort to build more housing units on underutilized lands was something I wanted to learn more about, so I reached out to Marla Torrado, the Program Coordinator for the Alley Flats Initiative. In the garden of their East Austin offices, I started my conversation with Marla talking about her work at the Austin Community Design and Development Center and what is meant by the term “community design.”