About Us

Andrew is a community-minded designer enhancing New York neighborhoods through the lense of architecture and culture by managing multi-disciplinary teams through engagement processes that foster trust, open communication, and joy. Founder of Collaborative Urban and most recently a Project Manager at Hester Street, Andrew partners with organizations and CBOs providing engagement design and facilitation, outreach strategy, and implementation support on community-driven projects. Andrew holds a B.A. of Arts in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.Arch from Pratt University.

Ryan Westphal is a design researcher and project manager with over five years of experience collaborating with city and state government agencies, national nonprofits, private industry, and grassroots community partners to ensure that places, policies, and programs are designed by and with (not just for) communities. Most recently, he was a Project Manager at Hester Street for five years, supporting their community design and engagement work. Ryan holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in Transdisciplinary Design from Parsons. He has also worked as a digital fabricator, a product designer, a UI/UX researcher, and a union representative.

Utsa Ramaswami is a designer and researcher, building tools to win housing and community justice. Most recently, she worked at Hester Street for three years, designing and researching community engagement and education tools. Prior to that, she managed statewide housing justice advocacy campaigns at Enterprise Community Partners, and designed community programming at Rebuild Foundation. She has also collaborated with the Center for Urban Pedagogy, Housing Justice for All, the New York State Tenant Bloc, F.Y.Eye, KC Tenants, and the Tenant Union Federation. She holds two B.A. degrees from the Dual BA Program Between Columbia University and Sciences Po.