Story

Welcome. I'm Steve—an assemblage of beings in relation. I believe in the potential of design to heal relationships among more-than-human communities.

This means rethinking who is designing: from outside experts to place-based participants. It also means rethinking what is designed: from human-centered products to right relations among beings. I owe a debt to many teachers who go by other titles—community organizers, land tenders, knowledge keepers, and world builders, to name just a few. I draw on their teachings in an ongoing practice of reworlding, nurturing the latent seeds of the past and present into futures that are pluralistic and just.

Core to my work are cycles of sensemaking, a continuous collaboration between inner and outer realms expressed through writing. I think of sensemaking as a cultivation of the human instrument to feel (making senses), a processing of feeling into meaning (making sense), and a channeling of meaning into form (sensed making). Through this process, we each land upon our own unique intersection between self and world.

Mine is shaped by the pivotal stories of my life: witnessing how design can uplift lives, working with indigenous communities of makers, managing chronic health conditions, stepping into my queer identity, journeying through psychedelic realms, pushing the limits of my body, finding peace in nature, listening deeply in silence. These are the moments that tugged on me, that drew me into deeper enmeshment with the world.

I believe curiosity is love, a force that makes kin among diverse partners. I believe it is our foremost responsibility to listen for the moments that draw us into relation and to respond to them with our full being. This has led me to manifest a varied web of projects: the largest conference on design for social innovation, a tool used to improve the health of millions of patients, a print magazine with contributors in 80 countries, a design thinking program for the world's biggest organizations, simulations for community-driven climate resilience, an entrepreneurship center for at-risk youth, a book documenting indigenous systems of innovation, published research on social computing, a mindfulness program for awakening the senses, and an art practice exploring ecology through sound.

I serve a vision for the more-than-human world grounded in interdependence, and I am always open to new connections and collaborators. I am based in the San Francisco Bay and Santa Cruz Mountains bioregions, tended historically and presently by Ohlone tribes. If you feel my intentions, writing, or projects resonate with you, reach out.