Episode Description

This episode of Beyond the Surface features Walmer, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Human Scale, a nonprofit organization founded in 2018 with a mission to create positive change through community driven design. What began as a student-led initiative has grown into an organization focused on delivering tangible impact across neighborhoods, with projects ranging from small scale interventions to larger community spaces. Alongside his work with Human Scale, Walmer is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago and currently works in real estate development and construction management in Chicago.

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago and attending high school in Englewood, Walmer developed an early awareness of the disparities within the built environment. Questions around why certain neighborhoods were deteriorating, whether due to disinvestment, policy, or lack of resources, sparked a deeper curiosity about the forces shaping communities. That curiosity evolved into action during his time at UIC, where he became involved in restarting NOMAS and began exploring how design could directly engage with and support neighborhoods.

“We were not thinking about nonprofit when we were doing the work, we were just doing it because we saw good in it.”

Human Scale emerged organically from this mindset. Early efforts, like building a community garden in Englewood, reflected a hands-on approach to design rooted in listening and participation. “We were not thinking about nonprofit when we were doing the work, we were just doing it because we saw good in it,” Walmer explains. As the impact of their work grew, from $100 planter beds to $15,000 outdoor classroom structures, the need for structure, funding, and long term planning led to the formalization of the organization.

Today, Human Scale operates through a deeply collaborative and iterative design process. Projects begin with community stakeholder identification and outreach, followed by surveys to understand local priorities before any design work begins. The community plays a central role in selecting the direction forward, reinforcing the organization’s commitment to shared authorship and accountability in the design process. As the organization has grown, so has its internal structure, developing more defined processes, timelines, and strategies for engagement, while still maintaining the flexibility to adapt to each community’s needs.

“In life, you should follow your interests… there are no rules to how you live your life,”

At its core, Walmer’s journey reflects a belief in following curiosity and creating paths outside traditional frameworks. “In life, you should follow your interests… there are no rules to how you live your life,” he shares. Through Human Scale, that philosophy takes form in work that is not only about designing spaces, but about empowering communities, building relationships, and redefining who design is for and how it happens.