Housingkind
A digital visualization platform that helps communities understand how missing middle housing can fit into their neighborhoods.
Challenge: Many communities value affordability, walkability, and lively neighborhoods, but still resist the housing types designed to support those outcomes. Developers proposing Missing Middle housing often encounter opposition and need clearer ways to communicate the value of these developments.
Solution: Housingkind is a digital visualization platform designed to help communities visualize how missing middle and mixed-use housing could integrate into their real neighborhoods.
Deliverables: Research & Strategy, UX Research, Systems Thinking, Design Strategy, Operations Management, Product Design, Cross-functional Collaboration,
Team:
Samantha Popek, Lucy Murdock, Jaden Radcliff, Obid Ochilov
Org:
In partnership with ViaCDC, AARP and Startingblock
Timeline:
Aug 2025 - Present
Role:
UX Design & Research
OVERVIEW
This project began in my Advanced Design Thinking for Transformation course as part of my master’s program, where our year-long project focused on exploring challenges and opportunities within the housing crisis.
I originally began the semester exploring a different housing-related concept, but in December, as project groups were finalized and scopes became more focused, I joined the Housingkind team and aligned my work with the project. From there, I contributed to research, user interviews, and early prototyping to help explore how visualization tools could make housing change easier to understand.
Through the teams research, we noticed a recurring pattern: many people admire vibrant, walkable neighborhoods with a mix of housing types, yet feel hesitant when similar developments are proposed in their own communities. This highlighted an important gap—housing conversations often happen in abstract terms, making it difficult for residents to clearly picture how new housing could realistically fit into the places they already know and care about.
This project began with a design challenge:
How might we design housing solutions that create greater access while supporting dignity and belonging across Wisconsin?
— MD+I Design Horizon
RESEARCH METHODS
Stakeholder Interviews: Spoke with developers, city council members, housing advocates, and residents to understand different perspectives within the housing system.
Secondary Research: Reviewed housing policies, planning documents, and existing research on gentle density and Missing Middle housing.
Comparative Analysis: Examined existing housing tools, visualization platforms, and community engagement methods to identify gaps and opportunities.
Systems Mapping: Analyzed how policy, community perception, and development processes interact within the housing ecosystem.
Sharing early creative ideas and exploring different concepts during the ideation phase.
Field Research & Stakeholder Engagement
Got a tour of the CR8TV House and saw the space in action.
Program group photo after touring an abandoned church being transformed into a community coffee shop.
Visited VIA CDC and connected with the community they support.
We prioritized real-world engagement to better understand the housing crisis beyond desk research. As part of the program, we traveled to Milwaukee to meet with organizations working directly in this space.
We spoke with VIA CDC, a key partner in our project, to learn about affordable housing development and community challenges. We also visited the CR8TV House, where we saw how housing and community-building come together in practice.
These experiences helped ground our work in real perspectives, shaping our design decisions and ensuring our solutions were rooted in actual needs.
EARLY STRATEGY: LEAN CANVAS
We created a Lean Canvas using sticky notes to break down the complex housing problem and align our team early on. This helped us identify key challenges, like lack of visualization, misaligned stakeholder perspectives, and confusion around proposed developments.
From this, we defined solutions centered on interactive, easy-to-understand visuals that make housing changes more tangible. A key insight was our positioning: Housingkind isn’t here to advocate, but to help people see and understand before forming opinions.
SYSTEM MAPPING
This map represents the housing ecosystem to better understand the relationships between stakeholders, including developers, policymakers, and community members. This helped us identify key tensions, gaps in communication, and opportunities where design could create meaningful impact.
KEY INSIGHTS & TAKEAWAYS
“People fear what they cannot see.”
Housing resistance is often driven by perception, not just policy or cost
People struggle to visualize how new housing fits into their existing neighborhoods
There is a gap between what people say they want (walkability, density) and what they support locally
Trust and communication play a major role in housing acceptance
Real examples and lived experiences are more impactful than abstract explanations
WHERE DESIGN CAN INTERVENE
Help communities visualize how missing middle housing fits into their neighborhoods
Make housing concepts and policies more clear and accessible
Create interactive tools to explore different development scenarios
Use immersive experiences to build understanding and reduce resistance
Support developers with better communication tools
Developers using a mock-up of Housingkind to visualize and communicate housing concepts.
SOLUTION: HOUSINGKIND
Housingkind is a digital platform designed to help communities better understand and engage with new housing development. Using UX-driven design, it transforms complex housing concepts into clear, interactive, and user-friendly experiences.
Through immersive visuals and scenario exploration, users can see how missing middle and mixed-use housing fit into real neighborhoods, helping reduce confusion, build trust, and support more informed conversations.
FEEDBACK & RECOGNITION
Presenting Housingkind to the Gensler team and sharing our approach to rethinking housing through design.
We presented Housingkind to developers, housing advocates, and city stakeholders across Wisconsin.
Their feedback validated both the problem framing and the approach:
“This could genuinely change how communities respond to new development.” - Madison City Counsel Alder
“You’ve done a great job translating systems thinking into something people can actually engage with.” - Madison Developer
“It feels like a real tool developers and communities could actually use.” - Milwaukee Housing Advocacy Organization Representative
REFLECTION
As this project is coming to an end and our final prototype is nearing completion, I’ve been reflecting on how much this process has shaped my understanding of design. Working on a complex, real-world issue like the housing crisis pushed me to think beyond just the interface and consider systems, stakeholders, and the impact of design decisions.
I’ve learned the importance of grounding design in research and real conversations, especially when dealing with topics that involve community trust and differing perspectives. This project also challenged me to simplify complex ideas and make them more accessible through visualization and interaction.
Overall, Housingkind has shown me how design can play a role in bridging gaps between people, making difficult topics easier to understand, and creating more informed and meaningful conversations.