“A mind once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimension.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
never regains its original dimension.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Isabel Cristina Fernández Vera, aka Isabel Boggs-Fernández is a Landscape Architect/Urban Designer with 20 years of combined academic and professional practice. She co-founded KornerLot Design + Development LLC, a creative collaborative that allows her and partner Zac Boggs to live intentionally a self-employment lifestyle where their passion for design is at the center of it all. They work at various design scales exercising and playing off each others' diverse strengths and skill sets. Furthermore, they test the market viability of their landscapes, structures, interiors, and even wood slab tables as they engage in micro real estate development.
Currently, Isabel is finalizing the translation to Spanish of their forthcoming book 78 Plazas; co-teaching Graphic Communication, a class designed for the Planning Department at Cornell University with an emphasis in Planning Graphics, Super Hosting via Airbnb and Booking.com, and creating their new venture Ithaca Lights (ithacalights.com) a lighting store and more. See some of our most recent work on Instagram @kornerlot or on our website at kornerlot.com.
Summary of work
Current:
KornerLot Design & Development LLC
Ithaca Lights
Visiting Lecturer at Cornell University's City & Regional Planning Department in Ithaca, NY
Airbnb Superhost
Author 78 Plazas
Former:
Assistant Professor State University of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry
Member of the City of Ithaca's Planning & Development Board + Design Review Board
Academic Partner at labD+H (Los Angeles, CA & Ithaca, NY) a
Design collaborator of labD+H (Guangzhou, China) as a co-owner of UrbiNova Design in Ithaca, NY
Lead Designer and Project Manager Design Workshop (Denver, Colorado office)
Research focus:
The design, implementation and assessment of public spaces with the goal of improving our environment.
Research themes includes:
Parks & plazas, cultural landscapes and identity, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean basin, the Laws of the Indies, post occupancy evaluations, resilience, empathy in design, a designer's portfolio & resume.
Professional work includes:
Many scales of design, from community scale planning urban and rural, to parks & plazas, streetscape, resorts, golf courses, high end residential, and signage
Degrees:
Post professional Master's Degree (MLA II) in Landscape Architecture with a concentration in Human Ecology from Cornell University | 2010.
Bachelors in Landscape Architecture from Clemson University | 2001
More in depth:
After graduating Cornell she and her partner decided to settle in Ithaca with their two daughters, where they began a design practice known as UrbiNova Design, later becoming labD+H (Design + Hope) as they expanded into collaborating with Chinese and Korean colleagues and friends. While engaging in this practice Isabel also began to teach at Cornell for both the City & Regional Planning Department (CRP) and the Real Estate Program (RE). This is where she began interdisciplinary and collaborative teaching. For the CRP Department she designed Graphic Communication, a course that she and Zac continue to teach today.
For the RE Program she taught the urban design aspect of their multidisciplinary Capstone class with Mark Foerster (real estate law). Afterwards Isabel decided to engage full time in academic and accepted a tenure track teaching appointment at SUNY ESF in Syracuse, NY. There she devoted all of her energy to teaching and the "production"* of socially and environmentally resilient public spaces [design + implementation + assessment], in particular parks and plazas in the US Mainland, China and her native Puerto Rico. During this time Isabel was awarded the Drescher Leave Award in the Fall of 2014 allowing her and her family to relocate to Puerto Rico and spend the Spring of 2015 researching the Island's 78 principal plazas, their indigenous and colonial history and their link to cultural identity.
Currently, Isabel works to finish the book 78 Plazas in both Spanish and English, creates and works at their newly established retail store Ithaca Lights, co-teaches during the Fall in the CRP Dept. at Cornell Graphic Communication with partner Zac Boggs and works with him in all things design, Airbnb, and more.
Currently, Isabel is finalizing the translation to Spanish of their forthcoming book 78 Plazas; co-teaching Graphic Communication, a class designed for the Planning Department at Cornell University with an emphasis in Planning Graphics, Super Hosting via Airbnb and Booking.com, and creating their new venture Ithaca Lights (ithacalights.com) a lighting store and more. See some of our most recent work on Instagram @kornerlot or on our website at kornerlot.com.
Summary of work
Current:
KornerLot Design & Development LLC
Ithaca Lights
Visiting Lecturer at Cornell University's City & Regional Planning Department in Ithaca, NY
Airbnb Superhost
Author 78 Plazas
Former:
Assistant Professor State University of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry
Member of the City of Ithaca's Planning & Development Board + Design Review Board
Academic Partner at labD+H (Los Angeles, CA & Ithaca, NY) a
Design collaborator of labD+H (Guangzhou, China) as a co-owner of UrbiNova Design in Ithaca, NY
Lead Designer and Project Manager Design Workshop (Denver, Colorado office)
Research focus:
The design, implementation and assessment of public spaces with the goal of improving our environment.
Research themes includes:
Parks & plazas, cultural landscapes and identity, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean basin, the Laws of the Indies, post occupancy evaluations, resilience, empathy in design, a designer's portfolio & resume.
Professional work includes:
Many scales of design, from community scale planning urban and rural, to parks & plazas, streetscape, resorts, golf courses, high end residential, and signage
Degrees:
Post professional Master's Degree (MLA II) in Landscape Architecture with a concentration in Human Ecology from Cornell University | 2010.
Bachelors in Landscape Architecture from Clemson University | 2001
More in depth:
After graduating Cornell she and her partner decided to settle in Ithaca with their two daughters, where they began a design practice known as UrbiNova Design, later becoming labD+H (Design + Hope) as they expanded into collaborating with Chinese and Korean colleagues and friends. While engaging in this practice Isabel also began to teach at Cornell for both the City & Regional Planning Department (CRP) and the Real Estate Program (RE). This is where she began interdisciplinary and collaborative teaching. For the CRP Department she designed Graphic Communication, a course that she and Zac continue to teach today.
For the RE Program she taught the urban design aspect of their multidisciplinary Capstone class with Mark Foerster (real estate law). Afterwards Isabel decided to engage full time in academic and accepted a tenure track teaching appointment at SUNY ESF in Syracuse, NY. There she devoted all of her energy to teaching and the "production"* of socially and environmentally resilient public spaces [design + implementation + assessment], in particular parks and plazas in the US Mainland, China and her native Puerto Rico. During this time Isabel was awarded the Drescher Leave Award in the Fall of 2014 allowing her and her family to relocate to Puerto Rico and spend the Spring of 2015 researching the Island's 78 principal plazas, their indigenous and colonial history and their link to cultural identity.
Currently, Isabel works to finish the book 78 Plazas in both Spanish and English, creates and works at their newly established retail store Ithaca Lights, co-teaches during the Fall in the CRP Dept. at Cornell Graphic Communication with partner Zac Boggs and works with him in all things design, Airbnb, and more.
