A visionary architect and strategist who combines a unique understanding of urban places with a Midwest sensibility

Daniel Parolek is an award-winning urban design strategist, author, and recovering architect who leads transformative designs, planning, and zoning interventions to improve the quality of the built environment to provide more housing choices and walkable urbanism communities. He is the co-founder of the nationally sought after urban design and architecture certified B-corp firm, Opticos Design, with offices located in Berkeley and Chicago.

With his roots from growing up in a small midwestern town to living in many great cities including Chicago, New York City/Brooklyn, Rome, Porto, and Berkeley, has directly shaped his expertise in understanding the broad range of built environments. His impactful work and advocacy efforts led him to being voted Top 100 Urbanist: Past and Present, and inspired him to start the now international Missing Middle Housing movement. His acclaimed book, Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big and building Small to Respond to the Housing Crisis, makes a compelling case for why we need a broader range of housing choices and provides proven techniques and successful solutions.

Daniel’s unique expertise enables him to work with cities, regional governments, non-profits, and developers around the world to deliver the types of vibrant communities people are longing for. His collaborations include the design of Culdesac Tempe in Arizona, which will be the largest car-free community in the USA when completed, a progressive city-wide Missing Middle strategy for Sacramento, California, a sustainable regional growth strategy for Gabon, Africa, a broad range of form-based zoning efforts across the country, and ongoing advocacy work with AARP and the National Association of Home Builders.

Daniel is a first-generation college student. He was introduced to thoughtful placemaking and design while working on his undergraduate degree in architecture at the University of Notre Dame (Go Irish). He practiced architecture in New York City with Robert AM Stern before returning to expand his passion for walkable places by receiving a Master of Urban Design Degree from UC Berkeley. His seed of passion for walkable places was planted during his upbringing in the small vibrant, midwestern town of Columbus, Nebraska. His happy place is sitting on a piazza or beach in Italy with a nice glass of wine people watching.

Have a challenge you want Daniel to help tackle or a vision for your community you need help implementing. Feel free to reach out to Daniel or his talented team at Opticos Design.