Studio Divercity envisions a world
where people-centred & nature positive cities replace car-centric urban sprawl.
Meet Studio Divercity
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Meet Studio Divercity *
Cities are full of choices about who gets space, what gets prioritised, and what kind of life their streets make possible. Too often, those choices still favour cars, hard infrastructure and movement over people, nature, health and everyday life, even as cities face growing climate, social and mobility challenges.
Yet these priorities are often hidden in technical language, plans and design decisions.
Studio DiverCity helps cities, organisations and changemakers make those choices visible, explain what they mean, and build the public understanding and support needed to make better change possible.
Founded by Reena Mahajan, Studio DiverCity brings together urban planning, strategic communication, advocacy and public engagement. Reena is an architect and urban planner with two decades of experience working on complex urban development and transformation projects in France and internationally, from masterplans and housing to mobility, public space, climate adaptation and water-sensitive design.
Her work focuses particularly on the relationship between urban form, mobility, nature, water, gender and everyday life, and on making visible the assumptions and priorities embedded in the way cities are designed.
Reena also develops campaigns, talks, workshops and visual narratives that make urban issues easier to understand and harder to ignore. She led #MontevideoPacificada, a road-culture campaign in Uruguay that used public communication, advocacy and participation to push for safer, more people-centred streets.
Today, her work spans strategic communication for urban change, public engagement, speaking and teaching, and See Your Street Differently, a growing series of walks and learning experiences that help people read the city through a different lens.
She has recently developed and launched StreetSmart, a digital platform that makes the human experience of streets visible and usable in urban decision-making.
Studio DiverCity helps make urban change visible, understood and in demand
Published in Cities in Motion
(July 2025):
“From Paper to Depavement,”
an interview with Reena on combining urban design expertise with advocacy for people-centred, liveable cities.
Studio DiverCity’s offer
Urban strategy
Masterplanning
Mobility & public space Water-sensitive design People-centred design
Climate adaptation Strategic advisory
Policy framing
Urban strategy, design & advisory
Speaking, workshops & public engagement
Keynotes
Workshops
Moderated discussions Participatory sessions Guided urban walks Teaching
Narrative strategy
Campaign framing
Visual advocacy
Video explainers
Carousels
Content strategy
Digital sketches
Strategic communication for urban change
Strategic communication
Narrative strategy
Visual advocacy
Public space
Mobility
Water-sensitive design
Climate adaptation
Workshop facilitation
Public speaking
Guided walks
Urban design
Strategic communication Narrative strategy Visual advocacy Public space Mobility Water-sensitive design Climate adaptation Workshop facilitation Public speaking Guided walks Urban design
Some of Studio Divercity’s projects
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"Pedestrianisation of Montevideo's Ciudad Vieja" | Assessing the impact of traffic calming on the old town's liveability and local businesses
Role : Principal urban designer
Image : Transformation of Montevideo's Rambla from a high-speed motorway to an urban boulevard [2023-2024]
Client : City of Montevideo [IM] & University of Uruguay [UDELAR]
Team : Santiago Beiró, Juan Pablo Bianchi, Reena Mahajan, Cecilia Olivieri, Tim Voßkämper
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"SAU a la Calle" | Tactical Urbanism Project in central Montevideo with Uruguay's Architects Association and the City of Montevideo
Role : Project Coordinator
Image : Facilitating a co-design workshop with residents, architects, urban planners and government officials to define the objectives of the ongoing tactical urbanism project [ 2023]
Client : Architect’s Association of Uruguay [SAU]
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"Water & metropolitanisation : A bioclimatic City of Lakes, Hyderabad comes full circle as Health Capital of the world" | Urban Planning Workshop with Les Ateliers de Cergy in India for the City of Hyderabad [2024-2025]
Role : Workshop pilot and facilitator
Image : Engaging with local community stakeholders in preparation for the upcoming workshop in Hyderabad [2024]
Client : Les Ateliers de Cergy
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"Repairing & Preparing Tirana for a Resilient Future" | An Urban Planning Workshop with Les Ateliers de Cergy in Albania for the City of Tirana [2020-2022]
Role : Workshop pilot and facilitator
Image : Facilitating the final workshop in Tirana with urbanists from all over the world to deliver urban resilience strategies to the City of Tirana [2021]
Client : Les Ateliers de Cergy
Selected projects led by Reena at a Paris-based multidisciplinary urban planning practice
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Eco-neighbourhood WOODI, Melun, Ile de France | Design, coordination & implementation of an urban development project of 2,700 housing units with public facilities, retail and urban parks [63 ha]
Design team : ATELIER LD (lead designer: urban design, landscape design, hydrology, roads & utilities, SOREC (civil engineering), COSITREX (transport/mobility), COLORADO, VIZEA (ENR) (environmental quality), ON (lighting), MEDICO (health consultancy)
Client : SAS La Plaine de Montaigu
Image : Noé Simonet & Atelier LD
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ZAC Les Jardins de Clopée, Giberville, France | Masterplan & public realm design & delivery of an urban development project of 1000 housing units [41 ha]
Design team : ATELIER LD (lead designer: urban design, landscape design, roads & utilities), PACT ARIM (regulations)
Client : Normandie Aménagement & Edifidès
Image : Noé Simonet & Atelier LD
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Croix de L'Orme, Bruyères-Le-Châtel, Ile de France | Design, coordination & development of 500 housing units, retail, public realm [16 ha]
Design Team : ATELIER LD (lead designer: urban planning, landscape design, roads & utilities, hydrology), H4 (environment)
Client : Grand Paris Aménagement
Image : Badia Berger Architects
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Eco-luxury housing estate, Choisy Beau-Port, Mauritius | Masterplan & design guidelines | 180 housing units [29 ha]
Design Team : ATELIER LD (masterplanner: mobility strategy, stormwater management strategy, landscape strategy)
Client : Constance La Gaieté
Image : Atelier LD
Teaching & interdisciplinary learning
Reena teaches and facilitates interdisciplinary learning around urban transformation, helping people connect ideas across planning, mobility, water, climate, public space and social questions.
Her sessions make complex concepts accessible, create a shared language between disciplines, and help participants work more effectively across professional boundaries.
In 2022, Reena developed and delivered a four-module course on People-Centred Sustainable Urban Design for the Society of Architects of Uruguay (SAU), helping the organisation engage a wider student audience.
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Gender Inclusive Urban Design
MODULE 1
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Water Sensitive Urban Design
MODULE 2
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Sustainable Mobility
MODULE 3
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Density, Diversity & Nature
MODULE 4
Advocacy for just & liveable cities
Studio DiverCity advocates for people-centred cities through public campaigns, strategic communication and visual storytelling.
Reena led the road culture campaign #MontevideoPacificada in Uruguay’s capital, using advocacy, public engagement and communication to challenge car dominance and push for safer, more inclusive streets. The campaign combined public events, media, visual communication and dialogue with institutions to make road culture visible as a public issue and contribute to concrete change. It helped secure safer crossings, new cycling infrastructure and greater recognition of people walking and cycling in the city’s mobility agenda.
Promoting social change through art
[🔄 On mobile? Rotate for full view]
Policy Advocacy through media
How conversations shape our cities
Communicating Climate Action for a Just Transition
The Real Barrier to Better Cities Isn’t Design. It’s Culture.
Questioning Montevideo’s public policy
How bike lanes solve major city problems
Car-centric cities cannot claim to be sustainable
Electric cars can’t be the focus of sustainable mobility
Sustainable cities are child friendly cities
Creating people-centred & nature-based cities while reducing car-dependency
Speaking on cities, culture and change
Reena speaks internationally on urban change, mobility, public space, nature, gender and the cultural narratives that shape cities. Drawing on two decades of planning experience and advocacy, she makes complex urban issues clear, engaging and difficult to ignore.
She has been invited to speak at international conferences, policy forums and public institutions across Europe, Latin America and Asia, including WALK21, Urban Future, CitiObs, the Parliament of Uruguay, the Cycling Research Board Annual Meeting and Placemaking India.
Policy & strategic writing
Reena worked with Walk21 as an independent consultant on two policy papers in 2024, translating research and technical material into clear, accessible policy guidance on walking and public transport and on transforming unwalkable cities.
Civic innovation, climate, AI & community
StreetSmart — measuring the human experience of streets
Using a street photo and a few questions about lived experience, StreetSmart combines visible street conditions with people’s own observations to create structured, people-centred evidence on safety, comfort, accessibility, social life and climate resilience.
The platform helps people understand how their street shapes everyday experience, and helps cities see what conventional datasets miss
StreetSmart has already been piloted in Delhi and is now open for anyone to try, with further audits and partnerships underway. Behind it is an international volunteer team spanning urban planning, technology, data, design and public engagement.
What clients & collaborators say about Reena
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"Reena brings a spark to the room and to any project in which she works. She is one of those who combines a deep understanding of cities with a rare ability to open minds. Not only giving you answers, but helping you to ask better questions. Reena has a real talent for making motonormativity visible: helping people notice how a taken-for-granted car culture defines what we see as normal, reasonable and inevitable in our streets. And the amazing things that become possible once we are able to see through that. At Lab of Thought, she has brought strategic rigour and real originality to our work on mobility, parking and public space, through framing, writing, visuals and film. Always making the extra mile to ensure that the final products are of the highest quality. I would happily recommend her to any organisation serious about communicating change in cities, about returning our streets to become human oriented and about a transition away from our status quo."
Marco te Brömmelstroet
Academic director of Lab of Thought
Professor in Urban Mobility Futures -
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"I had the pleasure of working closely with Reena on a strategic communication project for Flexxit and the Lab of Thought. Reena is a rare talent who combines sharp analytical thinking with high-level creativity. Her ability to take complex data and abstract concepts—such as our 'demand management' and 'parking arrangements'—and reduce them to their absolute essence is remarkable. She then translates that core message into powerful visual language and infographics that truly resonate with both policymakers and the public. Beyond her technical skills in strategy and design, Reena is a proactive thinker who truly partners with you to improve the impact of your story. Her work on our core narrative, LinkedIn carousels, and visual explainers was instrumental in bringing our 'resident approach' to life. Reena is sharp, creative, and a joy to collaborate with. I cannot recommend her highly enough for any project that requires transforming a complex message into a clear, visual, and compelling narrative."
Daan H. van Egeraat
Director, Montefeltro & Flexxit -
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"Reena has an incredible talent for taking ideas, whether well formed or still in development, and turning them into clear visual narratives, communicating them far more effectively than pages of explanation. She did exactly this with our work on traffic hazard, taking a complex body of academic research and making it accessible and engaging without oversimplifying it. A pleasure to work with!"
Owen Waygood
Professor of Transport, École Polytechnique de Montréal
Co-founder, SafeMobility Canada -
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"As a historian I’ve tried to explain in words the power dynamic that made automobiles dominate Los Angeles. But nothing I’ve ever written makes this point so well as Reena Mahajan’s eloquent drawing of the meeting in 1924 when a deal was hatched to make it happen. In it, an auto executive meets a rising traffic planner – or Power meets Ambition. Through clean linework, the moment is perfectly captured in a hand tightly gripping the arm of a chair, a pensive gaze, and the angle of an eyebrow. It communicates better in one frame what I needed many pages of text to explain."
Historian
Associate Professor, University of Virginia
Author of Fighting Traffic -
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"I first came across Reena Mahajan's work through her urbanist YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/@studiodivercity). While there are no shortage of content creators on that platform talking about the past, present, and future of cities, Reena's videos stood out to me as especially innovative, insightful, and impactful. I then came to learn that she is both an expert consultant with impressive global range and a powerful and experienced public speaker, and so when I was organizing an international online seminar with the authors of the "War on Cars" podcast to discuss their book, Life After Cars, Reena was one of the first people I thought to invite. This turned out to be a good decision, because Reena really elevated the quality of the formal panel and informal Q&A discussion with her many sharp observations. For any conference, workshop, or organization hoping to deepen their understanding of why cities work the way they do and how the could work more efficiently and more equitably, I can't think of a better person to get in touch with than Reena Mahajan."
John Munro
Lecturer in History at the University of Birmingham
Co-Founder of www.movementsmobility.com
Co-Director of the Centre for Global American Studies at the University of Birmingham -
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"Reena brings a unique balance of creativity and organisational skills—an impressive combination that enhances every project. As a team manager, she is patient, clear, and pedagogical, paying meticulous attention to detail. This not only fosters a productive work environment but also encourages the professional growth of her colleagues. She seamlessly adapts to various roles, whether in project management or as a team member. Reena excels at articulating her ideas while also being receptive to the input of others, including clients and colleagues. I highly recommend Reena; she would be an outstanding asset to any project team."
Zofia Mlocek
Design Director, Atelier LD -
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“Reena is experienced, knowledgeable, analytical and is acutely sensitive to local and strategic problems. Professional and brilliant on complex issues in difficult terrain, and in different languages and cultural contexts."
Véronique Valenzuela
Director, Les Ateliers de Cergy -
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“Reena's innovative multidisciplinary course and its high level content attracted architects, students, professionals from other disciplines and even a mayor. The course was put into practice, culminating in a tactical urbanism project, that she coordinated with technical and interpersonal competence, allowing the Architects' Association to contribute to the city’s urban transformation through innovation and participatory methods.”
Natalia Brener
Director of Sustainable Development, Canelones, Uruguay
Ex-President, Uruguay’s Architects’ Association [SAU] -
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"With her professional knowledge and creative communication skills, Reena left her mark on the city of Montevideo. Her campaigns and projects enriched the public debate and raised people's awareness that the city needs to shift its mobility paradigm."
Tim Voßkämper
Founder, Colectivo Ciudad Abierta -
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“Reena's course was very diverse and compact, spanning a wide variety of subjects. She was excellent, demonstrating knowledge, experience and an ability to deliver and articulate it well. As a mayor, the knowledge I acquired has served as a compass for the difficult and rewarding task of generating sustainable urban development with people at the centre.”
Arturo Bentancor
Mayor, Juan Lacaze, Uruguay -
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"In her role as a scientific pilot for the Tirana Workshop, Reena had the experience and ability to understand the complexities of urban development, and well as the social and economic aspects of the territory. Her social and human capabilities gave her a good understanding of all stakeholders, creating smooth communication, while she also demonsrated a tremendous capacity to ensure a contribution from civil society. She was particularly good at running the workshop with local and international participants, fostering their creativity and group dynamic."
Christine Lepoittevin
Director, Les Ateliers de Cergy
Reena is a member of the World Economic Forum Expert Network since March 2024.
Reena is a member of the Global Alliance for Feminist Transport since December 2024.
Reena is CitiObs fellow since February 2026.
