Five Minutes with Luis Calvo

We sat down with Associate Principal and Planner, Luis Calvo, to learn about what inspires him and his unique planning approach.

What drives your approach to planning?

My practice is centered around improving people’s lives and helping communities become the best versions of themselves. A big part of that, for me, is making sure people feel like they have a role in shaping the places where they live, work, and spend time. I’m especially drawn to the participatory side of planning, where change does not simply happen to people, but happens with them. When people feel included in the decisions that shape their community, I think we can help foster a stronger sense of belonging and connection to place.

How did you get here?

My background is architecture and design, and I started out thinking I would become an architect. Once I entered the profession, I realized that what I was most drawn to was the environment surrounding buildings, not necessarily the buildings themselves. As I kept working, that interest became even more holistic. I realized that what makes a place special is not just its physical design, but the people who use it and the way they bring it to life. I still draw quite a bit on my architectural background and the sensitivity to design that it gave me, but planning has given that foundation a broader purpose. It has allowed me to use design as a way to help people and shape places that better serve them.

You sure seem to love working on downtown plans! Why is that?

I do have quite a few downtown master plans under my belt, especially over the last few years. I think a lot of that comes back to the fact that I grew up in a downtown environment in my hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia. It gave me a real love for compact, walkable places where so much of daily life is at your fingertips and where it is easy to connect with other people. When I moved to the United States, I first lived in a much more car-dependent suburb, and I really missed that connection to a walkable daily life. I think that is a big part of what draws me to downtown planning today. There is something really meaningful about helping these places become more walkable, more livable, and more fully connected to their role as the civic, cultural, and public heart of a region.

I also find downtown planning especially rewarding because people care so deeply about these places, whether they live downtown or not. There is often a shared sense of ownership and pride in a downtown because it is more than just a district. It is a reflection of who a community is and what it wants to become.

What are you focused on now—and why does it matter?

What I love most about my job is the opportunity to work with wonderful clients and communities across the country. Right now, I’m doing really fun and enriching work in places like Lexington, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Ohio, and across the metro Atlanta region. That work takes a lot of different forms, from downtown master plans and comprehensive plans to parks and trails planning. We also get to work with communities of very different sizes, from mid-sized cities with vibrant downtowns to more rural places like Carroll County, Georgia, where we are currently working on a parks and trails master plan in partnership with the Trust for Public Land.

What matters most to me is that, even though the places and projects are different, the work is always grounded in helping communities become places where people want to live, spend time, and feel connected. To me, that is really emblematic of what we do at MKSK: creating places where we all want to live.

Luis Calvo, AICP, is an Associate Principal at MKSK . He blends his architecture background with urban planning expertise to guide transformative downtown, corridor, and public space planning across the Midwest and South.