About me
Rafael Pascual-Leone is a Canadian designer, community organizer, and placemaking practitioner whose work explores how shared spaces can foster belonging, resilience, and collective stewardship. Trained in architecture in Canada, he has worked in Canada, Malta, and Spain on projects involving community engagement, co-design, and the adaptive reuse of buildings and landscapes. He was part of the founding team of the Valletta Design Cluster, which transformed a former slaughterhouse into a creative community hub, and a founding member of Design Justice Network Mediterranea. In Toronto, he founded Oakcrest Community Orchard, a resident-led initiative that is transforming underused land along a railway corridor into a community orchard for food growing, social connection, and ecological restoration. He is also a co-founder of Neighbours for a Noise-Smart Railway, a grassroots advocacy group working to improve environmental quality along a major urban rail corridor. Rafael is passionate about how obsolete or overlooked infrastructure can be reimagined to meet contemporary social, ecological, and community needs. His work focuses on inclusive placemaking, and developing spaces and systems that support human flourishing, both individually and collectively.
