Research
Hard problems. Public science.
A lab that talks about cities without sitting next to the people who run them is a paper. We are building the other way: national research funding where it fits, and direct relationships where it matters more.
PUBLIC SCIENCE · NO THEATER
Lines of work
We will name the problems. We will not publish the machinery.
01
Small, dedicated models
Narrow models for one scientific job at a time. Not a general assistant. Not a chatbot that draws a city.
02
A living description of place
What is built, what is entitled, what is planned, who can reach a road, what can be lost. Rewritten as the city changes. Static GIS is the thing we are leaving.
03
World models of the next decades
How urban form grows over twenty, thirty, fifty years — then what disaster, demand, or policy does to that future. The first evaluation is nearer. The horizon is decades.
04
People in the city
Occupancy, movement, and recovery belong in the understanding. A future with no one in it is not a city.
National research funding
SYMBRIQ is pursuing U.S. national R&D funding, including NSF SBIR, to build the core of the platform in public view. An application is not an award. We will say so until the status changes.
What reviewers should find here: a lab, named principals, a full urban-intelligence vision, a first public evaluation on wildfire, and no theater.
Civic partners
We do not have a posted list of agency clients. That is honest.
We want a small number of cities and counties willing to:
- Argue about what the living city should mean in their plans
- Share or point us at public layers
- Sit in a joint briefing across planning, infrastructure, or emergency
No exclusivity required. No press release required.
Universities
Useful collaborations
- Evaluation design on public records
- Studios that treat growth, infrastructure, and risk as one problem
- Methods seminars in geomatics, planning, or public policy
Not useful: logo trades, unpaid “advisory boards” with no work.
How to start
Write with one paragraph on the place or lab, the decision you are stuck on, and whether you are asking for field work, a research collaboration, or a briefing.