Timsel27 is an Aggie-owned small business offering research consulting services within the field or urban and community planning, and heritage preservation. We are based in College Station, TX. In 2023, Dr. Gitta Pap, class of ’21, made a move from an academic career to a practice-based path where she practices her passion of planning and design. After nearly a decade of work in academia she decided to open her small business and engage with real life problems.
We focus on science and evidence-based solutions. We offer problem-based research and data collection. We strive to match the needs of each project with the right multidisciplinary team. We investigate and discuss with stakeholders several possible alternatives before coming to a final comprehensive solution.
One size does not fit all. Land your vision with us.
Our main core values are rooted in our belief that each and every human being has the right to live with dignity no matter of their backgrounds, looks, and the ideas they hold. We value empathy, collaboration, and community. We seek no connection with social media. We seek “real” and meaningful interaction with communities. We advocate, but we are not an advocacy organization. We strive to apply the best available objective methodological approach that seeks to understand, through scientific means, the cultural, social, economic, and environmental determinants of land and the people. We have a “nature is us” worldview. Thus, we seek solutions that will protect, restore, and regenerate the beauty and complexity of the natural world.
We listen with empathy. We seek community participation and welcome community self-organization.
Dr. Gitta M. Pap
Founder
Urban and Community Planner, Designer, Researcher & Educator
About
Here at Timsel27, Dr. Pap advocates for the integrity of local settlements. She integrates the ecological, cultural, and economic needs into the decision-making and plan making processes of communities. She studied the cultural and religious drivers of historically fragmented territories. One of Dr. Pap’s expertise is working with and advocating for the rights of fragmented communities within the process of ethnic and religious disputes over land rights.
She has a firm belief that the best approach to work with historically oppressed communities is to listen to the people who remained and fought for their settlements by seeking common understanding within the community first. Since communities evolve with their land they have strong ties and identify with their landscape. Representation of the will of communities, communicating and mapping their needs for decision-making entities is lacking under current pressures of urbanization. Disappearance of farmlands. Loss of integrity of historic neighborhoods. Fast paced changes leave citizens unprepared to have a cohesive strategy, or to step up and into the planning process. Communities often lack knowledge of how to initiate change within the community and with the city/administrative body. More often than not “progress” can overwhelm a community with character and roots.
Dr. Pap holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Texas A&M University in Urban and Regional Sciences, a Masters of Arts in Environmental Planning and Design from University of Georgia, and a Bachelors of Science in Ecology and Environmental Protection from Babes-Bolyai University. She has taught at Texas A&M University various undergraduate and graduate courses within the topic areas of landscape architecture, analytical methods, urban planning and ecological design and planning.
Dr. Pap is a docent at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, TX and member of the local Conservation Advisory Board in College Station, TX. Throughout her career she has supported, and volunteered at many organizations and has taken leadership roles at professional and charitable organizations like the American Planning Association, and Native Plant Society of Texas.
She is a native Hungarian speaker and she identifies herself as a member of the Székely ethnic minority. Most Székelys live at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains within the Valley of Transylvania.
Last updated: December 11th, 2024 by Gitta Pap
Speaking (selected)
Pathways to adaptation: the rationality of “Think Global, Act Local”: a case
study of Székely-Hungarian cultural landscapes.
Speaker. ACSP Conference, Toronto, CA, 2022
“Planning as cultural-religious practice home and abroad.”
Speaker and Session Organizer. American Planning Association. Online. 2022.
“Faith-based Community Development through Ethnospiritual Figuration.”
Speaker
ACSP National Conference. Online. 2021
Recent Peer-Reviewed Publication
Get in touch
Dr. Gitta M. Pap
Contact: info@timsel27.com
College Station, TX 77845
Timsel27 LLC 