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SQUARE MILE DESIGN®

ABOUT

Square Mile is where I build after hours.

Independent research, prototyping, and writing on my own terms, driven by curiosity rather than a client.

Square Mile is not a studio, and it is not for hire. It is the space where I follow a question because it interests me, not because someone paid me to. Some of it ships. Some of it stays a sketch. All of it is done in the open.

The two tables

I work at two tables. At the first, my day job, I lead applied-AI research and prototyping in a corporate applied-technology lab. Serious work, real constraints, things that have to pass compliance and ship. Square Mile Design is the second table: the curiosity-driven counterpart, after hours, on my own terms. The day job is where I build what has to hold up. Square Mile Design is where I ask myself the question, “What if?” or “What does that research look like in action?” I truly believe you don’t fully understand a technology or theory until you research it and then build it.

The arc

I started by building things that did not exist yet, first in architecture, then in software. The tools changed. The instinct did not. I read a system the way an architect reads a building and the way a founder reads a market: structure first, then the way people actually move through it. Every stage taught me the same lesson from a new angle. Build the smallest honest version, put it in front of the world, and let contact teach you the rest.

The architect, the designer, the founder, and the builder are the same person. They just picked up different tools in different decades.

  1. FRONTIER FELLOWSHIP2026
    Mentoring early-stage fintech founders across Europe.
  2. APPLIED-TECH LAB2019–present
    VP, New Product Exploration & Incubation, corporate applied-technology lab.
  3. STARTUPS2014–2016
    Founding team at CabinetM, and my own earlier venture, Baked Goods Skateboards.
  4. AGENCIES & PRODUCT2010–2015
    UX, experience, and product across George P. Johnson, AMP Agency, and the sleep-tech startup Zeo.
  5. ARCHITECTURE2005–2009
    3D architectural visualization. Neoscape, Hnedak Bobo.

One method carries through all of it: understand deeply, build the smallest real version, learn from contact with the world, repeat.

How I work

I have one method, and I use it everywhere. Understand the problem deeply enough that I could explain it to the person living it. Build the smallest version that is actually real, not a mockup. Put it in front of the world and watch what breaks. Then do it again. Novel enough to matter, solid enough to ship. That gap is where I live.

What lives here

This is where the work that has no client goes. Long essays on AI and design, and shorter speculative pieces, sometimes under a pen name when the idea travels better without my name on it. Generative art written in code, where the rules make the image. Prototypes that exist only to answer a question I could not stop thinking about. You can see the built work in the projects section and read the writing in the essays. None of it is trying to sell you anything. It is just made in the open, on my own terms.

What is next

In 2026 I am mentoring a cohort of early-stage fintech founders across Europe through the Frontier Founder Fellowship, run with Unknown Campus. My first patent covered authenticating a credential through pulses of colored light. A second is in progress. Mostly I am following the current set of questions: how AI earns trust inside real financial tools, how design holds up under compliance, what a system feels like to the person on the other side of it. If any of that overlaps with what you are working on, I am always open to a good conversation.

Spec

Name
Luke Paxton
Base
Greater Boston
Practice
Square Mile Design. Independent, after hours.
Day role
VP, New Product Exploration & Incubation, corporate applied-tech lab
Fellowship
Frontier Founder Fellowship (2026)
Focus
Applied AI / UX in AI / Prototyping / Generative art / Writing
Education
BS Architectural Studies, Univ. of Missouri (2005)