EVENTSCAPE
UW Department of Landscape Architecture Biannual Newsletter, Spring 2011

HEADLINES

Next Eco-City Symposium
The department and college are hosting a symposium "Next Eco-City: Emergent Urbanism" on April 8, 2011 at the Seattle Central Library. The interdisciplinary symposium will critically explore the relationships between environment, equity, economy, and design in our rapidly urbanizing world, investigate the dynamics and implications of rapid urban growth in the emerging mega-cities of the global south, and examine emerging tactics and approaches that recognize the urban landscape as network of interconnected and spontaneous possibilities. The event will feature Kongjian Yu of Turenscape, China as the keynote speaker. For more information and to register, please visit http://larch.be.washington.edu/ecocity.

New Eyes for Old
In conjunction with the symposium is the exhibit "New Eyes For Old: Legacies of Richard Haag + Gas Works Park" Sponsored by the Graham Foundation and hosted by 3X10/ Suyama Peterson Deguchi, 2324 Second Avenue, Seattle, WA. An opening reception will be held on April 8, from 6-8 PM at the 3X10 / Suyama. Thank you to George Suyama, Jay Deguchi, Emma Schulz, and Dean Friedman as well as Richard Haag, Laurie Olin, Alan Ward, and Gary Hilderband. The show is curated by Thaisa Way (LA faculty) and Tera Hatfield (MLA Candidate).

UW Sawyer Seminar / Now Urbanism
This spring concludes the 2010-2011 UW Sawyer Seminar/ Now Urbanism with three public sessions (Thursdays at 6:30 in Kane 120). April 7 we present the "Next Eco-city" followed by a daylong symposium "Next Eco-City // Emergent Urbanism" with Kongjian Yu of Turenscape and Peking University, China as the keynote speaker. Also joining the Sawyer discussion will be Karen Seto of Yale University and Pierre Belanger of the GSD, Harvard and moderated by Dean Daniel S. Friedman, College of Built Environments.

On May 5 the focus will be on "Towards Just Cities: Equity and Justice" with guests Laura Pulido, American Studies and Ethnicity/Geography, University of Southern California, Nik Heynen, Geography, University of Georgia, and John Burbank, Economic Opportunity Institute, moderated by Dean Ana Mari Cauce, College of Arts & Sciences. Concluding the series on May 26, Interim President Wise will host Dr. Lynne Brown of New York University and Dr. Zhigiang Wu of Tongji University, Shanghai China.

This yearlong series, co-directed by Thaisa Way and Margaret O'Mara (History, A&S), has addressed issues and potentials of urbanism from a rich range of perspectives questioning languages, approaches, and assumptions while highlighting exciting areas of collaboration and innovation. Now Urbanism, a 2010-2011 Sawyer Seminar generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and hosted by the Simpson Center for the Humanities, is a collaboration of the College of Built Environments and the College of Arts & Sciences, University of Washington, with support from the UW Alumni Foundation. Now Urbanism is a central component of NEXT CITY, a two-year special initiative of the UW Office of the Provost that is focused on the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in the twenty-first century.

Transcultural Cities Symposium
Associate Professor and Chair Jeff Hou hosted the Transcultural Cities Symposium on February 12 and 13. With support from the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) and the UW Office of Global Affairs, the symposium brought together over 20 scholars around the world to investigate the changing demographics of urban communities and how urban spaces and placemaking practices can engender cross-cultural understanding. The symposium was held in conjunction with the Transcultural Urbanism session as part of the UW Now Urbanism Sawyer Seminar series, featuring Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Michael Rios, and Arijit Sen as the panel speakers. http://faculty.washington.edu/jhou/transcultural/

STUDENTS + STUDIOS

In conjunction with the Next Eco-City symposium, students will host a small exhibit April 4-11 in Gould Court on "Urban Ecological Design." This will highlight studio projects that have focused on urban ecological design in the past year. The exhibit is a chance for students, faculty, and guests to discuss innovative design strategies that are pushing the boundaries of professional practice.

U-WASLA is proud to announce the recent launch of the NXNW blog. This student publication will feature articles, scholarship, and work samples. http://northbynw.wordpress.com/

CBE Students win Real Estate Challenge
A team from the University of Washington won this year's Real Estate Challenge, which focused on Starwood Capital's site at Second and Pine in downtown Seattle. Over ten weeks, students were tasked with forming a feasible development proposal for the site, which is currently a parking lot. The proposals considered site context, marketability, and financial returns for Starwood. The Washington chapter of NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association hosts the annual event. Teammates Boting Zhang (MLA), Julia Levitt (MSRE), Katie Porter (MUP + MSRE), and Katlin Jackson (MSRE) proposed a 24-story LEED Gold hotel, beating teams from the University of British Columbia and Washington State University. UBC and WSU proposed mixed-use projects with a hotel, housing, and retail. The UW team won both the main prize — the Filley Cup and $2,500 — as well as the People's Choice Award, which is selected by a vote of NAIOP members. The Filley Cup is awarded based on hour-long team presentations and Q&A with a panel of ten judges; the People's Choice based on the teams' presentations at a NAIOP-hosted breakfast in front of 350+ professional real estate developers, architects, contractors, and bankers. The selection process for the UW team takes place within the winter quarter's Real Estate Studio, offered by UW's Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.

Designing the Future
Julie Johnson and Iain Robertson are teaching a new Landscape Architecture course this spring: LARCH 212 Designing the Future. This course engages non-majors in design thinking, process and values through presentations, readings, discussions and in-class activities. The class meets in a building on the Quad (cherry blossoms are in their glory now), which gave students a context to explore for a small group exercise. Other parts of the campus will become laboratories for design thinking throughout the quarter.

In BEtween Climate Change and the Built Environment
Thaisa Way and Ken Oshima (adjunct faculty in landscape architecture) will co-lead the Spring BELAB: In BEtween Climate Change and the Built Environment. This interdisciplinary BE LAB addresses the global challenge of climate change and the more localized dilemma of designing for indeterminacy and change. We will consider the urgency of responsible and responsive design to engage both immediate and future needs of Pacific Rim cities. The BE Lab responds to the predictions of rising waters through urban and architectural design in Pacific Rim cities including those in Japan (travel for onsite investigation) and Seattle (onsite research and design) and Alaska (online research). While a trip to Japan was planned for spring break- given circumstances it has been postponed till the end of May. The Seattle site is the Stimson Marina in Ballard.

Scan|Design Masters Studio
The final document showcasing designs from last autumn's interdisciplinary ScanlDesign Master Studio for Seattle's Central Waterfront is now in press and will soon be available for download on the Master Studio website: http://courses.washington.edu/gehlstud/. Interdisciplinary teams addressed a new salmon-friendly seawall configuration, an on-grade road replacement for the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct, nearshore and shoreline habitat, stormwater treatment and re-use for district energy, pedestrian, bicycle and boat connections to the city and bay, a new ferry terminal, and over 9 acres of new park lands. The studio focus on quality public space and waterfront design was supported by a study tour to Denmark and Sweden, funded by the ScanlDesign Foundation. Professors Rottle (LA) and Sutton (Arch) led the studio, with Master Teaching from Bianca Hermansen of Gehl Architects and invaluable assistance from TA Merrit Ertel.

Scan|Design Interns
2010 Interns Jenny Hampton and Mary Fialko completed their autumn internship with Gehl Architects and their investigation of the urban design potential of Seattle's alleys. The GFL has now printed their highly informative and beautifully illustrated Activating Alleys for a Lively City. We're planning a display at the May 5 Nord Alley Party in Pioneer Square where hard copies of the book will be available, and the pdf will soon be posted on the GFL website for free download. Our second pair of ScanlDesign interns from the University of Copenhagen, Louise Holst and Emilie Kjeldsen Kjaer, are working at SvR Design this spring. Follow their blog

GREEN FUTURES LAB

Waterfront Stormwater Solutions
The GFL is working with the City of Coupeville to design multi-functional stormwater treatment features to serve as prototypes for Puget Sound waterfronts. Lab Manager Leslie Batten is integrating the research into her master's thesis, with consultation from stormwater expert Rich Horner, engineers at SvR Design and assistance from PhD Student Hossein Estiri. In January Leslie presented the project at the On Sustainability conference in Hamilton, New Zealand. Supported by both the Russell Family and Bullitt Foundations, the project has received a second grant from Russell Family to further develop the prototype for Coupeville and to explore opportunities for application of waterfront stormwater solutions with additional communities on Puget Sound.

Sustainable District Centers for Edmonds, WA
Our GFL urban design team is developing alternatives for two mixed-use centers in Edmonds, WA. The interdisciplinary team, composed of students and recent graduates in Landscape Architecture, CEP, and UDP, has engaged the public in an interactive open house, an on-line survey, and with the assistance of local professionals, a very successful participatory charrette to envision the future of Westgate and Five Corners. Responding to community ideas, we will develop form-based code for the two centers for potential adoption by the City of Edmonds. Adjunct Professor Jill Sterrett and GFL Director Nancy Rottle are advising the team.

Regional Open Space Strategies for Central Puget Sound
Having completed scoping for a potential Regional Open Space Strategy (ROSS) process for Central Puget Sound, the GFL and the Northwest Center for Livable Communities are embarking on the first phase of the project to develop an overarching set of strategies aimed at conserving and enhancing connected ecological and recreational open space in four Puget Sound counties. The Puget Sound Regional Council and The Makers are partners in the project. Aided with an initial grant from the Bullitt Foundation, the Lab is currently seeking grants to fund a 2-year process that will engage stakeholders and leaders in local watersheds to identify and prioritize strategies that will lead to cohesive regional open space protection and provision for multiple-value public use and benefit.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that MLA II candidate Leann Andrews has joined the GFL as assistant manager. Leann is a licensed landscape architect with several years of professional experience working with green infrastructure, and we're very much looking forward to her involvement with GFL development and projects. Welcome, Leann!

FACULTY HIGHLIGHTS

Associate Professor and Chair Jeff Hou received the 2011 CELA Award of Recognition for Excellence in Service-learning Education at the Annual Meeting of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in Los Angeles in March. In early March, Jeff joins the Design Oversight Subcommittee of the Central Waterfront Committee that oversees the current planning and design process for Seattle’s Central Waterfront and the Seawall rebuilding. Jeff’s latest article “Citizen Design: Participation and Beyond” is published in Companion to Urban Design, edited by Tridib Banerjee and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris (Routledge 2011). The volume features over fifty original contributions from internationally recognized scholars and practitioners in the field.

Associate Professors Julie Johnson and Iain Robertson and colleague Leslie Herrenkohl, PhD from the College of Education, conducted an afternoon workshop (Using Design Studio Pedagogy to Creatively Model and Understand Visitor Experiences) for participants in the Visitor Studies Association's regional meeting at UW in March.

Last February Julie Johnson presented "Making Sense of Greening Cities: Lessons from Seattle's Community Gardens" at MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning as part of the Department's "Making Sense.... Spring 2011 Speaker Series" on February 23. She joined in part of a DUSP Qualitative Methods class the next day for follow up discussion.

Associate Professor Lynne Manzo gave several invited lectures on environmental psychology and place meaning at the University of Warsaw, Poland in mid-March. The two-day advanced course was given to Psychology graduate students, and then a separate lecture to the faculty on Lynne’s research on "The Experience of Place and Displacement in Urban Restructuring Programs."

Associate Professor Nancy Rottle and Assistant Professor Ken Yocom have completed the manuscript for their new title, Ecological Design, due to be published in September 2011 by AVA Press. Written for mid-level students as well as professionals, the richly illustrated book features theory, operations and case examples for applied urban ecological landscape design.

Nancy Rottle presented the integrated BE Scan|Design programs at the recent CELA conference in Los Angeles, as well as the Green Futures Lab's Waterfront Stormwater Solutions project (see above). She will be co-leading a workshop on climate change and ecological design at the National AIA conference in New Orleans in May.

Associate Professor Thaisa Way presented ""Emerging Modernisms in Landscape Architecture/ Women at Midcentury" as the keynote lecture for the “Women and Modernism in Landscape Architecture: A Colloquium” at the GSD, Harvard University in February. Also speaking at the symposium were Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Rosa Kliass, and Carol Johnson- three women who started their own landscape architecture firms over 50 years ago. The trip also included a brown bag discussion of gender and history with the Cambridge office of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. Thaisa will give a related talk at the Rhode Island School of Design in late April in addition to serving as an MLA design thesis reviewer. In April she concludes her two-year position as the President of the Landscape History Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH). She has recently been appointed to the SAHARA Advisory Board of the SAH, a group that is responsible for implementing one of the most exciting and far-reaching collections of digital images of built environments that is being built in collaboration with ArtStor. Thaisa is focused on expanding images of landscape places and spaces.

ALUMNI ACCOLADES

BLA Graduate Malcolm Dole , co-owner of Brightwork Builders, recently completed new construction of a 3600 sq-ft custom home at 4160 Cascadia Avenue South, Seattle 98118. The design project, which includes a live roof, radiant heat and rainscreen siding received 4-Star Built Green Certification.

IN MEMORY

The department mourned the loss of Emily Grigg-Saito and Aaron Vandenberg who passed away in February in unrelated circumstances. A memorial gathering was held on February 25. Both Emily and Aaron were students in the MLA program. They are both remembered as kind, caring, and aspiring students, and are greatly missed by their classmates, peers, and instructors. Our deepest sympathies go to their family and friends.

Please share your news with the department and alumni by emailing JoAnne Edwards. Stay in touch with Alumni and the UW Department of Landscape Architecture with our LinkedIn Group, Group name: University of Washington Landscape Architecture