Thaisa Way

Associate Professor
MLA Program Co-Coordinator
Department of Landscape Architecture
Adjunct, Department of Architecture
Faculty, Historic Preservation Certificate

348F Gould Hall
Box 355734
Seattle WA 98195-5734
206 685 2523
tway@u.washington.edu

UW Sawyer Seminar NOW Urbanism:
City Building in the 21st Century and Beyond
A monthly conversation about cities past, present,
and future with guests from around the globe

Thaisa Way is a landscape historian teaching history, theory, and design. She has published and lectured on feminist histories of design and in particular the role of women as professionals and practitioners, and her book , Unbounded Practices: Women, Landscape Architecture, and Early Twentieth Century Design (2009, University of Virginia Press) was supported by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation and the Landscape Studies Foundation’s David Coffin Award. In 2010 it was awarded the J.B. Jackson Book Award.

Dr. Way's research considers how diverse approaches have shaped and informed relationships between people and landscape, cultures and nature, and practices and professions, Her teaching and scholarship seek to challenge our thinking about the history of landscape architecture by considering the active engagement of marginalized groups and individuals simultaneously as agents of change and signifiers of culture. Her research has asked how gender has served as a lens through which design is practiced and the landscape is created and formed.

Another area of research is directed at sustainable design theory. Recent thesis projects have advanced the practice of sustainable design which must, in turn, address the complex web of environmental sustainability, social justice, and economic viability while creating potential for a rich and meaningful aesthetic experience. Landscape architecture has a critical opportunity to place itself at the center of contemporary discourse and policy-making on issues of ‘sustainable design’ and global warming. The department's vision to advance our knowledge of how we develop ecological infrastructures through our attention to natural processes, ecological planning and design, as well as technology is an important step towards leadership in the discipline and in the larger community of those concerned with sustainable development. Histories of design and the landscape play a critical role in the understanding, articulation, and development of the discipline and, more specifically, the potential of landscape architects to dynamically contribute to the making of exemplar culturally-based places.

View Professor Way's CV