Hou, Jeffrey. 2021. Civic Resilience and the COVID-19 Crisis in Urban Asia. Journal of Geographical Science, 100: 121-136. DOI: 10.6161/jgs.202112_(100).0006
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Abstract
Civil society responses including self-help and mutual aid have played an important role in addressing the COVID-19 crisis around the world, including Asia. They represent a form of civic resilience, the ability of citizens and communities to cope with and adapt to social, economic, and environmental disturbances. But how exactly did communities and social groups in Asia self-organize to address challenges during the pandemic, particularly those facing the most vulnerable populations in society? What did these cases have in common? What can we learn from these civil society responses for future planning? What were the roles of researchers, spatial planning professionals, and institutions in strengthening community resilience? This article presents outcomes from a two-part webinar titled ＂Bottom-Up Resilience＂ that took place in July 2020 featuring activists, organizers, and researchers from Hong Kong, Manila, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo. Preliminary findings include contrasting responses from institutions and civil society actors, how the civil society responses have built upon and expanded trust and empathy in a given place, how civil society responses scale up, and such scalability has depended heavily on solidarity and collaboration. The article further discusses how these efforts represent a form of civic resilience, the continued barriers, and implications for spatial planning practices.
Chu, A-Yong and Jeffrey Hou. 2023. Voices of Precarity in Taipei. Topos, 125: 78-84. https://shop.georg-media.de/topos-125/
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Abstract
This issue marks 125 issues of topos, the unique magazine for landscape architecture and urban planning. 1 2 5 issues of topos magazine. But: We do not want to use this anniversary to celebrate ourselves. Instead, we want to use this anniversary to focus on an urban issue that is so brutal that almost everyone would rather look the other way than take action: poverty. We want to use this issue of topos magazine to celebrate, in conversation with planners, city leaders and entrepreneurs, those people and projects, that work every day to create a more equitable metropolis of the future that provides warmth, food and shelter for everyone. So this is what’s #125 about. Celebrate with us what truly matters in the city of tomorrow.
At the end of October, Urban@UW hosted the first ½-day Research to Action Collaboratory workshop session for more learning, sharing and productivity. The Just Circular Communities team attended and focused on solidifying and growing their network of community partners. The team is also working to build a broader definition of “circular economy.” Read more about the October workshop session here. —– May 18, 2023: College of Built Environments researchers are selected for inaugural cohort of the Urban@UW Research to Action…
CBE Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Celina Balderas Guzmán was featured in a New Faculty Spotlight story on the UW Research website highlighting her work. “Dr. Balderas Guzmán’s research spans environmental planning, design, and science and focuses on climate adaptation to sea level rise on the coast and urban stormwater inland.” Read the full story here.
The College of Built Environments Office of Research has completed the fiscal year 2023 Annual Report. This report highlights outcomes, accomplishments, and steps for future development related to research at CBE. The report features metrics on grants and contracts funding, along with other types of funding including internal UW support. Additionally, the report highlights spotlight stories that were published on the research portal, and other portal metrics such as publications added. The full report is available on the CBE Intranet…
Yang, S., Liu, J., & Winterbottom, D. (2023). Analysis of the Dong bao Ye as sacred landscape and its Putative therapeutic mechanisms. Health & Place, 83, 103102–103102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103102
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Abstract
Humans have innately established close and profound ties with the, and through these relationships shaped many kinds of landscapes. Among these are sacred landscapes, which have drawn the attention of researchers due to their cultural significance. In the field of health geography, large-sized sacred regional landscapes are now the focus of studies for their therapeutic properties. However, few scholars have focused on small sacred landscape systems at the community level (constructed by local communities) or the physical and psycological health benefits that these landscapes offer to the local residents. These small-sized and widespread, but often hidden, sacred landscapes are closely tied to people's daily lives and work. They have evolved and grown over millennia to become critical sociocultural phenomena. This study takes the sacred bao ye landscape of the Dong people of China as the research subject. By adopting the case study approach, field research, semi-structured interviews, and textual analysis, it summarizes the types, geographical distribution, rituals and processes of bao ye as a sacred landscape of the Huanggang village in Guizhou Province, and concludes with an analysis of motivation and health benefits to the bao ye worship. In this paper we argue that bao ye is a sacred landscape system focusing on the healthy development of children, and constitutes a local belief developed in an isolated environment lacking medical resources, which remains in practice. The sacred landscape of bao ye offers a therapeutic environment, providing children with increased opportunities to engage with and build deep connections to nature. Thruogh this process children may develop a bond with nature that inspires them to protect nature on their own accord. We argue that bao ye offers an important case study for understanding the landscape-people healing interactivity at the community level.
Keywords
Sacred landscape; Therapeutic landscape; Dong
Celina Balderas Guzmán, Kevin J. Buffington, Karen M. Thorne, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Michelle A. Hummel, Mark T. Stacey (2023). Future Marsh Evolution Due To Tidal Changes Induced by Human Adaptation to Sea Level Rise. Earth’s Future. 11(9):e2023EF003518.
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Abstract
With sea level rise threatening coastal development, decision-makers are beginning to act by modifying shorelines. Previous research has shown that hardening or softening shorelines may change the tidal range under future sea level rise. Tidal range can also be changed by natural factors. Coastal marshes, which humans increasingly depend on for shoreline protection, are ecologically sensitive to tidal range. Therefore, it is critical to examine how changes in tidal range could influence marsh processes. A marsh accretion model was used to investigate the ecological response of a San Francisco Bay, California, USA marsh to multiple tidal range scenarios and sea level rise from 2010 to 2100. The scenarios include a baseline scenario with no shoreline modifications in the estuary, a shoreline hardening scenario that amplifies the tidal range, and 14 tidal range scenarios as a sensitivity analysis that span tidal amplification and reduction of the baseline scenario. The modeling results expose key tradeoffs to consider when planning for sea level rise. Compared to the baseline, the hardening scenario shows minor differences. However, further tidal amplification prolongs marsh survival but decreases Sarcocornia pacifica cover, an important species for certain threatened wildlife and an effective attenuator of wave energy. Conversely, tidal reduction precipitates marsh drowning but shows gains in Sarcocornia pacifica cover. These mixed impacts of tidal amplification and reduction shown by the model indicate potential tradeoffs in relation to marsh survival, habitat characteristics, and shoreline protection. This study suggests the need for a cross-sectoral, regional approach to sea level rise adaptation.
Dr. Jeff Hou has been elected to the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Council of Fellows. Professor Hou, Landscape Architecture, is also the Director of the Urban Commons Lab. He has previously served as the Landscape Architecture department chair, and graduate program coordinator. An investiture ceremony for the ASLA Fellows is planned for the 2023 Conference on Landscape Architecture in October. Read the full story here on UW News.
Vincent is a Swiss-Canadian designer, researcher, and educator trained as a landscape architect (MLA, University of Toronto) and urban planner (BURPl, Toronto Metropolitan University). He serves as Assistant Teaching Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, where he focuses on fieldwork, experimentation, and cross-disciplinary study to understand the ecology, craft, and traditions of places at all scales and sites, on the spectrum from rural to urban, regional to material, and non-human to human.
Vincent maintains a practice with Unknown Studio Landscape Architecture and Urban Design (Baltimore) and has previously worked in Canada, Europe, and the United States with offices including West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture (Rotterdam/New York City) and North Design Office (Toronto). In addition to his international design experience, Vincent has held research positions with Platform for Resilient Urbanism, the Green Roof Information Testing Laboratory (GRIT Lab) at the University of Toronto, and Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.
Among other accomplishments, Vincent has been a Landscape Architecture Foundation CSI Faculty Research Fellow and was an exhibiting artist at the 2021 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism for his collaborative project “Beneath the City, Rivers”. His work has been published in Ground Magazine, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Living Architecture Monitor, Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design (SimAUD), Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS), Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture (JoDLA) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s studio publication, Frontier City: Strategies for Boston Harbor.
The new cohort of faculty have made a big impact in their initial time on campus. Please see the full story here. The cohort includes: Dr. Narjes Abbasabadi, an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture and affiliate data science faculty UW eScience Institute, studies computation and decarbonization of the built environment. Dr. Amos Darko, an assistant professor in Construction Management, studies how digital technologies can help people better monitor, assess, understand, and improve the sustainability performance of the built…