Harris’ research hovers around critical urban theory and investigates the political, economic, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions of the urbanization process. An erstwhile civil engineer, he writes on complex and contradictory landscapes and infrastructure, such as South Lake Union, the Elliott Bay Seawall, and the Los Angeles River, but also about grassroots urban politics in our region and he translates critical theory and fiction that relates to the built environment from French and Spanish into English. This range of research corresponds, in part, to his wide variety of teaching experiences over the last decade in all of the CBE departments (except real estate), in the School of Urban Studies at UW-Tacoma, and especially in the Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) department on our campus.
Research Theme: Arts & Humanities & Urbansim
Studies of civic culture, including public art and community design-build efforts
Elizabeth Umbanhowar
Through my studies, I am undertaking a critical investigation of the historic and future role of digital visual culture and technology in mediating, navigating and shaping personal and social cognition and connectivity in our contemporary urbanscapes. While design professions are actively adopting new digital technologies into the classroom and workplace, there has been less research on the role of mobile technologies and Virtual and Augmented Reality on user/stakeholder experience. I am collaborating with allied disciplines to establish methods to evaluate and potentially develop digital mobile technologies that will measure and enhance experience, engagement and connection to outdoor or public places. Ultimately I am interested in: how the use of and access to evolving digital mobile technologies effect human health and well-being; what are impacts on individual and collective rights to occupy, define, and participate in public places; and what are the implications for the teaching and practice of landscape architecture?
CBE Spotlight: Rachel Berney
Rachel Berney is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning, Adjunct Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture, an Urban@UW Fellow, and author of Learning from Bogotá: Pedagogical Urbanism and the Reshaping of Public Space. Her primary interests include community sustainable design, public space, and international development in the Americas, as well as urban design and planning history and theory with an emphasis on social and cultural factors. Urban@UW sat down with her in 2019 to discuss her work and research…
Urban Commons Lab
Urban Commons Lab in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington focuses on research and public service that contribute to civic engagement and democratization of contemporary city-making. The Lab approaches Urban Commons as a spatial and social practice that embodies sharing, reciprocity, inclusion, civic engagement, and collective actions. Through research, and community design projects as well as events and publications, it seeks to engage the public and the scholarly/professional community in advancing the understanding and making of urban commons.
Locally, the Lab’s primary focus has been on working with immigrant communities in King County. Specifically, the projects have engaged underserved communities including Seattle’s Chinatown-International District in collaboration with community organizations with support from Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods and other funding sources. Through research and teaching collaboration, the Urban Commons Lab is also part of a network of community design scholars and practitioners in the Pacific Rim.
Urban Commons Lab has led and participated in projects funded by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, National Endowment for the Arts, Landscape Architecture Foundation, Worldwide Universities Network, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the UW Office of Global Affairs, and other organizations.
Chandigarh Urban Lab
The Chandigarh Urban Lab is dedicated to creating a forum to understand the contemporary Indian city in transformation. It is designed to support Indian and international students and scholars of architecture and urbanism interested in studying Chandigarh as a case-study in the above context.
The Lab is an investigation into issues of globalization, urbanization and preservation that are at play in Chandigarh today. Besides infrastructural and logistical support, the Lab offers linkages with local and national architects, academics, activists and citizens.
The Chandigarh Urban Lab is conceived as an ongoing forum on contemporary Indian architecture and urbanism. The Lab invites interested academic and research organizations to engage the Lab, either to simply access our facilities and framework and/or to propose full- fledged collaborations.
Center for Preservation and Adaptive Reuse
The Center for Preservation and Adaptive Reuse (CPAR) is a research, education and advocacy center that recognizes the value of our existing historic and non-historic buildings. The Center produces innovative research, advances knowledge, and promotes educational initiatives addressing the reuse and preservation of the built environment at all scales. The Center recognizes that existing buildings provide cultural continuity of place, communicate stories of our past, and play a critical role in promoting environmental sustainability through reuse rather than demolition.
CPAR is based in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Center for Asian Urbanism
The Center for Asian Urbanism was established to promote and undertake interdisciplinary and collaborative research of urban conditions and processes in Asia and the “Global Pacific”, for example, the relevance of cities and city-regions in Asia to each other, to the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., and to the world at large.
The Center integrates research and action-oriented activities in the field to develop new knowledge and inform policy, decision-making and professional development. It provides a platform locally and internationally for critical discussion of urban issues in Asia and beyond.
The Center serves as a platform to explore the intersection of architecture, construction, landscape architecture, and urban design and planning. It is also the goal of the collaborative to establish the University of Washington as a national and international leader in the field of urban research in Asia. The College, together with other units at the University of Washington, including especially the Jackson School of International Studies, the Asian Law Center and the Foster School of Business’s Global Business Center, currently has one of the strongest concentrations of scholars on Asian cities and urbanization in the United States.
Urban@UW helps BE labs collaborate
The Urban@UW initiative brings together labs that study urban issues from across the University of Washington. Urban@UW works with scholars, policymakers, and community stakeholders in order to strengthen the connection between research and solutions to urban issues through cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaborative research. Key functions of Urban@UW include amplifying public awareness of ongoing projects, connecting researchers with outside constituencies, providing staff and administrative support services, and providing pilot funding and fundraising assistance. Multiple BE labs are involved, including the Northwest…
Sandy Fischer
Sandy’s career as a landscape architect and community planner has focused on exploring the intersections of art, ecology, landscape design and planning in theory and practice. For nearly 40 years she has advocated for livable communities, and shaped attractive places through design of enduring landscapes and creating spatial and policy plans addressing both conservation and development. She has managed her own successful consulting firms, held senior director positions in local government, and served as design and planning principal in large international and local consulting firms.
Sandy has a diverse and award winning design portfolio of projects including exquisite small gardens in the Pacific Northwest, various mixed use and resort projects in Asia, revitalized downtowns in rural communities in the Rocky Mountain region and embassies and campuses around the globe. Sandy has garnered numerous awards from professional and service organizations including American Society of Landscape Architects, The American Planning Association, the Governor of the State of Washington, The Puget Sound Regional Council and National Association of Environmental Professionals. Her work has been published in Landscape Architecture Magazine, Rural Towns Symposium, Scenic America Best of the West, Geological Society of America and others. Sandy currently serves on two Local Art Committees and two professionals Councils at the University of Washington College of the Built Environment; Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and Design.
She is a former board member of State of Montana Licensing and Air Quality Boards, the State of Michigan Arts Council, Washington Association of Landscape Architects Board of Directors, Council of Landscape Architects Registration Board Examination Committee. After graduating from Michigan State with degrees in Art and Landscape Architecture, Sandy practiced in Ann Arbor and Lansing prior to beginning her migration west by way of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Montana, and Seattle. In 2003 she settled on Bainbridge Island with her husband, a photographer and technologist and their two sons; Dylan and Sean who are both emerging designers of products and technology. Sandy studied at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute; the first program in the US to offer an MBA in Sustainable Business. Intellectually curious and a non-conformist by nature, Sandy is intrigued by cross discipline collaborations. With Richard, she continues and debate and explore the intersections of landscape architecture, horticulture, design, ecology and technology in her practice, community service, research, art, writing and personal garden.
Christopher Campbell
Campbell’s research focuses on community and place-making at different scales and in different settings. He is particularly interested in the social aspects of place-making and the intersection of built form, social behavior, and culture. With a background in cultural sociology and theory, he is fascinated with how people and groups create meaningful places out of ordinary urban spaces, and how these meanings in turn shape social life and personal identities. He has applied these ideas to studies of neighborhood in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Russia, to investigations of historical trauma among indigenous populations, and to the creation of community in high rises and other “vertical environments”. He teaches primarily in the undergraduate program, Community, Environment, and Planning (CEP), but also works regularly with Master and Ph.D. students on thesis work and other research. He is especially interested in alternative forms of teaching, and has been nominated for or received five teaching awards at the UW. As an administrator, he has served as the CEP Director since 2010. He was a member of the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Academic Affairs administrative team from 2008-2013 where he developed campus-wide undergraduate policy and programming. He was appointed Director of the MUP program and Chair of the Department of Urban Design and Planning in summer 2014.