EVENTSCAPE [AUTUMN 2007]
Department of Landscape Architecture | Quarterly Newsletter

FACULTY POSITIONS

Search open for two new assistant or associate professors. Urban Ecology/ GIS Postion: The department is seeking a new colleague whose teaching and research will unite design and ecology using GIS and related technology and will advance the Department’s agenda of urban ecological design. Green Design and Construction/ Computer Position: A second colleague is sought who will enhance our program through teaching and research in sustainable design and construction documentation. For more information see the specific descriptions,

DEPARTMENT NEWS Our Urban Ecological Focus has been expanded to include a fourth area: Human and Environmental Health. This area will support our investigations into the effective strategies for preserving and advancing the health and well being of humans and ecosystems. The focus is described as follows: Human and environmental health and well being are inextricably related. Our focus on environmental design and planning investigates, practices, and values effective strategies for preserving and advancing the health and well being of humans and ecosystems at all scales -- local, regional, and global -- within the long tradition of landscape architecture. We collaborate with diverse communities from schools and neighborhoods to healthcare providers and patients to address these challenges through community planning, restorative design, environmental justice, and inquiries into the role of nature in therapeutic design. We work with public agencies and citizen groups to define policies and practices that would increase the sustainability of healthy communities. We value a synthesis of design and research within an interdisciplinary framework that engages the scholarship and practice of allied fields including environmental psychology, the natural sciences, public health, medicine, social work, and nursing.
Professor David Streatfield, Professor Emeritus Professor Streatfield was named Professor Emeritus upon his retirement last May.  To celebrate his legacy, the occasion was marked by a lecture by Professor Streatfield titled "'Heroic Moments' and Neglected Figures in American Landscape Architecture 1856-1960." In honoring him, Iain Robertson wrote the following: "David Streatfield has touched the minds and hearts of generations of students. In a world where the expression "a gentleman and a scholar" has become a glib cliche David exemplifies the very best of both of these terms. He is an unwavering gentleman--and also a gentle man--and an exemplary scholar.  One cannot listen to his carefully constructed lectures on the history of landscape architecture, urban design, or public art without being moved to see the world anew and with a deeper, richer appreciation and understanding. . . . "David Streatfield has given a lifetime of service to the department of landscape architecture and has touched innumerable students in over 35 years.  Like all great faculty David is irreplaceable.  We acknowledge and thank him for his contributions that, as I said, have touched the hearts and transformed the lives of so many students and colleagues." We are delighted that Professor Streatfield will continue to teach selected history courses and serve on thesis committees for the next five years at the same time that he pursues his many scholarly interests.
Start of a New Year Thirty-five new BLA and MLA students joined the department for a two-day orientation September 24 and 25. A remarkable group of students have begun their landscape architecture journey. On the first day new students and faculty basked in the sun at the Arboretum enjoyed lunch together and then visited a number of design build projects including White Center. Karen Kennedy and Riisa Conklin welcomed the new students and initiated them to the opportunities of  UWASLA and the intricacies of the Gould Hall recycling protocol. The second day, not quite as sunny as the first, was spent appropriately at the Cedar River Watershed Interpretive Center. Nancy Rottle who had led the design project while at Jones & Jones described the project design, its intentions and process.  On the way out everyone was delighted to enjoy the Snoqualimie Point Park overlook, a project being built that amply demonstrated the power of panoramic views.
BLA Accreditation Visit Gould Hall was overflowing with fine examples of landscape architecture student work for a week as the BLA accreditation team visited. Over the summer Julie Johnson Johnson and Vicky Reyes  edited and compiled the reports done by faculty into a self-evaluation book reviewing all aspects of the BLA program. For the actual visit, all four floors were covered in design projects, reports, and graphic presentations completed by students over the course of the last six years. Students and faculty took the opportunity to review the breadth of work produced in our studios, seminars, and courses. It was impressive. While a final decision by the LAAB will be made shortly verbal feedback from the Accreditation Team before their departure indicated that it was quite a successful review. The team was impressed with the department and was even ready to take home a strategy or two for their own department UW at the Annual ASLA Convention and Expo in San Francisco, October 5-9, 2007: An Alumni Reunion at the ASLA Convention was celebrated on October 5 at the Hilton San Francisco. Over a dozen alumni joined with current faculty and students to talk about practice and the profession. The mood was upbeat as everyone enjoys the recent popular interest in our field. The Safe Passage Entry Garden project led by Professor Daniel Winterbottom’s Guatemala Design Build Studio (Summer 2006) was awarded an ASLA Honor Award in Community Service. Open Space 2100  , a project led by Professor Nancy Rottle, and Lecturer Brice Maryman (MLA 03), was presented an ASLA honor award in the Analysis and Planning Category. Professor Emeritus, Richard Haag, has been selected to receive the prestigious ASLA Design Medal. The medal was presented at the ASLA Annual Meeting in San Francisco in October.

STUDENT NEWS

Guatemala Design-Build Adventure – Update from the Field by Justin Martin

After a successful phase one, the Design-Build program returned to Guatemala this fall to create a playground for children with few opportunities. As anticipated, this adventure has been challenging and exciting thus far.  Following two weeks of intensive effort we are currently in the final stages of design, and are now synthesizing our ideas and iterations to design a playground for a preschool developed by Camino Seguro, our Guatemalan partner organization.  The design process has involved following our meeting with women from the local community of garbage pickers, the parents of the children who will use the playground, discussions with teachers and volunteers from the daycare center, and observing the children at play in the dirt lot that serves as there current playground.  The challenge of this project is to meet the needs of the community while balancing our proposals to be constructible in the next six weeks. Even so we seem to be pushing our final proposal to include elements that will be challenging to build in the next six weeks, especially given the limited availability of materials in Guatemala, and varied construction experience of our students.  Ultimately our goal is to create the best playground for the children, one that provides them with ample opportunity and encouragement to learn about and explore the natural world, develop healthy physical and social skills, and of course have fun. Accomplishing that goal will involve a lot of work, both physical and mental – but that work also brings a sense of accomplishment and provides a rich educational experience for all involved in this unique service-learning study abroad program.

FACULTY NEWS

Dr. Thaisa Way has joined the faculty as a landscape historian. Thaisa received a Bachelor of Science in Conservation and Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley (1983), a Masters of Architectural History from the University of Virginia (1991), and a PhD in Architecture from Cornell University (2005). She has served as an Enid A. Haupt Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution and as a Henry Luce Fellow in American Art as well as receiving awards from the ASLA, Clarence Stein Institute, and the Graham Foundation. She has published and lectured on landscape history, in particular the role of women as professionals and practitioners, and is finishing a book on women practitioners in the first half of the twentieth century She taught for two years in the Faculty of Landscape Architecture at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry before joining the department here in Seattle.

Associate Professor Daniel Winterbottom was recognized by CELA for his superior performance with the 2007 Outstanding Educator Award. The award was announced and celebrated at the annual CELA Conference held at the Pennsylvania State University, August 15-19, 2007.  This fall he is once again in Guatemala with a Design/Build Studio. The studio won an ASLA award for their work last summer (noted above) and will continue to work in similar veins.

Associate Professor Jeff Hou returned from a summer-long trip in Asia where he organized a panel at the 6th Conference of the Pacific Rim Community Design Network in China, gave a talk at the Seoul National University in South Korea, and attended a joint Japan, Korea and Taiwan meeting in Yokohama, Japan on community planning research in the three countries. Before returning to Seattle, he led the Taipei/Tokyo Exploration Seminar with 15 students from UW -- to study the micro-urban processes in the two iconic cities of Asia. This fall, Jeff's studio is working with the youths of the WILD Program and the Friends of International Children's Park to redesign the .2 acre park, with a grant from the City of Seattle's Neighborhood Matching Fund.

Associate Professor Julie Johnson joined Jeff Hou, Daniel Winterbottom and Vanessa Lee (MLA 07) to present a colloquy "Sustaining ImmigrantCommunities Through Urban Gardening"  at the Urban Affairs Association 37th Annual Meeting this spring.  She was joined by MLA alumna Eileen Alduenda (MLA 2006) and Amy Tanner (MLA 2004)(in photograph to left) and Professor Mary Rivkin, PhD (University of Maryland Baltimore County) in leading a ½ day intensive session "School Grounds in Dialogue with Their Larger Community:  Making Connections for a More Sustainable Future" at the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) 38th Annual Conference.  Nancy Rottle and Julie Johnson's article "Youth Design Participation to Support Ecological Literacy:  Reflections on Charrettes for an Outdoor Learning Laboratory."   is published in the current issue of Children, Youth and Environments Special issue: Pushing the boundaries: Critical International Perspectives on Child and Youth Participation. 17(2). http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/.

Associate Professor Lynne Manzo has been busy writing and has several new publications coming out.  The article "'Moving Once is Like Having Your House on Fire Three Times: The Experience of Place and Displacement Among Public Housing Residents" co-authored with Rachel Kleit, an Assoc Prof at the Evans School of Public Affairs and Dawn Couch a doctoral Student in UW Geography will appear in the international journal, Urban Studies. The book Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting People, Participation and Place in which she has co-authored a chapter on ethics and participatory research with UW LA alumnus Nathan Brightbill is scheduled for a December release from Routlege publishing. In addition, Lynne participated in an invitation-only conference in Toronto, Canada on Sense of Place and Well-being during which 12 international experts gathered to discuss issues of place meaning, sense of place and their relationship to individual and community health and well-being. The result of this conference is a book contract with Ashgage publishing for an edited volume. She will have a chapter in that book entitled, "The Experience of Displacement on Sense of Place and Well-Being."

This past month Associate Professor Nancy Rottle and Lecturer Brice Maryman accepted an ASLA Honor Award for Analysis and Planning for Open Space Seattle 2100:  Envisioning Seattle's Green Future at the 2007 ASLA Conference and Awards Ceremony in San Francisco.  Nancy also led an Education Session at the conference, in which both she and Brice gave related presentations. Nancy has given several papers on topics related to green infrastructure and Open Space Seattle 2100, at academic conferences in MA, CA, and PA and as a keynote speaker for a lecture series in KS.  She is directing the new Green Futures Lab (GFL), which focuses on urban green infrastructure research and design and which is currently facilitating a 100-year Green Legacy planning process for the community of Lake Forest Park.  Over the summer Nancy also co-led a study tour of ecological design in The Netherlands, and traveled to Denmark and Sweden to look at examples of urban green infrastructure there. The Cedar River Watershed Education Center project for which she was lead landscape architect was published in the August issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, accompanied by excerpts from Nancy's writing and research on the Center. 

This term Professor Rottle is leading a graduate design studio that is exploring how campus landscape development can most optimally employ sustainable design principles and practices, using the young UW Tacoma campus as the project case.  She and ten of her students in the studio traveled by van to San Francisco and the ASLA conference, investigating sustainable landscape practices on seven campuses along the way.  Nancy is simultaneously mentoring a group of capstone Environmental Management students on a sustainability assessment and vision plan for the Woodland Park Zoo, and is sharing learning and resources between that interdisciplinary group and the graduate studio.  She and Associate Professor Marina Alberti are co-editing a forthcoming issue of Places with a section theme of Climate Change and Place.

Professor David Streatfield recently worked on a restoration report for Sicilian, Iris and Valencia Courts, three courts around Denison Library at Scripps College. This is part of a larger effort to establish a cultural landscape report. His essay is included in the recent publications "Isabelle Greene, Shaping Place in the Landscape," edited by Kurt G. Helfrich.  In June he gave a talk at the 9th Annual Arts and Crafts Conference titled "Regional Landscape Design in San Diego: Arts and Crafts to Modernism," charting the links between the practices of Irving Gill, Richard Requa and Lloyd Ruocco. His essay, 'Orto  Botanico,' Padua: A  Renaissance  Jewel," was published in the last issue of the Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin. This is the oldest surviving botanic garden in Europe and is now a World Heritage Site. Professor Streatfield also wrote entries on William Hertrich, Charles Gibbs Adams, and John McLaren for the 2nd Volume of Charles Birnbaum (ed.) "Pioneers of American Landscape Design" to be published by the University of Virginia Press (Dr. Way provided essays on Annette Hoyt Flanders, Eleanor Roche, and Alice G. Lockwood). He provided the concluding chapter for the book, "John Charles Olmsted and The Pacific Northwest Region," edited by Joan Hockaday. He was also commissioned to write an introductory chapter, "Gender and the History of Landscape Architecture 1900-1975" for a book edited by Linda Jewell and Louise Mozingo, "A  Century of Women: Evaluating Gender in the Landscape," to be published by University of Virginia Press. (An essay is included in this book by Thaisa  Way) Only recently Professor Streatfield completed an essay entitled "Divergent Threads in the Gardens of Greene and Greene." This is a chapter for a book edited by Edward R. Bosley and Anne Mallek, "New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene and Greene", which will be published next year by Merrell in connection with a major exhibition on Greene and Greene to be held at the Huntington Library and Museum in San Marino, California. Professor Streatfield has begun work on an introductory essay for a new edition of Garrett Eckbo's seminal book "Landscape for Living," which was originally published in 1950. This new edition is the last book to be re-issued by the Library of American Landscape History in a series of classic texts in Landscape Architecture. Professor Streatfield is an adviser of the Library.

ALUMNI NEWS
Sean Batty, ASLA, (BLA 1996) recently completed the landscape architectural design for I205 Light Rail Project in Portland which is currently under construction. In August 2006 he was promoted to Lead Conceptual Designer for TriMet, the Transit Agency in Portland Oregon.

Barbara Deutsch, ASLA, ISA, (MLA 1997) Senior Director of the Casey Trees Endowment Fund was presented with a Research Honor Award for  The Green Build-out Model: Quantifying Stormwater Benefits of Trees and Greenroofs in Washington, DC.  She also presented her work at the annual meeting of the ASLA this October in San Francisco.

Tristan Heberlein (BLA 2006) has started the business, Solstice Landscapes Northwest. They do commercial and residential design, installation and maintenance.

Sean Sullivan (MLA'96), of David Evans and Associates, Inc. was recently honored by the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME)with an Annual Design Excellence Award for the Rivergate Industrial District Habitat Restoration Project. This project previously won the Engineering Excellence award in 2007 from ACEC Oregon. Sean's area of technical expertise is in ecological restoration planning, design, and implementation, and in alternative delivery methods for construction (CM/GC, Design/Build).

Len Zickler, AICP, ASLA, LEED AP, (BLA 1977) a principal and Community Planner & Landscape Architect for AHBL in Seattle was made a fellow in the ASLA in October.

Send us your news: We hope to highlight the accomplishments of our alumni and friends as well as students and faculty. To submit your news, contact the editor.

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