Faculty

Daniel B. Abramson, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Urban Design & Planning; Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; member of China Studies and Canadian Studies faculties).

Research has focused on the revitalization and planning of multicultural and transnational communities and developing-world cities; Chinese urban planning and development; and theory of urban identity, historic preservation, and design.

Planning, design and research projects include comparative study of community engagement in the historic Chinatowns of Seattle and Vancouver, BC; resident participation in historic preservation and urban design policy in China; historic preservation aspects of district planning in Beijing; and architectural surveying and cataloging of historic images for adaptive reuse of mill buildings in Massachusetts.

Publications include: "From Ethnic Enclave to Multi-ethnic Translocal Community: Conditions for Planning in Seattle's Chinatown-International District," co-authored with Lynne Manzo and Jeffrey Hou, forthcoming in Journal of Architectural and Planning Research; "The 'Studio Abroad' as a Mode of Trans-cultural Engagement in Urban Planning: A Reflection on Nine Years of Sino-Canadian Educational Exchange," Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 25, No 1 (Fall 2005): 89-102; and "Beijing's Preservation Policy and the Fate of the Siheyuan," Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Fall 2001): 7-22.

Manish Chalana, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Urban Design and Planning; Affiliate, Canadian Studies Center and South Asian Center).

Research interests include urban and planning history; historic preservation planning, international and multicultural preservation and planning. Additional foci include large-scale cultural resource management.

Past and current research supported by grants and fellowships from the National Park Service, Graham Foundation, Rocky Mountain Nature Association, Rocky Mountain Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit, Colorado Historical Society, Royalty Research Funds (UW); King County's Cultural Service Agency—4Culture, Washington State Department of Ecology and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Publications: Peer-reviewed journal articles include "With Cultural Landscapes So Wild: Cultural Landscape Inventory in the US National Parks", forthcoming in the Journal of Preservation Education and Research; "Slumdogs vs. Millionaires: Balancing Vernacular Environments and Global Modernity in Mumbai, India." Journal of Architectural Education 2010, 63(2), pp. 25-37; "The Pay Streak Spectacle: Representations of Race and Gender in the Amusement Quarters of the AYP Exposition" Pacific Northwest Quarterly 2009, Winter, pp. 23-35; "Historic Context and National Register Eligibility for Colorado Irrigation Ditches and Canals" CRM: The Journal of Heritage Stewardship 2006, Summer, Vol. 3, No. 2. (co-authored with Michael Holleran). Book Chapters: "Making Way for a Global Metropolis: Mumbai's Rapidly Transforming Informal Sector", forthcoming in The Emerging Asian City: Traditions, Tensions and Transformations, Ed. Bharne, Vinayak. Book manuscript: Historic Preservation Planning in India (under preparation).

Meredith Clausen, Ph.D. (Professor, Architecture and Art History; Adjunct Professor, Romance Languages).

Former member of the State Advisory Council for Historic Preservation.

Research interests in late 19th and 20th century European and American architecture, with books and articles on Paris, department stores, shopping centers, Pietro Belluschi and Paul Thiry. Received Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for doctoral research (1973-74), an N.E.A. grant for "Redefining the Beaux Arts Campus," (1977-78) and a J. Paul Getty Publication Grant (1985). Her book, Frantz Jourdain and the Samaritaine: Art Nouveau Theory was published in 1987.

Current research in 20th century American architecture focuses on regionalism, changing theories of architectural design and work by modern American architect Pietro Belluschi. Author of Spiritual Space: The Religious Architecture of Pietro Belluschi (1992), and Pietro Belluschi: Modern American Architecture (1994).

Current academic/professional memberships: American Institute of Architects, Society of Architectural Historians (Board of Directors 1987-90).

A recent article on Philip Johnson's role in the Portland Public Services Building was published in Architronic, a new electronic architectural journal, and she is at work on a book on the Pan Am Building in New York, which was funded by a grant from the Graham Foundation.

Leonard Garfield (Lecturer, Urban Design and Planning).

Executive Director of the Museum of History and Industry, Seattle. Formerly manager of the King County Cultural Resources Division, and has previously served as architectural historian for Washington State and historian for the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Co-author of Built in Washington (1990), and various articles on residential architecture.

Current academic/professional memberships: President, Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.

Jeffrey Hou, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture).

Research interests include community design, cultural landscape, urban landscapes, design activism, citizen participation and public realm in the Pacific Rim.

Preservation-related publications include: "Asian Streets in America: Design Transformation of Seattle's 'International District'"; "Preserving for Multiple Publics: Contesting Views of Urban Conservation in Seattle's International District"; "Negotiating Shifting Landscapes: Public Awareness-building in the Face of Contested Cultural Heritage"; "Constructed Identities and Contested Space in Seattle's Chinatown-International District' (with Amy Tanner); "Remaking of a Historic, Ethnic City: World Heritage Site in Lijiang as a Contested Space" (with Jiao-Yen Yang).

Louisa Iarocci (Assistant Professor, Architecture)

Research interests include 19th and 20th century American and European architecture; the history of the city and its representation; architecture and commerce and industry. Practiced as architect in Boston, St. Louis and New York with a focus on renovation/restoration.

Author of "Department Stores" in Encyclopedia of New England Culture (2005). Have presented at numerous academic conferences on department stores and commercial architecture.

Current academic memberships: Society of Architectural Historians, College Art Association. Registered Architect (State of Missouri)

Ronald J. Kasprisin (Associate Professor, Urban Design and Planning).

Research interests include alternative design methodologies and ecology, public awareness methods, and community planning in downtowns and in small waterfront communities, urban design guidelines, graphic methodologies in urban design. Principal of Kasprisin Pettinari Design, Architects and Urban Planners.

Author of Watercolor in Architectural Design and co-author of Visual Thinking for Architects and Designers, an urban design resource book dealing with graphic portrayal of context as a function of place.

Jennifer A. Meisner (Affiliate Assistant Professor, Urban Design and Planning).

Executive Director, Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington's statewide, non-profit historic preservation advocacy organization.

Teaching interests include providing students with practical experience in identifying, evaluating, documenting, and planning for the protection of significant historic resources and introducing advocacy strategies, regulatory tools, and incentives that can be employed to preserve and rehabilitate historic properties.

Current professional activities & memberships: Board of Directors, 4Culture, King County's cultural services agency, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington State Main Street, Maritime Heritage, and Sustainability & Historic Preservation Advisory Committees. Frequent presenter at local, state and National preservation conferences and events.

Kathryn Rogers Merlino (Assistant Professor, Architecture; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture)

Research interests include social and political transformations in society and how they affect the built environment, development patterns and vernacular architecture, place-making.

Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, F.A.I.A. (Professor, Architecture; Adjunct Professor, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design & Planning)

Research interests include 19th and 20th century architecture; Northwest architectural history; monuments and memorials. Previous professional experience in architecture, urban design and preservation, as well as historic properties surveys and other cultural resources documentation including determinations of eligibility, and National Register and Landmark nominations.

Publications include H. H. Richardson: Complete Architectural Works (1982, rev. ed. 1984), Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects (1994; editor/co-author), Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H. H. Richardson (2003; co-author): Lionel H. Pries, Architect, Artist, Educator: From Arts and Crafts to Modern Architecture (2007), and articles in professional and scholarly journals.

Academic/professional memberships: American Institute of Architects, Society of Architectural Historians, Vernacular Architecture Forum, National Trust for Historic Preservation, DOCOMOMO.

Vikramaditya Prakash (Professor, Architecture; Adjunct Professor, Landscape Architecture)

Research interests include non-western, Asian, Indian Architecture; cultural and postcolonial studies; LeCorbusier; modernism

Nancy Rottle (Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture; Adjunct Associate Professor, Architecture and Urban Design & Planning)

Research interests include design as a means to create places that are culturally meaningful, ecologically healthy, and experientially resonant.

Dennis Ryan, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Urban Design & Planning and Architecture; Director, Community, Environment, and Planning Program).

Research interest in community identity, urban change and continuity, methods of analysis of place. Chairman, Urban Design and Preservation Division of American Planning Association (1986-87); Review Editor, Urban Design and Preservation Quarterly (quarterly journal of the Division). Member Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board 1992-94, and member Seattle Planning Commission since 1989.

Authored Fort Lewis Design Theme Study: A Final Report, for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1984).

Current academic/professional memberships: American Institute of Certified Planners.

Mimi Sheridan (Lecturer, Urban Design and Planning).

Consultant in historic resources and preservation planning, with a particular interest in developmental history.

Has completed a history of Seattle's Olmsted parks and boulevard system and a developmental history of the Town of Coupeville, Washington, along with historic preservation policies and design guidelines for several jurisdictions. Other recent work includes several landmark nominations and historic resource surveys of Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Kirkland and Seattle's commercial districts.

Current academic/professional activities and memberships: Seattle Planning Commission, Historic Seattle, Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Society of Architectural Historians, Vernacular Architecture Forum, American Planning Association, American Institute of Certified Planners.

John Stamets (Lecturer in Photography, Architecture).

Photographic interests include photo-documentation for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and Historic American Engineering Record (HAER). Among the 30 HABS/HAER projects completed since 1992 are the now demolished Music Hall Theatre (Seattle), Longacres Race Track (Renton) and 19th-century factories at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Bremerton).

His book Portrait of a Market on Seattle's Pike Place Market was published in 1987. In 1988-89 he was the magazine editor for International Association of Panoramic Photographers (IAPP).

He is currently on the Board of Trustees of Allied Arts in Seattle.

David Strauss, Ph.D. (Affiliate Assistant Professor, Architecture).

Principal in Snyder Hartung Kane Strauss, Architects. Projects include historic and urban design study for Home Historic District Survey, Inventory and Design Guidelines, Pierce County, and major renovation/rehabilitation studies/repair/seismic upgrade work on historic buildings including Whatcom Museum of History and Art, University Christian Church, Bellingham City Hall, Green Lake and West Seattle Carnegie Libraries, Dexter Horton Building, University of Washington's Suzzallo Library, Garfield County Courthouse, Everett Library, St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, King County Courthouse. Dissertation entitled: In Campo Verde: The Piazza Nuova in Ferrara.

Teaching includes design studios and theory. Member, Pioneer Square Preservation Board.

David Streatfield (Professor Emeritus, Landscape Architecture).

Research interests include historic landscape preservation and environmental design history. Landscape preservation consultant.

Extensive list of publications on a wide variety of topics, and related areas, for example "Hollywood Farms," a report on the landscape of the Hollywood Farms estate for the King County Historic Preservation Office (1984; with Richard K. Untermann) and the restoration of the garden at Rancho Los Alamitos, Long Beach. Author of California Gardens: Creating a New Eden (1994).

Awarded Beatrix Farrand Fellowship to study the history of landscape design in California (1973), and an NEA Design Arts Individual Fellowship to study the relationship between landscape theory and practice in California, 1929-60 (1985).

Member, Executive Board, Alliance for Historic Landscape Preservation (1981-83), Advisory Board to Historic Seattle (1981-85), Executive Board, Friends of Seattle's Olmsted Parks (1984-85), Advisory Group on Resource Protection Planning Process, State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (1985), and City of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board (1983-89).

Thaisa Way, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture; Adjunct Associate Professor, Architecture).

Dr. Way's interests are in the histories of landscape architecture as a profession, practice, and discipline. In particular her work 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. In addition to this focus on marginalized histories and narratives, Dr. Way is engage in studies of the city and urban landscapes. What do we mean by a sustainable city and how does history inform and shape our understanding of sustainability and of urbanisms—past, present, and future. Histories of design and the landscape play a critical role in the potential of landscape architects to dynamically contribute to the making of exemplar culturally-based places, in particular the Next Cities.

In 2010–2011 Dr. Way is co-directing with Margaret O'Mara (History) a John E. Sawyer Seminar: Now Urbanism: City Building in the 21st Century and Beyond. The year-long discussion is grounded in urban history as we consider how multidisciplinary scholarly insight can inform transformative practice and enrich our understanding of culturally based place-making that is both positive and critical.

College of Built Environments | University of Washington

last updated October 13, 2010