Landscape Architecture :: Kristina Hill

Faculty

Professor
Anne Vernez Moudon
Fritz Wagner

Associate Professor
Richard Horner
Jeff Hou
Julie Johnson
Lynne Manzo
Iain Robertson
Nancy Rottle
Daniel Winterbottom

Assistant Professor
Ben Spencer
Thaisa Way
Ken Yocom

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Luanne Smith
Nhon Truong

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KRISTINA HILL

I wanted to be able to introduce myself a little more personally on this page. In my experience, "place" has had a lot to do with shaping the interests and values of many people in my field. For myself, it has been an important influence on my priorities for the kind of work I do. For instance, I come from a blue-collar city -- a Northeast US example of the "rust belt" phenomenon, where there hasn't been a lot of economic investment since the Lincoln administration. This city has sustained itself with mostly private philanthropy, determination, and a lot of grit. I'm concerned about the growing gap between rich and poor people in American society and across the world, and the environmentally sustainability of urban areas. I believe that as a teacher and urban designer, I can make a contribution by enhancing other people's experiences of place, helping my students develop self-confidence and competence as designers, and helping members of the public realize that all of us can be designers of our worlds.

My "extracurricular" work in Seattle has involved me in trying to address transportation problems and solutions. I served as a chair of the development committee of Seattle's monorail public development authority (the Elevated Transportation Company) for three years. The group was created by a citizen initiative, and was eventually dissolved by the city council -- effectively martyring the monorail movement. A new citizen initiative re-constituted the monorail effort in November of 2000, charging the public development authority with presenting a monorail plan to the voters by November of 2002. We did that, and the voters approved a 14-mile, $1.75 billion dollar investment in a monorail system. Now I work with the Board of Directors of the new organization created by that vote, the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority, where I serve as Vice Chair of the Board and Chair of the Design and Construction Committee for the first line (the Green Line). You can learn more about this exciting project at www.elevated.org. As far as I know, it's the only public transit system created by direct democracy (i.e., citizen initiative), and it's using procurement methods that may set new precedents for public transit systems in the US.

But back to my point of departure. As I said, I come from what I think of as one of the lost cities of the 19th century -- Worcester, Mass . My family specializes in Worcester trivia, which has turned me into a kind of "Worcester booster in exile." I've written a paper about why it's important to tell stories about the places we come from. Worcester is just a particularly interesting example. Worcester County has always had some of the best apple orchards in the US. Truly magical landscapes. You can check one out on-line here .

Worcester is said to be the home of the monkey wrench, the typewriter, and the birth control pill -- and the rickshaw, anarchist Emma Goldman's only ice cream parlor, America's first newspaper, etc. -- and like my parents, plenty of other people keep track of its trivia .

This is me with my office mate, an 8-foot sailfish. It's a long story.

This is my fierce professorial look. I try
to use it sparingly, but you may see it
from time to time.

There are occasional questions students have about me that go beyond my origins in Worcester. For those of you who can figure it out, everything you could possibly need to know about me to understand my research interests or do well in my courses is here.... in my astrological birthchart. Good luck.