teaching
winter 2012
Happy to be teaching again at University of Oregon in the White Stag Building in Portland, this time a seminar entitled ‘Landscape Urbanism + The Agency of Mapping’.
In this class we are going to blend theory with on the ground techniques related to large-scale, landscape-focused urban analysis, planning and design. The major technical components will focus on GIS mapping and using this as a tool for multidisciplinary design, as well as studying the agency of mapping (a major tenet of landscape urbanism theory) as a tool for communication and organization of complex spatial information. The focus area will be the Cully Neighborhood in NE Portland and their plans for an eco-district, being initiated by Verde (www.verdenw.org) , a social justice nonprofit, as both a viable model of district strategies and as an alternative approach to the more mainstream ecodistricts planning happening in other areas throughout the city by POSI. Students will do case studies and critiques of local and global district planning, determine community needs and collect data, then use mapping to elaborate and provide urban visions of Cully that focus on bottom-up scenarios for development of social justice, food security, job creation and community connectivity and less on top-down solutions.”
spring 2010
I’m pleased to be helping out for an architecture studio (Arch 482) at Portland State University taught by Assistant Professor Corey Griffin. The studio theme of urban ecology is realized in a building along Portland’s downtown waterfront. “Studio investigations of architectural designs based on supporting human activities, structure, and theory. Continued study of design process and methods encompassing concepts of architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design. Includes individual criticism, lectures, and seminars.”
After discussing the goals with Corey, I agreed to provide help periodically throughout the quarter. I’ve been attending the class once a week this term to provide guidance, review, desk crits and other feedback on the building-landscape integration, site interventions, and ecological urbanism aspects of the projects. I also provided a presentation of Urban Ecotones to give the students some perspective on integrated, interdisciplinary design. From the syllabus, the major objectives:
• To address the making of architecture as the setting for the engagement between the human body and the natural world, introduced within a thematic emphasis on urban ecology.
• To explore the issue of orientation through responses and connections to natural systems and the larger urban environment.
• To explore the integration and appropriateness of building systems relative to larger architectural goals.
Read the syllabus that Corey prepared for the course for additional information.
winter 2010
urban edge | university of oregon
department of architecture | co-instructor w/ brett milligan
fall 2008
introduction to landscape architecture | portland state university
department of urban & regional planning | co-instructor w/ elaine kearney
download the syllabus here
