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About Me

Thaïsa Way is an urban landscape historian teaching and researching history, theory, and design. She is currently serving as the Program Director for Garden & Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, a research institute of Harvard University where she will be leading the Mellon funded initiative in Urban Landscape Humanities titled “Democracy and the Urban Landscape: Race, Identity, and Difference.” Her academic home is as a Professor in Landscape Architecture in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the College of Built Environments, University of Washington.

Dr Way’s scholarship has highlighted the history of designers, planners, and civic leaders in their efforts to improve cities as places that foster human and environmental health. Her book, Unbounded Practices: Women, Landscape Architecture, and Early Twentieth Century Design was awarded the J.B. Jackson Book Award. Her book From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design: the Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag explores the narrative of post-industrial cities and the practice of landscape architecture. She co-edited with Ken Yocom, Ben Spencer, and Jeff Hou a collection of essays Now Urbanism: The Future City is Here. Dr. Way is editor of River Cities/ City Rivers, Harvard University.  And most recently Dr. Way’s book  GGN/ 1998-2019 was published by Timber Press (2018). 

Dr. Way served as Chair and Senior Fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Studies and was the 2015-2016 Garden Club of America Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome. Dr. Way earned a Bachelor of Science in Conservation and Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, her Master of Architectural History from the University of Virginia, and Phd in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University. Dr. Way was the founding Executive Director of Urban@UW, an initiative of UW’s Office of Research, to bring urban researchers and teachers together to address the most complex urban challenges.

Recent Publications

Landscape Architect A.E. Bye, Modern Landscape Design Series, Library of American Landscape History & W.W. Norton Publishing, forthcoming.

GGN Landscapes 1999-2018, Timber Press, 2018, 296 pages.

Editor, River Cities: City Rivers, Harvard University/ Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscapes Studies, 2018, 418 pages.

The Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag: From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design, Seattle: University of Washington Press, April 2015, 241 pages.

with Jeff Hou, Ben Spencer, and Ken Yocom, eds. Now Urbanism: The Future City Is Here, New York: Routledge, 2014.

Unbounded Practice: Women and Landscape Architecture in the early Twentieth Century. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 288 pages. (paperback Fall 2013).

Chapters in Books

with Ken Yocom, “Infrastructural Wilderness: The Bounding of Cities and the Breaking of Land” (draft title) in Cascadia, edited collection of essays by Nik Janos, manuscript in process.

“Urban Site as Collective Knowledge” invited essay for second edition of Andrea Kahn & Carol Burns, Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies, Routledge Press, in review.

“Introduction” Kubota Gardens, Seattle: Chin Music Press, awarded the David Coffin Award, Landscape Studies Foundation, forthcoming Summer 2019.

“Gas Works Park as Urban Commons” invited chapter for Prati/Commons, Treviso Italy: Fondazione Benetton, 2018.

Media Coverage

Social Media

@nowurbanism

Country Focus

United States

Expertise by Geography

United States, Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Environment, Urban History, Women