Nov 5, 2019

The Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag

From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design

Thaïsa Way

Hosted by Tricia Keffer

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Summary

Today I talked to Thaïsa Way about her new book, The Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag: From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design (University of Washington Press, 2019). Haag is best known for his rehabilitation of Gas Works Park in Seattle and for a series of remarkable gardens at the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. He reshaped the field of landscape architecture as a designer, teacher, and activist. In 1964, Haag founded the landscape architecture department at the University of Washington, and his innovative work contributed to the increasingly significant design approach known as urban ecological design, which encourages thinking beyond the boundaries of gardens and parks to consider the broader roles that landscapes play within urban ecosystems, such as storm water drainage and wildlife habitat. Thaïsa Way is an urban landscape historian teaching and researching history, theory, and design in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle. Currently she is the Program Director for Garden and Landscape Studies, Harvard University/ Dumbarton Oaks Research Center.

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Tricia Keffer

Tricia Keffer has a BA in Psychology and an MLA in Landscape Architecture. The arc of her career path took her from beach portraits in Destin, FL to the parks in Paris, France. Her photography has been published in Delta Sky Magazine, BAE Defense Contractor Calendar, and two ADDY (Advertising) awards for Dale E. Peterson brochures. Her vacation portrait concept was featured on Good Morning America. She is working on her next adventure with her landscape design business Plants People Love Designs in Florida. In her spare time during the pandemic, she picked up an additional degree BA in Art and a certificate from Master Artist David Chang’s Portrait and Figurative Studio at FIU.

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