The Institute for Collaborative Research and

Public Humanities,

The Literacy Studies Working Group, and

The Knowlton School of Architecture

Invite you to attend a lecture and reception with

William Morrish

Elwood Quesada Professor of Architecture,

Landscape Architecture, and Urban and Environmental Planning

University of Virginia

Friday March 4   5:30 pm

Knowlton School of Architecture, Room 250

Reception Follows

RSVP:  Elizabeth Lantz (Lantz.38@osu.edu) or 688-0265

William Morrish's lecture "Next Ground"

inaugurates the ICRPH initiative

"Building Public Space,"

A series of public conversations extending through 2006

William Morrish

B.Arch., University of California;

M.Arch./U.D., Harvard Graduate School of Design

"We have deliberately used new language for this book, because we are trying to help people see familiar things in a different way.  This vocabulary shift is meant to help you express some important ideas about your neighborhood more vividly and precisely, without resorting to technical terminology.

"... Language is a form of power, because it reflects a particular view of the world.  New words can give you new power. By having to learn your neighborhood language, developers and officials will also have to acknowledge your way of seeing your environment."

William Morrish, Planning To Stay (1994)

William Morrish is the Elwood R. Quesada Professor of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban and Environmental Planning, holder of the first interdisciplinary endowed
professorship at the School of Architecture, University of Virginia. Prior to this position, he was the founding director of the Design Center for American Urban Landscape, at the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota. There he created a nationally recognized "think tank" for professionals, academics, and civic leaders on metropolitan urban design. He carries on the work of interdisciplinary teaching and research at the University of Virginia.

In 1994, William Morrish and his late-wife Catherine Brown were hailed by the New York Times architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, “as the most valuable thinkers in urbanism today.” This work is exemplified by their innovative urban design plan for the City of Phoenix, Arizona: a public art plan that unites artist and public works engineers in the transformation of city utilities into a citywide cultural setting and new public realm.

Moorish's work recognizes that infrastructure is a cultural landscape, the key concept in redefining professional urban design and planning practice. It serves as a connective tissue that knits citizens, places, social institutions, and the natural environment into coherent urban relationships. Infrastructure is the social safety net that underpins individual opportunity and access. It is shorthand for the structural underpinnings of the public realm.

His design and policy research focuses on the future of American's aging metropolitan first ring suburban communities and aging working class small home neighborhoods. Operating under the title of "Green by Addition,". this research adapts design principles from green building, landscape ecology, and non profit community organizational work. Moorish seeks to realign planning rules and production processes through which existing small neighborhoods can be transformed to meet changing social/economic demographics and sustainability opportunities.

Rick Livingston, Associate Director, Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities

Kay Bea Jones, Knowlton School of Architecture         

Harvey J. Graff, Literacy Studies Working Group, Depts. of English & History