Jeffrey Hou | An Island Press author

Jeffrey Hou

Jeffrey Hou is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington–Seattle. Focusing on design activism, public space, and cross-cultural placemaking, he is an author and editor of several books, including Greening Cities, Growing Community: Learning from Seattle’s Urban Community Gardens (2009), Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities (2010), Transcultural Cities: Border-Crossing and Placemaking (2013), Now Urbanism: the Future City is Here (2015), and Messy Urbanism: Understanding the “Other” Cities of Asia (2016). Hou is a leading scholar in community design and service-learning education. In a career that spans across the Pacific, he has worked with indigenous tribes, farmers, and fishers in Taiwan, neighborhood residents in Japan, villagers in China, and inner-city immigrant youths and elders in North American cities. He is recipient of EDRA Places Book Award in 2010 and 2012 and the CELA Award of Excellence in Service-Learning Education in 2011.

Design as Democracy

Techniques for Collective Creativity

Winner of the Environmental Design Research Association's 2018 Book Award

How can we design places that fulfill urgent needs of the community, achieve environmental justice, and inspire long-term stewardship? By bringing community members to the table, we open up the possibility of exchanging ideas meaningfully and transforming places powerfully. Collaboration like this is hands-on democracy in action. It’s up close. It’s personal. For decades, participatory design practices have helped enliven neighborhoods and promote cultural understanding.