Patty Heyda

Patty Heyda (MArch II, Distinction, Harvard University) teaches advanced studios and seminars in the architecture and urban design programs at Washington University in St. Louis. She also collaborates across the humanities, including with the departments of anthropology, sociology, and urban history. She is affiliate faculty in the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2) and holds a courtesy appointment in the American Culture Studies (AMCS) program. Heyda serves on the advisory board of The Divided City, a Mellon Foundation-funded humanities and design initiative, and governs the prestigious international James Harrison Steedman Memorial Fellowship in Architecture for the Sam Fox School.

Heyda studies American cities, politics, and design, with a focus on erasure urbanism, invisible\cities, uneven development, and racial, climate and social urgencies entangled by and with design economies. Her research maps politics of contested sites, to rethink design and spatial agency—for architects and residents alike. Recent publications include #ArchSoWhite and What About Typology? An Update for Late Capitalism (both JAE); The Façade of Redevelopment (MWMS Common Reader), and Erasure Urbanism (Architecture is All Over). Prior work includes Roman Operating System (Mutations and Content) with Rem Koolhaas and colleagues. Currently, Heyda is completing Mobilizing the Middle Landscape, a spatial account of U.S. politics of inequality based on Ferguson, Missouri.

Heyda’s Rebuilding the American City (Routledge, 2016) with David Gamble, profiles complexities and strategies of U.S. urban redevelopment in 15 different cities. Heyda and Gamble were featured guests on National Public Radio’s Here and Now, and at the BSA in Boston, the national AIA, APA, the Witte Museum in San Antonio, and the St. Louis History Museum, among other outlets. A follow-up book on American small town design and strategy is also underway (Routledge).

Heyda’s professional experiences span architecture and urban design, in Europe and the United States. Her work with Pritzker Prize-winning Architectures Jean Nouvel has been published in El Croquis, Domus, and other books and periodicals. Heyda’s independent design work is recognized with national and international awards.

Heyda lectures widely, with recent talks at Harvard University, University at Buffalo, and Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice, St. Louis. She is quoted in local media, and has also been interviewed for Madison Wisconsin radio, and in the documentary feature film The Kinloch Doc. Her public facing work has appeared in The Conversation, Blavity, Fast Company, Salon, The Houston Chronicle, City Lab, and other outlets.