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Faculty Dean Abbott Roger Clemence Ann Forsyth Clint Hewitt John Koepke Rebecca Krinke Roger Martin Kristine Miller Laura Musacchio Lance Neckar David Pitt Robert Sykes Adjunct Faculty Joseph R. Favour Robert J. Gunderson Jon Kingstad Richard Murphy, Jr. Patrick Nunnally Peter Olin Sharon Pfeifer Dan Shaw Lecturers Research Fellows  faculty+staff main page | |||
Chris Carlson To hear Chris Carlson tell her story, it seems only natural that someonepursuing an academic career in Medieval Studies would end up as alandscape architect. As she explains, not only were European culture andknowledge greatly transformed during the period, but the Europeanlandscape was significantly altered as well. New agricultural practiceswere introduced, new towns and cities were built, and new technologies ledto greater control of water and other resources. The European traditionsof the garden and the country house took root. For those reasons and more,she explains, "I spent more time studying the landscape in the background[of medieval art] than what was in the foreground. I became interested inthe natural and cultural landscape through a lot of other areas." After having received her Master's degree in Medieval Studies from theUniversity of Toronto, Carlson was living in Seattle and set to enter theMedieval Studies PhD program at UC-Berkeley. A friend, knowing herinterests in the landscape dared her to apply to the graduate program inlandscape architecture at the University of Washington, which had justdecided to accept students without design backgrounds. "I was one ofseveral guinea pigs for them," she comments. After being accepted, Carlsondecided to try landscape architecture for a year. The rest was no longerhistory. Carlson's studies of landscape change and water in medieval Europedovetailed with Washington's then-innovative, environmental science-basedwork in landscape assessment, design, and policy. Since then she hasfashioned a distinguished and multi-faceted career in natural resource andconservation planning. Carlson's experience in the non-profit sector includes time at the Trustfor Public Land (TPL), where she helped create an award-winning manual onplanning and designing farmsteads with scenic quality in mind. Thatproject required a healthy sense of adventure, for not only did Carlsonand her husband, also a landscape architect and partner on the project,travel rural Washington State on their bicycles visiting farms andinterviewing farmers, they also developed all their photographs in theirbathroom and did the layout of the publication in their living room. After TPL, Carlson moved to the National Park Service, where she spent tenyears and became Branch Chief of the Rivers, Trails and ConservationAssistance Program in the Pacific Northwest Region. That office pioneeredcommunity-based methods for river resource planning and open spaceplanning. Carlson next moved into private practice, joining Jones & Jones,a firm world-renowned for its environmental and interpretive designskills. Moving to Minnesota has brought Carlson full-circle, professionally, forher first landscape architecture job was with BRW, where she worked on thesite analysis study for the Minnesota History Center and was part of theoriginal Governor's Design Team. At the University, Carlson is a seniorresearch fellow and the project manager for the department's LaurentianVision initiative. She also teaches landscape architecture history andconservation planning and practice. | |||
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