Assistant Professor
2021-2023 Meadows Foundation Centennial Fellow in Architecture
Maggie Hansen is a landscape designer and artist who brings multidisciplinary training to the design of public spaces. She earned a BA from the University of Chicago and worked in contemporary art and theater before turning to design. She holds a Master of Architecture and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Virginia.
Her design experience includes professional practice and community-based design. As a designer at Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, she contributed to design on award-winning projects at a range of scales, including the Brooklyn Naval Cemetery, the Overlook Farm Masterplan, and Olana State Historic Site. As director of Tulane’s Small Center for Collaborative Design, she led community-based design projects in support of a more equitable New Orleans. Under her leadership, the Center developed engagement strategies for youth of all ages, piloted public programming, and fostered relationships across nonprofit, municipal, and grassroots groups. Here in Austin, she is a designer with FORGE Landscape Architecture.
Professor Hansen’s research explores landscape architecture as the choreography of care practices that maintain cultural and ecological relationships. Her work draws influence from social impact design, gardening, theater and performance, participatory art, and activist methods. Her scholarship on participatory methods of design and design teaching has been presented at the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA), the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), and Architecture Media Politics Society (Amps).
Professor Hansen is the recipient of the 2021-22 School of Architecture Award for Outstanding Teaching (Studio). Her students’ design work has been recognized for design excellence through national and state ASLA awards. Prior to joining the UTSOA, she was a Visiting Professor in Landscape Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University and a Guest Studio Professor at Kent State University.
EDUCATION
- Master of Architecture, University of Virginia
- Master of Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia
- Bachelor of Arts, University of Chicago
PUBLICATIONS
2018
Hansen, M., ‘Designing through an Ethic of Care’ European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools Conference Proceedings
Hansen, M., Taylor, E. “Collaborating for Change in New Orleans: Small Center for Collaborative Design" in Bell, B., Abendorth, L, (Eds.) Public Interest Design Education Guidebook: Curricula, Strategies, and SEED Academic Case Studies
2016
Taylor, E., Hansen, M., Mobley, S. Designers, Citizens, and Citizen-Designers; charting new modes of engagement, collaboration, and project outcomes at the Tulane City Center, ACSA National Meeting
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
2022
“Cultivating a Design Practice of Land Care: teaching at the intersection of land and labor” (Panel), Council for Educators in Landscape Architecture (convener/moderator, with Jenny Jones, Jen Toy, Michael Geffel, and Michelle Franco), New Mexico
Hansen, M. “Embodied Care: Landscape Labor and Environmental Publics,” Council for Educators in Landscape Architecture, New Mexico
Hansen, M. “Teaching Design-informed Citizenship: Considering the Designer in Context,” Architecture Media Politics Society: A Focus on Pedagogy
2021
“Remembering for the Future: Using Storytelling in Design to Engage Complicated Histories,” panel at ACSA Annual Meeting (convener/moderator, with Sue Mobley, Marc Miller, Alissa Ujie Diamond)
Hansen, M., “Situated Cultures: Lessons from Bayou Road,” Environmental Design Research Association
Hansen, M., “Teaching the Limits of Design”, European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools conference: Stop and Think, SLU-Uppsala, Sweden
