Julia Watson

Julia is an Australian born lecturer and landscape designer living, teaching and practicing in New York. She teaches in the Urban Design program at Columbia GSAPP having previously taught at Harvard University, Rhode Island School of Design and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Graduating with the highest distinction of the landscape architecture department at Harvard University as both a Charles Eliot (2008) and Olmsted Fellow (2008) with a specialization in the living landscape eco-technologies and the preservation of sacred cultural space. In 2013, she founded Studio Rede, a landscape design and conservation practice that works at the intersection of anthropology, ecology and innovation.

Julia’s research is a uniquely focused global study of the large-scale local innovations of indigenous communities. She is currently working on her first solo publication for the ‘Innovations in Infrastructure’ Urban Design book series. The project titled ‘Ancient Innovations’ received a NYSCA grant sponsored by Storefront for Art and Architecture (2017). She’s also co-author with Dr. Steve Lansing, of a spiritual guidebook titled, ‘Guide to Bali’s UNESCO World Heritage. Tri Hita Karana: Cultural Landscape of Subaks and Water Temples’. Julia is a REALITY Fellow (2016), WIRED/Oakley’s ‘Disruptive By Design’ Ambassador (2014), Pop!tech Social Innovation Fellow (2013) and Speaker (2012) and a Robert S. Brown Fellow (2013). Prior to her life in the US, Julia worked in Australia and the UK in private practice for eight years.

Education

• MLA II Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2006 — 2008)
• GDLA Queensland University of Technology (1998 — 2001)
• BA University of Queensland (1994 — 1998)

Companies

• Adjunct Assistant Professor Columbia University in the City of New York (2014)
• Principal Julia Watson (2013)
• Design Critic Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2019 — 2020)
• NYSCA Architecture + Design Project Panelist New York State Council of the Arts (2018 — 2020)
• Visiting Assistant Professor Rhode Island School of Design (2017 — 2017)
• Interdisciplinary Assistant Professor Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2012 — 2013)
• Visiting Lecturer Harvard University (2011 — 2011)
• Adjunct Assistant Professor Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2009 — 2011)
• Design Critic Harvard University (2010 — 2010)

Skills

• Communication
• Program Management
• Higher Education

Other

Rhino, Teaching, Research, Sustainability, Architecture, Urban Design, Sustainable Design, Landscape Architecture