Introduction

Yiwei Huang is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at Purdue University. She is trained as a landscape architect and urban designer, while feminist and critical geography perspectives influence her thinking of spaces and landscape. She is interested in the places with “conflicts,” where local residents may share different aesthetic values, cultural practices, or ways of living, and she eagers to find how design could function as a transforming agent that could respect, facilitate, and even empower the local communities, especially those who were historically underrepresented in the planning processes.

Examples of her participated research include: Park design and women’s everyday experiences in San Francisco Chinatown, where she used behavior mapping and interview discovered severe gender separation patterns and the reasons behind it; Child-friendly city establishment and the role of landscape architects, in which she challenged the “problem solving” attitude of landscape architects, but encourage more children initiated placemaking strategies; "Franks Tract Futures," a project located in California Delta using intensive community engagement efforts and co-design approached to achieve an inclusive park design that meet recreational, ecological, and economic benefits for the region.

Research keywords: participatory design and planning methods; diversified landscape; evidence-based design and POE; social sustainability; therapeutic and edible landscape in cities; green infrastructure and ecological sensitivity.

Current Research

Dr. Huang currently have several research projects ongoing, including,  therapeutic and edible gardens for urban underrepresented communities; public perception of sustainable outdoor design; and the diversity, equity, and inclusivity of landscape architecture education. 

Yiwei as an instructor who advocates for students voices and encourages her students to seek wider acknowledgements beyond university course work. She served as the Student Director of Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (2018 -2020), and she currently serves on two committees under the American Society of Landscape Architecture (2020 – 2022) to advocate for more inclusive student engagement efforts. She is selected as the outstanding graduate student teaching award in 2019, and her students’ works have won national acknowledgement which implies the next generation’s idea to transform the future for landscape architecture.

·         ASLA Student Honor Award research Category (2020) LEARN, PLAY, THRIVE - Design Guidelines, and "Building Blocks" of Therapeutic Gardens for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. By Wenxi Huang (student). Faculty Advisor: Yiwei Huang

·         A Visible Solution - 2020 EPA RainWorks Challenge Honorable Mention, (2021), by Chris Curnell, Ethan Fleig, Jeffery Tseng, and Harland Nadeau (students). Faculty Advisor: Yiwei Huang.