Building on fieldwork from 2015 to the present, this talk by Jeffery Hou of the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington addresses how Taipei's “Open Green” Program, the latest iteration of community planning initiatives in the Taiwanese capital, transcends the established boundaries of urban communities and community design practices to turn placemaking into a vehicle for collaboration and social learning. In Hou's view, the outcomes and processes of the program suggest directions for the ongoing evolution of civic urbanism(s) in Asia. This talk is being held in collaboration with the Global Taiwan Studies Initiative at the Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Jeffrey Hou is a Professor of Landscape Architecture and the director of the Urban Commons Lab at the University of Washington in Seattle. His work focuses on the agency of marginalized social groups in transforming the built environments. In a career that spans the Pacific, Hou has worked with indigenous tribes, farmers, fishers and villagers in Asia, as well as inner-city immigrant youths and elders in North American cities, on projects ranging from the conservation of wildlife habitats to bottom-up placemaking.