Julia Watson

Faculty Affiliate

Julia Watson is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes (CRCL) and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), supporting third-semester Urban Design Studio coursework and advising CRCL’s partnership with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Julia is an Australian-born lecturer, landscape, and urban designer living, teaching, and practicing in New York. She founded the landscape studio REDE and is a New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA) Architecture + Design judge. In addition to GSAPP, she’s taught at Harvard University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. REDE focuses on creative, conceptual researching and project designing at the intersection of anthropology, ecology, and innovation. Julia’s uniquely focused global study on the large-scale, local innovations of indigenous communities will be published in a forthcoming book, Lo-Fi Design,” which was awarded a 2018 NYSCA grant and is fiscally sponsored by Storefront for Art and Architecture. Julia co-authored a spiritual guidebook with Steve Lansing , Guide to Bali’s UNESCO World Heritage. Tri Hita Karana: Cultural Landscape of Subaks and Water Temples. Julia is a REALITY Fellow, Popech Social Innovation Fellow, PopTech guest speaker, Robert S. Brown Fellow, Charles Eliot Fellow, Olmsted Fellow, and WIRED magazine/Oakley Disruptive By Design Ambassador. Julia worked in private practice in Australia and the U.K. prior to her life in the U.S.