Susannah Hagan facts for kids
Susannah Hagan (born in 1951) is a very important person in the world of design and architecture. She started a group called R_E_D, which stands for Research into Environment + Design. She is also a Professor at the Royal College of Art in London. Susannah Hagan teaches and writes a lot about how we can design buildings and cities to be better for our planet. This is called "environmental design." She especially focuses on how to make cities more sustainable.
Contents
Who is Susannah Hagan?
Susannah Hagan is an expert in how buildings and cities affect our environment. She has written several books about this topic. Some of her main books include City Fights: Debates on Sustainable Cities, Taking Shape: A New Contract between Architecture and Nature, and Digitalia: Architecture and the Environmental, the Digital and the Avant-garde. These books explore how we can build in a way that helps nature and uses new technologies.
Her Early Life and Education
Susannah Hagan was born in London, England, in 1951. She grew up in both England and the United States. For her college studies, she went to Yale University in Connecticut, where she studied English and French literature. She graduated with honors in 1973.
After Yale, she moved to New York City. There, she studied architecture at Columbia University and earned a Master of Architecture degree in 1978. During her architecture studies, she also spent a year in London at the Architectural Association School of Architecture.
In 1991, Susannah Hagan moved back to London. She continued her studies, focusing on the history and ideas behind architecture. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from the University of London in 1999. Later, in 2002 and 2003, she did more advanced research at the University of Cambridge, learning even more about environmental design.
Teaching and Research
Susannah Hagan has taught at many famous universities. From 1996 to 2002, she taught about environment and energy at the Architectural Association. In 2002, she helped start a new Master's program at the University of East London. This program was special because it was the first to combine technology, social ideas, and design to create sustainable architecture.
From 2009 to 2011, she was a Professor at the University of Brighton. There, she led a group that studied cities and how they are designed.
Making Cities Better: R_E_D Projects
Susannah Hagan's group, R_E_D, works on many interesting projects to improve cities. Here are a few examples:
- EMPTYing CITIES (2004–2005): This project looked at "shrinking cities" in Germany. These are cities that have lost a lot of their population, often because factories have closed. The project explored how to redesign these cities.
- EnLUDe 1 (2005–2007): This project in Brazil focused on a large "brownfield site." A brownfield site is an area of land that was once used for industry but is now empty and might need cleaning up. The project aimed to design this site in an environmentally friendly way.
- EnLUDe 2 (2007–2008): This project in London looked at a "floodplain" area. A floodplain is flat land next to a river that can flood. The goal was to plan how to build there safely and in a way that protects the environment.
Besides her own books, Susannah Hagan has also written parts of many other books, like Nature, Landscape and Building for Sustainability and Ecological Urbanism. She has also written for important magazines and given talks all over the world.
Awards and Achievements
Susannah Hagan has received many honors for her work. She is a Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design in New York and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA). Being a "Fellow" means she is recognized as an expert and leader in her field.
In 2008 and 2009, she was a finalist in the James Stirling Memorial Lecture Competition, which is a big award in architecture. In 2010, Susannah Hagan and her team won an international design competition called the Integrated Habitats Design Competition. Their winning entry was called "The Seed Catalogue," which you can see in the image at the top of this article.
