Dr. Lindsay Blair Howe

ETH Zürich
Depar­te­ment Archi­tek­tur
HIL E 61.2
Ste­fa­no-Fran­sci­ni-Platz 5
8093 Zürich Höng­ger­berg
Tel.: +41 44 633 90 81
E‑Mail: howe@arch.ethz.ch

Lind­say Blair Howe is an urba­nist with a for­mal back­ground in archi­tec­tu­re. She is cur­r­ent­ly a Lec­tu­rer and Rese­arch Asso­cia­te at the ETH Zurich Chair of Socio­lo­gy.

Her cur­rent work attempts to under­stand how urban space is pro­du­ced by peop­le and poli­ci­es, and how this can be trans­for­med in the name of a more sus­tainab­le future. In par­ti­cu­lar, she uses uni­que qua­li­ta­ti­ve and mixed metho­do­lo­gies, such as vol­un­te­e­red geo­gra­phic infor­ma­ti­on (VGI), to show how urba­niz­a­ti­on gene­ra­tes uneven mate­ri­al, regu­la­to­ry, and ever­y­day spaces. Her publi­ca­ti­ons thus con­tri­bu­te to dis­cour­ses on cri­ti­cal theo­ry and urban stu­dies from a social per­spec­ti­ve, advo­ca­ting for the chan­ge of urban poli­ci­es and sys­tems through an incre­a­sed under­stan­ding of ever­y­day life.

Her PhD, enti­t­led Thin­king through Peri­phe­ries: Struc­tu­ral Spa­ti­al Ine­qua­li­ty in Johan­nes­burg was com­ple­ted in August, 2017. As part of this work, she was a visi­t­ing scho­l­ar at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cali­for­nia, Ber­ke­ley in 2014 and at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Wit­waters­rand in 2015 and 2016. She has been awar­ded nume­rous grants and awards, inclu­ding from the Swiss Natio­nal Sci­ence Foun­da­ti­on, USAID, and the Sawiris Foun­da­ti­on for Deve­lo­p­ment. Pri­or to her doc­to­ral work, she com­ple­ted her MSc in Archi­tec­tu­re and Urba­nism from the ETH Zurich in 2012, and her BSc in Archi­tec­tu­re and minor in Glo­bal Cul­tu­re and Com­mer­ce from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­gi­nia.