Julia W. Robinson, AIA
Professor
Email: robin003@umn.edu
Telephone: (612) 624-5733
Office: 151 Rapson Hall

Education

PhD, Delft Technical University, the Netherlands 2004

M.A. Anthropology, University of Minnesota 1980

Bachelor of Architecture, Univ. of Minnesota (with distinction) 1971

B. A., (Arch. Major), University of Minnesota 1968

Biography 

Julia Williams Robinson, a registered architect, has written journal articles, chapters and reports that cover a wide-ranging subject matter including architectural theory, design methods, sociocultural factors, and architectural pedagogy. In the recent past she has worked on building evaluation with the Center for Sustainable Building Research, and in 2003 she chaired the Environmental Design Research (EDRA) conference held here at the University of Minnesota. Robinson is Director of the international trip Innovative Housing and Urban Design in the Netherlands, taken in 1999, 2002, 2004, and being planned for Spring 2007.

Currently Robinson is working on the Single Family Case Demonstration Project and the Affordable Housing Initiatives: Case Study Prototypes, studying the implications of cultural differences and similarities for the design of housing. In 2003, with Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, she studied the housing needs of Hmong families that affected the design of the first prototype. Spring Semester 2005, Professor Robinson and seminar students worked with a local Native American Dakota community to identify the members' needs and desires. Robinson is part of a team from the Center for Sustainable Building Research and the Metropolitan Design Center evaluating the most recently constructed prototype.


As a participant in the 3-year Bush Initiative on Large Classes (2005-2007), Robinson is developing instructional methods and materials for Architecture 3401, Environmental Design & the Sociocultural Context. A team that includes Graduate Teaching Assistant, Marc Beitz and Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, Amanda Severson, along with consultants from the Initiative, will institute, assess and refine learning techniques during the period of the grant.

Professor Robinson's doctoral dissertation, Architecture of Institution & Home: Architecture as a Cultural Medium is soon to be published by the Delft University Press. Based on research completed over a 15-year period, it addresses architecture both as a medium for cultural continuity and change and as a medium for the empowerment of residents, especially those that are dependent (e.g. people with developmental disabilities, the elderly).

Teaching Areas

• Theory: Social and Cultural Factors in Environmental Design, Architecture 3401
• Graduate Design: Architecture 8254, Second Semester, Second Year Professional Program
• Thesis Instructor: Architecture 8777
• Seminar: Affordable Housing, Responding to Culture

Current Research

• "Affordable Housing Initiative," with John Carmody, Mary Guzowski and others, funded by HUD, 2004-present
• "Architecture as a Cultural Medium," with Nat Madson, Research Assistant
• "Architecture of Transformation," ongoing research previously funded by McKnight Summer Fellowship and Travel Grants, and the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

Forthcoming & Recent Publications & Reports

Architecture of Institution & Home: Architecture as a Cultural Medium Transformations Series, Delft, Netherlands: Delft University Press . (In press)            

"Completing the Story: Architectural Inventory as a method complementary to space syntax," with T. Thompson in Proceedings. 5th International Space Syntax Symposium , Delft 2005

"Institutional Space, Domestic Space, and Power Relations: Revisiting territoriality with space syntax," in Proceedings. 3rd International Space Syntax Symposium , Atlanta, 2001.

The Discipline of Architecture , Andrzej Piotrowski and Julia Williams Robinson, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2001

http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/P/piotrowski_architecture.html

"Architecture and Behavior or People with Intellectual Disabilities: Observational Methods and Housing Policy," T. Thompson, M. Egli & J. Robinson. Chapter in Behavioral Observation: Technology & Applications in Developmental Disabilities . T. Thompson, D. Felce and F.J. Symons. Paul H. Brookes Publishing, Baltimore, MD, 2000, 101-114

"Architecture and Stigma," Julia W. Robinson & Travis Thompson. In Measuring Enabling Environments , E. Steinfield and G. Danford (eds.), New York, Plenum, 1999.

Design Guidelines for DNR Area Offices: Based on Post Occupancy Evaluations of Two Area Offices . (Report for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) Julia W. Robinson, John Carmody, Steve Weeks, Virajita Singh and Herzog/Wheeler Assoc. Minneapolis MN: Center for Sustainable Building Research, University of Minnesota, 1998.

Other Information

Building Design Process & Evaluation
http://www.csbr.umn.edu/dnr.html

State Building Database: BriDGe Project
http://www.csbr.umn.edu/bridge.html