Anita Bakshi

I teach in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University, offering courses on Housing and Open Space Design, Visualization, and Research Methods. I am also an affiliated lecturer for the Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies (CHAPS) Program, teaching courses on Heritage and Planning in Divided Cities and Cultural Heritage and Community Organizing. I have a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California – Berkeley. Following several years in architectural practice in Chicago, California and the Foster+Partners Istanbul field office, I transitioned back to academia and received a PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture from Cambridge University. While there, I worked with the Conflict in Cities Research Programme, and my dissertation work was on space and memory in divided cities.

My research has focuses on questions of mapping and representation for contested environments, and I have exhibited maps and drawings that document ethnographic research in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). My design research explores new forms for monuments, memorials, and other commemorative structures. Current research investigates the role of landscape architecture and design in the Anthropocene era through a design proposal for a memorial that marks and describes environmental losses and enables collective mourning and healing. My recent publications include “Urban Form and Memory Discourses in Contested Cities” in the Journal of Urban Design (2014), and “Trade and Exchange in Nicosia’s Common Realm” in 'Post Ottoman Coexistence: Sharing Space in the Shadow of Conflict' (2016).