William Shivers

Ph.D. (ABD) in the Constructed Environment, University of Virginia
Master of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2018
Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, Louisiana State University, 2016

William Shivers is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Auburn University College of Architecture, Design and Construction. His work focuses on the ever-changing value and necessity of trees and forests in the creation, expansion and maintenance of the American Landscape. This work seeks to leverage the discipline of landscape architecture as synthetic, working to intersect neighboring disciplines and methods. He specifically examines culturally and ecologically significant species in the American landscape with a current focus in the geographic periphery, where he interrogates human-nature constructs, power dynamics, and center/periphery relationships through multiple analytical methods. This temporally spans the 19th to 21st centuries and works to project forward in a destabilized climate and fractured natural security.

Currently, he is working on his doctoral dissertation sited in Hawai’i, where he is applying this thinking and work on the cultural and ecological landscape of the Big Island and ‘Ohi’a Lehua Forests.

William received a Master of Landscape Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where he received the ASLA award of Merit for academic excellence. He also received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University where he was awarded the ASLA Award of Honor for academic excellence as well. His work has been published in Places Journal, Landscape Architecture Frontiers, and Landscape Architecture Magazine. He has presented internationally at the Conference on Landscape Architecture, Responsive Cities Symposium, Architectural Humanities Research Association, among others. He currently teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Auburn University and previously taught foundational and advanced design studios at the University of Virginia. William most recently has worked with the World Monuments Fund on cultural landscape work in West Africa. His practice experience includes working with Merritt/Chase, Stoss Landscape Urbanism, and Design Workshop on domestic and international projects with public and private clients. His work has been awarded nationally and locally from the American Society of Landscape Architects, World Landscape Architecture, and Architect Magazine.

Interest areas in research and practice:
Landscape Architecture
Cultural Landscapes
Political Ecology
Environmental Humanities
Plant Humanities
Climate Adaptation
Environmental Planning
Cartography
Landscape Representation