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Research • Faculty

Patty Heyda

Patty Heyda is professor of urban design and architecture at Washington University in St. Louis where she is also a faculty scholar at the Center for Race, Ethnicity and Equity, at the Center for the Environment and in the American Culture Studies Program. She researches the political economy of architecture and urbanism in American cities and public spaces.

Heyda’s interdisciplinary approach blends mapping and design with planning, public policy and the humanistic social sciences to engage contradictions in the built environment, for critical reimagination. Prior to teaching, Heyda led widely published multi-scalar projects in Washington D.C. and Prague, with Chan Krieger Associates (Boston) and Pritzker Prize-winning Architectures Jean Nouvel (Paris). She earned her Master of Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University, where she has also previously taught.

Heyda is the author of three commended books: “Radical Atlas of Ferguson, USA,” recently reviewed in LA Review of Books and shortlisted for the national On the Brinck Book Award; and “Rebuilding the American Town” and “Rebuilding the American City,” featured at the Witte Museum (San Antonio) and national AIA and APA (with David Gamble, MIT). Her scholarship appears in Journal of Architectural Education, Journal of Urban Design, Architecture is All Over, Material World of Modern Segregation, Urban Infill, ACSA, MONU, Conditions, Planning Magazine, City Lab, Fast Company, Blavity and Mutations edited by Rem Koolhaas, among others. Heyda is the recipient of numerous interdisciplinary grants. She is a founding board member of the national Urban Design Academic Council. She has been interviewed on NPR, St. Louis Public Radio and for the documentary film The Kinloch Doc. She is a contributing author of the St. Louis City Reparations Commission Report. In 2022, Heyda received the American Planning Association-St. Louis Dwight F. Davis Award for Outstanding Planning Advocacy.

Portrait of Patty Heyda
Patty Heyda
Professor
Academic programs
Master of Architecture
Master of Urban Design
Bachelor of Science in Architecture
Bachelor of Arts in Architecture
Email
heyda@wustl.edu
Office
Givens 209
Box
1079-131-105

Select Articles, Chapters, and Publications

Select Exhibitions and Presentations

  • “Radical Atlas,” presented at Ferguson Municipal Library: Readings on Race and PROUD/ People Reaching out for Unity and Diversity, Ferguson, 2025.

  • “Telling the Story of Injustice,” presented at Mayor’s Institute on City Design, Harvard University Just City Mayoral Fellowship, 2025.

  • “Scales of Practice,” presented at MIT Department of Urban & Spatial Planning workshop, Boston, 2025.

  • “Radical Atlas,” Norman B. Leventhal Map & Exhibition Center, Boston Public Library, and Harvard University GSD, Boston, 2025.

  • “Mirror Images,” presented at AIA Baltimore with Maryland ASLA, Baltimore, 2025.

  • “Erasure Urbanisms,” in "Design Agendas” at Garen Gallery, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, 2024-25.

Select Awards and Grants

  • 2025 — Research Excellence Award, Office of the Provost, Washington University in St. Louis

  • 2025 — On the Brinck Book Award Shortlist, Radical Atlas

  • 2024 — William H. Danforth St. Louis Confluence Award Finalist and Special Designation, Washington University in St. Louis

  • 2022 — Dwight F. Davis Award for Outstanding Planning Advocate, American Planning Association St. Louis Metro Section

  • 2021 — Divided City Mellon Foundation-funded Grant, Principal Investigator for “Mobilizing the Middle”

  • 2021 — Scholar Grant, Center for Race, Ethnicity and Equity Scholar Grant, Principal Investigator.

  • 2019 — Divided City Mellon Foundation-funded Grant, Project Team for “Laboratory for Suburbia”

  • 2017 — Divided City Mellon Foundation-funded Grant, Co-Principal Investigator, “Inequality and the City”

News

Oct 22, 2026

Professor Patty Heyda's essay, "A Starbucks in Ferguson," has been published in the "Cities, Up Close" collection of the November 2026 issue of Current History.

Jun 4, 2026

An urban and architectural designer, Professor Patty Heyda's research explores the relationship between maps, the built environment, and social inequalities.

Mar 15, 2026

Professor Patty Heyda participated in a panel discussion at the New Orleans Book Festival

Nov 7, 2025

Denizen, Dingwall, Hanahan, Henry, and Heyda recognized for scholarly contributions at WashU

Sep 11, 2025

Professor Patty Heyda’s book, “Radical Atlas: Ferguson, USA” received two reviews in the July issue of Cartographic Perspectives

Aug 12, 2025

In Rebuilding the American Town, the Sam Fox School’s Patty Heyda helps redefine our understanding of the smaller cities that make up the urban landscape.

Jan 31, 2025

Professor Patty Heyda’s book, “Radical Atlas of Ferguson, USA,” has been shortlisted for the 2024 On the Brinck Book Award

Mar 25, 2024

Two Sam Fox School faculty members, Associate Professor Patty Heyda and Professor Bruce Lindsey, are among ten Washington University finalists for the William H. Danforth St. Louis Confluence Award.

Dec 7, 2022

Associate professor Heyda selected as 2022 Dwight F. Davis Planning Advocate by St. Louis Metro Section.

Nov 8, 2021

Spring 2021 interdisciplinary seminar led by Penina Acayo Laker, Heidi Kolk, and Patty Heyda