Deborah Zervas
I am a writer, designer, researcher, and artist, with deep backgrounds in landscape architecture, urban design, and geology.
Much of my work is inherently collaborative, given my desire for interaction, and the large scale and scope of the projects that most interest me. As a divergent thinker I investigate, connect, and borrow correspondences, congruencies, similarities, and patterns across all disciplines and subjects (and teammates!), using them to obtain new perspectives, invent new forms, and posit new ideas in many forums and genres. I am always eager for new projects that investigate, reflect, and record the profundities of the world, and others that develop approaches and solutions to complex problems.
My design philosophy centers on democratic, site-specific solutions that account for all the constraints landscape presents: history, culture, community, landform, architecture, horticulture and environment. My public art and urban design competition submissions also explore critical approaches to landscape and urban design. Community design is an ongoing interest, and my work in this sub-field focuses on the revitalization of urban neighborhoods, and effective, representative community involvement.
My design research encompasses public space experiments in Hamburg, Germany; the appropriate uses of participatory art and public history in design; and the implications of spatial cognition for design. I have written and presented papers on these topics for a variety of academic and professional conferences and publications, as well as contributing a chapter to a book on service learning.
Identity, family, and memory are common themes of my artwork and written memoirs, along with other musings. I exhibit my art locally, and give readings of my essays and memoirs live and on podcast.
I live in New Haven with my husband Bruce in the house and little landscape we re-designed and renovated, among a crowd of friends young and old. For fun, I like to go to the theater and music concerts, give parties, ride my bike, travel, and talk in depth with everyone who is willing.
