Richard Haag is an internationally recognized  landscape architect acknowledged for his work in urban ecological design. His design for Gas Works Park initiated inquiry in the adaptive re-use of toxic and waste landscapes. Haag has received two ASLA Presidential Awards for Design Excellence. This two-part exhibition focuses on Haag's legacies of post-industrial landscape design and his role as a teacher and design activist in the practice of urban ecological design. The first exhibition New Eyes for Old: Richard Haag + Gas Works Park, April 4–21, 2011, was hosted by the Suyama Gallery, Seattle in conjunction with the Next Eco City Symposium. The second exhibition, Experimenting In Public Space: New Technologies And Making In Seattle's Landscape Architecture was open from May 3 – June 24, 2012 at AIA Seattle Design gallery. A lecture by Mia Lehrer, titled Calibrating Infrastructure through Landscape Architecture, accompanied the opening reception on May 10, 2012.

Thaïsa Way (BS, University of California, Berkeley, 1983; MArch University of Virginia, 1991; PhD in architecture and urbanism, Cornell University, 2005) is associate professor of landscape architecture at the University of Washington. Way has published and lectured on landscape architectural history and the role of women as professionals and practitioners. Her book Unbounded Practice: Women and Landscape Architecture in the Early Twentieth Century (University of Virginia Press, 2009) has been honored with two academic awards. Most recently her research has focused on the emergence of urban ecological design in the twentieth century and how it informs contemporary urban design. The design praxis of Richard Haag has been at the center of this research and Way has recently been the recipient of a UW Royalty Research Fund and a Graham Foundation Project Award to explore this work. In addition, Way codirects a Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar in Comparative Cultures Award.