Dr Jeffrey Hou, FASLA, is Provost’s Chair, Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. For over two decades, Hou has been a pioneering scholar on public space and democracy, community design, and civic engagement.

In a career that spans the Pacific, Hou has also worked with indigenous tribes, farmers, fishers, and villagers in Asia and inner-city immigrant youths and elders in North American cities on projects ranging from the conservation of wildlife habitats to bottom-up placemaking.

Hou was elected Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) in 2023. His collaborative publications received the EDRA Places Book Award in 2010, 2012, and 2018.

In 2013, Hou was appointed the City of Vienna Visiting Professor at TU Wien. Before joining NUS, he taught at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he directed the Urban Commons Lab. Hou is also a co-founder of the Pacific Rim Community Design Network, which celebrated its 25^th year in 2023.