About

Elizabeth Danze is a professor in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin, where she holds the Bartlett Cocke Regents Professorship in Architecture. She earned a Bachelor of Architecture from The University of Texas at Austin in 1981 and a Master of Architecture from Yale University in 1990. As a principal with Danze Blood Architects, her work integrates practice and theory across disciplines by examining the convergence of sociology and psychology with the tangibles of space and construction. At the School of Architecture, she has served in various leadership roles including Interim Dean, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs. Her academic contributions include co-editing 'Architecture and Feminism' and co-editing and authoring 'Psychoanalysis and Architecture,' 'The Annual of Psychoanalysis, Volume 33,' and 'CENTER 17: Space and Psyche.' She is actively involved in professional and academic organizations, serving on the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Committee on Psychoanalysis and the Academy, and is a Candidate at the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center. Recognized for her teaching and contributions to education, she has received the University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, the Texas Society of Architects Edward J. Romieniec Award for Outstanding Educational Contributions, and is a member of The University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. She is also a Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Psychoanalysis
• Psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Epistemology
• Developmental psychology
• Philosophy
• Cognitive science
• Art
• Pedagogy
• Social psychology
• Visual arts

Selected publications

• Psychoanalytic Understanding of Unsaturated Questions and the Analytic Field in the Design Process

  2024

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Sociology
  • Psychology

  In architecture, a teaching relationship is based on one person being devoted to the growth in the other. By looking at the discipline of psychoanalysis and the relationship between psychoanalyst and analysand we are better able to understand how particular aspects of teaching methods and the working relationship between student and teacher might be enriched.The exchange between analyst and analysand is a journey of discovery aimed at increasing self-awareness and acquiring the ability to become autonomously self-aware. The analogies between this model and the quest to find best methods to guide the emerging designer hold much potential. By looking at the concept of unsaturated questions and the analytic field we see how they might inform the design studio process and working alignment. An unsaturated question is an invitation by the analyst for the analysand to reflect and imagine without suggesting any direction they should take – neither stating that something is true nor validating its correctness. In the design studio, the instructor’s unsaturated question fosters a designer’s mind, stimulating inquiry but also delayingcertainty, relying on the student to find answers from within. We see clinicians advocate in different ways for expanding the analysand’s thinking, imagining, and feeling. In our students, we in turn see how to expand the same capacities as well as self-observation via an appreciation for process knowledge. In this technique, the therapist must wait for new ideas to emerge. It is essential that the analyst (or teacher) watch, listen, wait, and not be seduced into “working too hard” for, or in lieu of, the patient (or student) doing this themselves. By looking at unsaturated questions and the analytic field we are offered a model for interactions with emerging designers to equip them to think analytically and creatively and seek their unique, authentic voice.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How the Psychoanalytic Use of Object Constancy and Internalization Can Inform Our Understanding of the Teacher/Student Relationship

  2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology

  In looking at the discipline of Psychoanalysis, we might better understand concepts around basic human development such as object constancy and internalization as ways of informing how the mentoring or teaching relationship is focused on the growth and development in the other person— our student. Object constancy and internalization enable an individual to preserve a stable, subjective representation of an object (the psychotherapist, for instance) in the face of complex or contradictory affects. This paper looks at this through the lens of the psychoanalytic dyad— the relationship between psychoanalyst and analysand (patient)— as a vehicle for envisioning how we might better educate our students, especially in the intensive, hours-long design studio. In Hans Loewald’s important paper, “On the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis,” he expounds on the parent-child relationship and how the empathic parent holds a vision of the future child and in various ways mediates this vision to the child. The child, in identification with it, can then grow. By internalizing aspects of the parent, the child also internalizes the parent’s image of the child. While a teacher is not participating in the role of parent or psychoanalyst, a primary concern for an analyst, parent, or teacher is the aiding in the growth and development of another. The idea that the parent/analyst/teacher’s capacity to imagine future growth, anticipate something for the child or patient or student, hold that in mind for them, and offer that vision is a reflective way of expanding possibilities and potentialities for them. Perhaps in this way, the successful, authentic, and autonomous student begins in the mind of the teacher. We understand that the psychoanalyst seeks to understand and “take in” the analysand, to help organize thought processes and mindset. Then, working alongside the analysand, the teacher helps to organize the student’s design approach and process. The teacher then “hands back” organizational and other insight through interpretation to the student, who must bring meaning and understanding to the changing project— and to themselves, the developing designer. In addition to object constancy and internalization, by looking at the writings and clinical work of Winnicott, Ogden, Kohut, and others, we will explore related notions of receptivity, projective identification, concordant transference, and co-construction and ask how they might be understood within the teacher/ student paradigm in this context. Lastly, in an analysis, realizations and understandings continue to occur and develop long past the end of treatment. It is a fluid and ongoing process, with multiple mechanisms extending beyond the limits of the analysis. The successful design student may internalize the relationship with her instructor, aiding the student in positive self-constancy long after the design studio is over and the instructor is gone. By understanding how to employ some of these ideas, we might better appreciate our role as teachers in aiding our students in a life-long quest for growth and mastery.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Psychoanalysis and architecture

  2016-04-15 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Parking without Apology

  ˜The œParking professional · 2014-02-01

  articleSenior author

  This article presents a case study of the development of a new parking structure in Austin, Texas. Highlighted are the design goals for the project, which include an attention to circulation, light, space and connection with nature. The structure's unique design includes a use of vegetation on the vertical surfaces, which serves to both express the building's presence and help it build into the surrounding landscape.

  Publisher

• Commentary on Adele tutter’s “Design as Dream and Self-Representation

  Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association · 2012-06-01

  letter1st authorCorresponding

  In this discussion of Adele Tutter's "Design as Dream and Self-Representation: Philip Johnson and the Glass House of Atreus" (JAPA 59/3), the architect Elizabeth Danze and the psychoanalyst Stephen Sonnenberg highlight what they see as the most important of Tutter's contributions as regards an understanding of Johnson's work. They then discuss those contributions as they illuminate the study of the relationship of architecture and design, on the one hand, and psychoanalysis on the other.

  PublisherDOI

• Architecture and Feminism

  Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism · 1999-01-01 · 82 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Architecture and feminism : Yale publications on architecture

  1996-01-01 · 7 citations

  book

  During the second half of the 20th century, architecture and feminism have independently adopted and developed critiques of modern Western theoretical conventions and reappraised the impulse towards social reform. Beyond this parallel shift in critical perspective, how are these two seemingly disparate disciplines related? This volume addresses this question through diverse essays and projects, articles range from a definition of new possibilities for a feminist architecture to an analysis of the Playboy bachelor pad. Other essays include discussions of Niki de Saint-Phalle and Edith Wharton.

  Publisher

• Elizabeth Danze Habitat studio

  1994-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Audio files are EID restricted. Individuals without an EID should send an email request to apl-aaa@lib.utexas.edu.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Carol E. Henderson

  2 shared

• Debra Coleman

  2 shared

• Stephen M. Sonnenberg

  2 shared

• Courtney Mercer

  1 shared

• John P Blood

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Awa…
• Texas Society of Architects Edward J. Romieniec Award for Ou…
• Member of The University of Texas Academy of Distinguished T…
• Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Sch…