Patty Heyda studies the particularities of contemporary redevelopment with a focus on processes producing uneven landscapes in U.S. urban contexts.
Professor Heyda's Invisible Cities, Anatomy of Redevelopment, and Erasure Urbanism work spans drawing research, writing, teaching, and drawing to illuminate political and economic factors underlying decision-making in underserved St. Louis, Missouri, sites. Components of this work are published in the United States and internationally, with a forthcoming chapter in Architecture is All Over (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2017). Heyda's recent book co-authored with David Gamble, Rebuilding the American City (Routledge, 2016), provides a detailed cross-section of urban design and planning strategies decision makers in American cities use to implement redevelopment amid ongoing challenges. Heyda and Gamble have been featured as speakers at the AIA National Conference on Architecture, the Boston Society of Architects, and the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis, and as guests on NPR's Here and Now with Robin Young, among other venues.
Heyda's creative design work is recognized through competition awards in the United States and abroad, including an award for her project Floodplan re-envisioning Nashville's industrial east bank, and AIA Boston/BSA and AIA St. Louis awards for urban and drawing projects. Portions of her project Roman Operating System, conducted with Rem Koolhaas, were included in the Mutationsshow focusing on emerging models of urbanism at the Arc en Reve Centre d’Architecture in Bordeaux, France, and published in Mutations (Actar, 2001) and Content (Taschen, 2004.)
Heyda's professional experiences include several years dedicated to the Zlaty Andel project in Prague with the Pritzker Prize-winning architecture firm Architectures Jean Nouvel in Paris, and competition design work with Atelier 8000 in the Czech Republic. In the United States, her professional work focused on multi-scalar riverfront framework plans in Washington, D.C. and St. Louis.