Bára Šafářová, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Education

2019 Architecture, Texas A&M University, Ph.D.

2019 Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, M.U.P.

2011 Architecture (RIBA2), London Metropolitan University, London, UK, Diploma

Curriculum Vitae

Contact

Pinkerton Building, 312

Campus Box 358437

(253) 692-4673

bsafar@uw.edu

Bára Šafářová joined the School of Urban Studies in 2019. She earned her Ph.D. in Architecture at Texas A&M in 2019. She also holds a Master of Urban Planning from Texas A&M, a Profession Diploma in Architecture from London Metropolitan University. Bára is originally from the Czech Republic where she started her studies in architecture and urbanism.

Prior to her academic career, she worked in the architecture industry in London for 7 years on residential, commercial, and master planning projects in the United Kingdom and internationally. 

At UWT, Bára teaches urban design studios focusing on visual communication, the design process, and a variety of software (Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCAD, SketchUp). In advanced studios, she runs community-engaged design projects focusing on equity, climate, and housing justice. At Texas A&M, she organized several years of Diversity Hackathons—rapid competition for interdisciplinary student teams. Each hackathon was conceived as a platform for students to work with campus organizations that serve underrepresented students such as persons with disabilities or LGBTQIA+ students, to imagine how barriers could be overcome in the future.

In research, Bára’s overall interest is in the role of architecture and urbanism in spatial discrimination of historically marginalized groups. In her dissertation, she analyzed the role of housing production in segregation by income on the U.S.-Mexico border. She used geospatial analyses of house value patterns in combination with interviewing local developers to identify mechanisms used in building segregated patterns of housing. Her work incorporates aspects of housing studies, infrastructure studies, theories of justice in the city, and urban sociology.

Publications

2021

Šafářová, B., Giusti, C., Perez, M., Zecca, I., Carbajal, E., Hamer, G., Hamer, S. (2021). Habitat and environmental risks of Chagas disease in low-income colonias and peri-urban subdivisions in South Texas. Habitat International, 118, 102460. DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2021.102460. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397521001491
2021

Cardinal, A., Gonzales, L., Rose, E., Bhattacharya, A., Byram, L., Coble, K., Gamboa, P., Liao, P., Parra, D., Rodriguez Paz, E., Pritchard, F., Šafářová, B., Snow, M., Yerena, A. (2021). From language access to language justice: Creating a participatory values statement for collective action. In The 39th AMC International Conference on Design of Communication (pp. 38-45). DOI: 10.1145/3472714.3474386. https://doi.org/10.1145/3472714.3474386
2019

Safarova, B., & Ledesma, E. (2019). Modernism on the United States - Mexico border 1920 - 1970: Architecture of exploitation. In F. Lara & R. Loredo (Eds.), Architecture and Forced Exploitation: The Gulf of Mexico, 1920-1970. Ciudad Victoria COLOFON / Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas.
2015

Safarova, B., Ledesma, E., Luhan, G., Caffey, S., & Giusti, C. (2015). Learning from collaborative integration: The Hackathon as Design Charrette. In Martens, B, Wurzer, G, Grasl T, Lorenz, WE and Schaffranek, R (Eds.), Real Time - Proceedings of the 33rd eCAADe Conference - Volume 2, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria (233-240). http://papers.cumincad.org/data/works/att/ecaade2015_286.content.pdf
2015

Ledesma, E., Giusti, C., Safarova, B., Vasquez, L., & Valles Rojas, E. (2015). Diálogo on the Border: Planning for Latino communities in South Texas. Progressive Planning, Summer (204), 40-43. https://www.arch.tamu.edu/media/cms_page_media/1072/PPM_Sum2015_Ledesma…