J. William Carswell

University of Kansas


J. William Carswell is an Associate professor in the Kansas University School of Architecture and Urban Planning. He holds a professional degree in architecture, an advanced degree in architecture from Queens University, Ireland and a Master of Urban Planning from Kansas University. He is also the Co-Director of the School's Multicultural Scholars Program and is a past Department Chair and past Associate Dean. He has a wide range of service obligations to the School, the University and to the community including on-going service to arts organizations.

Unusually, he welcomes service obligations as privileged windows into cultural motivation and process within the academic and the popular culture.

Carswell teaches a number of design classes in the professional program and a graduate class HomePlaces, a cultural view of the many facets of "home" that are entwined in the design of our dwellings. On occasions he also teaches a companion class Workplaces.

He has two major primary research agendas:

The first, he describes as cultural seismology for design, studying the cultural shakes and moves in the design world and examining their impact. His current work deals with the cultural shift in the design professions that have occurred since 1972. He is particularly interested in the emerging 'cherry picked' culture of design rubrics.

The second research related agenda is more prosaic. He examines the cohort and social evidence of the result of cultural and demographic magmatic movements. The latest funded topic in this area is the pending impact on the physical, economic, architectural and planning professions from the impending baby-boomer retirement wave that began in 2006.

Carswell is a practicing consultant and the recipient of numerous teaching awards.