Clare Cooper Marcus

Clare Cooper Marcus was born in London and as a child was evacuated from the blitz to live in the countryside during World War 2. As a young woman, she traveled to the United States to study at the University of Nebraska for a masters degree in historical geography. Returning to England she worked at the University of Sheffield, the Ministry of Housing, and London County Council before returning to the US as an immigrant. At the University of California, Berkeley she obtained a second masters degree, in city and regional planning. This was the '60s. The time and place radically changed her views and values. Her master thesis, which later became the book - "Easter Hill Village: Some Social Implications of Design"- was pivotal in the emerging field of people-environment relations. Joining the faculty at Berkeley in 1969, her teaching in architecture and landscape architecture questioned many of the assumptions long held in those professions, for example, that the designer-as-artist knows what is best for the client. With colleagues and students, she authored several award-winning books which feature what is known from research about user-needs in the design of housing and public open space. These books include "Housing as if People Mattered" (with Wendy Sarkissian); and "People Places" (with Carolyn Francis). Her unique research in - "House as a Mirror of Self"- incorporates accounts of people's intimate relationships with house and home, was featured on the Oprah show, and won the Book of the Year Award from the Detroit Free Press. After early retirement in the mid-90s, Cooper Marcus co-authored/edited "Healing Gardens: Therapeutic Benefits and Design Recommendations" (with Marni Barnes), thus beginning a passionate interest in the links between nature and healing, and the importance of incorporating gardens into healthcare facilities. This interest continues to the present time with consulting, research, lecturing and the publication, with Naomi Sachs, of "Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces " (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2013). After retirement and a bout with life-threatening illness, she went to live alone on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides where she explored the landscape, reflected on her wartime childhood, read, thought about dreams - and wrote. The result was the book "Iona Dreaming: The Healing Power of Place - A Memoir" (2010).