Michelle L. Hauk

Michelle L. Hauk is an assistant professor in architectural history and theory at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Trained in both architectural design and history, she specializes in the history of architecture, technology, and society in twentieth-century Japan. After earning her Ph.D. in Japanese History from the department of East Asian languages and cultures at Columbia University in 2023, she spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Hauk earned her MArch and MSAS from WashU in 2015. Her research examines the evolution of the dwelling in twentieth century Japan through the lens of water and the technologies that organize its flow. She considers the ways in which the design of water within domestic environments intersects with social relationships, cultural practices, and the natural environment.

Hauk’s research focuses on the rapid evolution of Japan’s residential environment and everyday life in the twentieth century on both an urban and domestic scale, particularly in the design of public housing and postwar new towns. Her current project examines how the development of water infrastructure and the technologies that organize its flow reconfigured the twentieth-century Japanese dwelling and paved the way for the prefabrication of its kitchens and baths. In her scholarship and teaching, she considers the ways in which the design of water within domestic environments intersects with social relationships, cultural practices, and the natural environment.

Hauk offers seminars on topics including Japanese architecture, East Asian urbanism, women in architecture, and the design history of water-related spaces, where she combines research and writing with studio-based exercises that directly engage students with primary-source architectural documents, literature, and film.