Professor Harrison’s architectural and urban design work draws on the close reading of a neighborhood’s the built, natural and cultural fabric as a means of generating new form and unique patterns of place. In an on-going research project, “Dwelling In-Between: Making Sustainable Places in the Postindustrial City" she is studying the evolution and reemergence of 19th and early 20th century industrial sectors in cities in North America and Northern Europe. Professor Harrison’s work has been published in Places, Architecture Magazine, the Journal of Urban Design, the Encyclopedia of American Studies, the Urban Ecologist, and in other academic journals and the popular press. She has received the “Award for Architectural Research” from Architecture Magazine and the AIA Committee on Research for the North Philadelphia Urban Initiatives, a multi-year urban design project undertaken at Temple University with support from the U.S. Department of Education.

With colleagues from Sculpture, Landscape Architecture and Geography and Urban Studies, Professor Harrison has founded the Urban Design Workshop at Temple, a university-based practice that seeks to address North Philadelphia design issues through multidisciplinary engagement. Among the UDW’s current projects is an arts-based commercial corridor revitalization for the Village of Arts and Humanities and the neighborhood design for the Norris Square Civic Association.

Professor Harrison is a member of the American Institute of Architects and a former board member of both the Philadelphia Chapter AIA and of AIA Pennsylvania. While she was on the Philadelphia AIA Board, she was chair of the Social Action Committee and organized the visit of a national Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team (R/UDAT) to North Philadelphia. She is a founding member of the Community Design Collaborative of Philadelphia.