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Jose Juan Terrasa-Soler: Tropical Landscape Cyborgs

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Abstract

Landscape architectural practice in the Caribbean has been moving very fast from mainly aesthetic and visual considerations to a more nuanced interest in the ecological and social functioning of outdoor human spaces. This is part of a global trend in the profession, but also a response to citizens’ environmental activism since the 1960’s.  José Juan Terrasa-Soler’s background both in environmental science and landscape architecture helps to bring these concerns into focus through a variety of conceptual explorations and landscape architectural projects.

Bio

José Juan Terrasa-Soler, a native of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, is a registered and CLARB Certified landscape architect, environmental consultant, and university professor with over 20 years of professional experience. He has held numerous leadership positions in corporate, governmental, and nonprofit organizations. José Juan earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, chemistry, and philosophy from Mount Saint Mary’s College (in Maryland), and advanced degrees in Ecology, Environmental Studies, and Landscape Architecture from The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Yale University, and Harvard University, respectively. He was Manager of the Environmental Business Unit of CSA Architects & Engineers, the largest consulting firm in the Caribbean, where he led a team of 30 scientists and engineers and offered the full spectrum of services related to environment and development. After finishing his degree at Harvard, he founded EnviroDesign Studio, an environmental design and consulting firm, and later worked in government as Deputy Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, in charge of Planning and Development.  José Juan is also a founding faculty member in the Master of Landscape Architecture program at Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, where he teaches design studios, environmental systems, and landscape architectural theory since 2007. He is currently Partner at Marvel Architects & Landscape Architects (in San Juan, New York, Richmond, and Barcelona) and member of the Board of Directors of the nonprofits Resilient Power Puerto Rico and Scuba Dogs Society.  His professional practice, research, writing, and teaching focus on the intersection of ecology and design, including green infrastructure, landscape resilience, and sustainable urban design. José Juan also enjoys hiking (urban or wildland), amateur astronomy, and cooking for his daughter, Sara Lauren.

Landscape Architecture designated a STEM discipline

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Today, the Biden administration announced that landscape architecture has been designated a STEM discipline!

Specifically, Landscape Architecture (04.0601) was added to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) STEM-designated degree program list. Along with landscape architecture, seven additional disciplines were added to the list, including: Institutional Research (13.0608); Mechatronics, Robotics, and Automation Engineering Technology/Technician (15.0407); Composite Materials Technology/Technician (15.0617); Linguistics and Computer Science (30.4801); Developmental and Adolescent Psychology (42.2710); Geospatial Intelligence (43.0407); and Demography and Population Studies (45.0501).

This new designation rightfully places landscape architecture alongside other STEM disciplines. Landscape architecture universities will be able to recruit from a broader talent pool.  And, as a STEM discipline more young people will now be introduced to the profession.

Rutgers Universal Access Garden

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This pilot garden advances AIR Collaborative’s aim to create a series of Universally Accessible Gardens on Rutgers land to foster spatial justice for people with disabilities. A Rutgers Research Council Social and Racial Justice Grant and the passionate involvement of students, staff, and faculty realized the construction of a small pilot garden on the site of 178 Jones Avenue in New Brunswick, where the new garden joins existing community gardens and the weekly Community Farmers Market.

This pilot was designed and built by landscape architecture students and will be programmed for and undertaken by people with disabilities. Interns from the Douglass Discovery Program accompanied the project from the concept to the opening and documented the process on social media.

See our pamphlet to learn more about the therapeutic benefits of gardening and the main principles of universal design.

Download the Rutgers Universal Access Garden Pamphlet (PDF)

Watch the process

Geodesign and Geohealth Scholarship

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Through his work at the Geohealth Lab at CRSSA, Dr. David Tulloch integrates the geographic information sciences and human health research into landscape architecture. In 2010 Dr. Tulloch was an invited participant at the inaugural Geodesign Summit, at which the overlap between landscape architecture, planning, GIS, geography, and computer science, were reconceptualized as a single field of work. As an early leader in this emerging area of geodesign, he is widely published on the subject (Tulloch 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019). He organized and led a geodesign panel for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

The same advances in geospatial technologies that have empowered the geodesign community (e.g., interactive mapping, improved user interfaces, cloud computing, mobile mapping on personal devices, open source tools) also create new opportunities for integrating public participation in planning and design processes. Seeking to contribute to the conversation about such platforms, he served on the Organizing Committee for the first three Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) Conferences (2002, 2003, 2004), including the inaugural meeting hosted at Rutgers. His pioneering role in both PPGIS and VGI were recognized with my successful applications for funded participation in their respective specialist meetings (1998 and 2007).

Human health has become a primary area of application for these topics. With funding from NIH and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he has spent over a decade as part of a multidisciplinary team examining linkages between the food and physical activity environment and patterns of childhood obesity. Collaborating with a team at Rutgers’ Center for State Health Policy and Arizona State University, he has inventoried the changing urban landscapes of 5 New Jersey cities across nearly a decade, mapping changes in the food environment and activity environments available to children and then comparing those with the obesity measures and locations of over 1,500 young residents. This “team science” approach was essential to prove the positive impact for children living within a half mile of parks or the detrimental impact for children within ¼ mile of corner stores (DeWeese et al. 2013; Ohri-Vachaspati et al. 2013; Tang et al. 2014; Lorts et al. 2019; Ohri-Vachaspati et al. 2019).

Helping expand and formalize that geospatial health research, he developed a structured research team called the Geohealth Lab group within the larger (and quite supportive) setting of the Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis. Not only does the lab support research, but it also hosted workshops and engaged community groups in New Jersey. Today the lab group has “alumni” that include a professional community planner and a Ph.D. student studying citizen science GIS at UNC-Chapel Hill and a current undergraduate whose experiences at the lab helped her spend the summer of 2019 in Columbia University’s Biostatistics Epidemiology Summer Training (BEST) Diversity Program.

Office of Urban Extension and Engagement

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Run by our department chair Richard Alomar, the Office’s primary purpose is to raise the visibility of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) and Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) expertise and resources available to address issues affecting urban residents and their communities. These objectives will be advanced through the Office’s efforts to coordinate and facilitate programming to address food security, individual and community health, resource stewardship, urban agriculture and food chains, environmental planning and design, and other concerns facing our state’s urban communities.

Recent projects and programs highlighted on this website represent just some of the ways in which we engage and collaborate for a healthy, equitable and resilient future in New Jersey.

Website for the Office of Urban Extension and Engagement