News

Main Content

October 1, 2025

In the spring of 2020, Kathleen John-Alder initiated a study that explored the material and temporal dynamics of the Pine Barrens, one of the largest tracts of undisturbed land on the eastern seaboard, using soil, water, plants, and animals as material evidence. The study initially focused on the biotic community of the Pine Barrens, deploying field surveys, photography, archival research, interviews, and personal observations to capture the coloration of the various species of birds, reptiles, and butterflies that inhabit this landscape. Subsequent studies explored the variable surfaces, reflections, plant life, transparencies, and colors of water. Graffiti on abandoned brickworks documented the impact of anthropogenic actions. The work of Annie Dillard, one of the great natural history writers of the 20th century, served as a catalyst for the use of complete immersion as a way to see and know a landscape, and live responsibility within it.

According to John-Alder, the study flips the quantitative methods of landscape architecture to highlight visual beauty rather than functional value, thus becoming a means to interrogate disciplinary certainties. “I think I saw it as a subversive way to critique the discipline’s ways of seeing,” she observed in an interview for the article, “and if I did so, I wondered if this would foster a more inclusive attentiveness to other-than-human organisms, processes, and agencies.”

Main Content

October 30, 2025

Amidst a striking change in the relationship between society and nature in the 1970s, Kienast sought a synthesis between design and ecology. As a designer, planner, researcher, and university lecturer, Kienast introduced new facets to those fields. Critiques of urban planning, processes of participation, and the significance of spontaneous urban vegetation played just as prominent a role in these discussions as did art, literature, architecture, and the popularity of postmodernism.

Dr. Anette Freytag, who has written a critical monography on Dieter Kienast explains on the Landscape Architecture Platform Landezine, why his work is so important and influential to this day. To honor Kienast, his Ten Theses on Landscape Architecture have been translated into English and put online.

Main Content

June 3, 2025

“Academia can and must reach the public” – The International Landscape Architecture Online Platform, LANDEZINE,  interviewed faculty Dr. Anette Freytag about her work, background, and upcoming research projects. Dr. Freytag will become a contributing author to the platform.

Read the interview on LANDZINE

Read the story in the Rutgers SEBS Newsroom

Main Content

The New Jersey Chapter of Landscape Architects organized a tour in Princeton of the Drumthwacket Estate, the official residence of the governor of New Jersey. The group of landscape architects, many of them alumni from our program, explored the complex history of the Drumthwacket Estate and Gardens from its creation as a bucolic landscape in the 19th century, through the building of the Italianate Garden in 1905, and onto its decline and reconstruction in the late twentieth century.

Under the guidance of Dr. Wolfram Hoefer and the director of the Drumthwacket Foundation, Robyn Brenner, participants further discussed the needs of representation at the official residence of the Governor of NJ versus the demands of historic preservation and the opportunities and limitations of engaging the Mercer County Master Gardener Program in the development maintenance of the site.
For more information on the Rutgers involvement at Drumthwacket see:
Drumthwacket Garden – Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES)

Main Content

Faculty Fellows’ Tea

Friday, April 11, 5:30-7:00pm | HC Fireside Lounge

Are you interested in cutting-edge research at Rutgers? You are cordially invited to join us for our inaugural Faculty Fellows’ Tea at the Honors College! Our guests will be Anette Freytag, Dept. of Landscape Architecture, SEBS; Douglass-Honors College Faculty Fellow, and Jose Guillermo Cedeño Laurent, Dept. of Environmental & Occupational Health & Justice, School of Public Health. Don’t miss this exciting chance to connect in person with Rutgers faculty. Our conversation will focus on creative place-making, gardens, healthy buildings, climate change, and the built environment. Students of all years and majors are warmly welcome. Light refreshments will be served. Attendees will earn two points toward the Honors College Merit Pin Links to an external site..
Email Prof. Kitzinger with questions.

Main Content

 April 9,2025

Abstract

Color is one of the main ways objects are described in science and depicted in art. Over time, this has led to the development of references such as Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, which contains a list of color names, painted color swatches, and examples of animals, plants and minerals displaying those colors. More recently, the Munsell color chart has proved invaluable in the classification of soils. Inspired by this seamless blend of science and art, “Color Mosaics: A Natural History of the New Jersey Pine Barrens” explores the spatial and temporal dynamics of the Pine Barrens using soil, water, plants and animals as material evidence. This multivalent approach enabled the creation of color “swatch” libraries, which, in turn, supported the creation of a variety of color nomenclatures and color representations that reveal the intricate interplay of objects and processes that animates this vast and immersive landscape. The resulting mosaics are visually enriched by the politics of regulatory oversight, the operations of natural phenomena, the patterns of plants and animals, shot gun shells, fire, glass and spray paint.

Main Content

This unique online database includes over 200 exemplary landscape projects with quantified environmental, social, and economic benefits.
The impact of Hoboken Southwest Resiliency Park, Phase 1 was assessed and documented through LAF’s innovative Case Study Investigation (CSI) program, a unique research collaboration among faculty researchers, designers, and students. The Park designer, New York City Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, were excellent collaborators in the project. The Rutgers Team included graduate students James Hill and Ana Maria Oliynyk under the guidance of Dr. Wolfram Hoefer.
Read about the research process and compelling benefits that were documented:
Southwest Resiliency Park, Phase 1 | Landscape Performance Series

Main Content

Landscape architecture undergraduate and graduate students designed resilient climate adaptation solutions for 3 cities in the east coast and Caribbean. The results were innovative options that addressed waterfront design, adaptive strategies for historic sites and nature based socially sensitive solutions.