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New Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture

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David Tulloch in grassy area in front of Passion Puddle.

We are pleased to announce Dr. David Tulloch as the new Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University. He replaces Richard Alomar who served as Chair for two terms (6 years) and returns to the faculty. The Department is grateful to Professor Alomar for his tireless contributions and leadership as Chair, including the difficult task of guiding the department through a variety of challenges, from accreditation to a pandemic.

As Department Chair, Dr. Tulloch is dedicated to maintaining the department’s reputation for creative, design-driven solutions that improve our environments. He builds on landscape architectural traditions with new technologies and strong environmental ethics. In addition, his commitment to the department’s rich histories in geomatics and environmental planning will position the programs for a variety of future challenges. By fostering a collaborative space for faculty and students, he ensures that Rutgers graduates are prepared to be the next generation of innovators shaping our urban and natural spaces.

David Tulloch holds degrees in Landscape Architecture from the University of Kentucky (BSLA) and Louisiana State University (MLA), and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A Legacy of Generosity: New Teaching Garden Expands Hands-on Learning Opportunities

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Rutgers SEBS/NJAES Newsroom: “Under the guidance of Stephen Kristoph, a longtime OCPE instructor and instructor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, the teaching garden was designed by Danielle Lohrman, a junior in that major. The student team the built the garden also included Solana Garcia, Kaitlin Gotting, Addison Cheney, Andy Garcia, Olivia Sheehan and David Ackerman”. Read more…

A Legacy of Generosity: New Teaching Garden Expands Hands-on Learning Opportunities

Dr. Arianna Lindberg promoted to Associate Teaching Professor

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Arianna carrying bushel of squash

The Department of Landscape Architecture is excited to announce that Dr. Arianna Lindberg has been promoted to Associate Teaching Professor. This is an exciting and well-deserved honor.

Dr. Lindberg is dedicated educator who serves as the undergraduate program director for both the BS in Environmental Planning and the BS in Landscape Architecture. With an expansive reach to our communities, Dr. Lindberg is a recognized scholar working with community-engaged efforts in agriculture and food systems. Her research includes a recent ethnographic study centered on the experience of migrant farm-workers in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and foregrounds a feminist ontology of reading the economy of CSA for difference and care.

Faculty member Kate John-Alder featured in the October 2025 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine

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October 1, 2025

Stacked watercolor swatches, each with a label underneath: Summer Storm, Sphagnum Moss, Marsh Grass, Iron Sediments, Tanannic Acid

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.”

Collage of photos showing close views of colorful butterfly wings. Under each is a palette of colors picked from the group of photos above.
Photographs by Kate John-Alder

Remembering Dieter Kienast on his 80th Birthday

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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.

group of four people in field of flowers with trees and arbor in background
Dieter Kienast exploring the Dry-Meadow Biotope he created for the Botanical Garden in Basel-Brüglingen with students. Photo by Wolfram Müller, who stands next to him.

Climate Change – What Now?

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June 25, 2025

Since the 2021 German-US conference CLIMATE BRIDGE, the political leadership of both countries changed. How do the new governments impact climate politics? How do politics affect scientific and professional cooperation between Germany and the US?

The book presentation and panel discussion “Climate Bridge” in Bottrop Germany was hosted by our partner Emschergenossenschaft (EGLV), a public water management association in the Ruhr Region. Their head of research and development Prof. Dr. Issa Nafo highlighted the impact of climate change on water management and the importance of local initiatives to support municipal cooperation.

Rutgers faculty Wolfram Hoefer summarized the outline of the book: Section I, Tools and Process, compares environmental planning approaches on both sides of the Atlantic and outlines different approaches to common problems. Section II, Uncertainty and Space, introduces case studies from both the United States and Germany highlight adaptation strategies for uncertainties caused by climate change. Section III, Place and Connectedness, addresses people’s dependence on ecological systems for our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Angela Oberg, director of the Rutgers Office of Climate Action, shared the message by Rutgers president that we are committed to driving climate action in New Jersey and beyond and that we continue to be steadfastly committed to international collaboration.

Our local academic partner, The University Alliance Ruhr, represented by Hans Stallmann, is continuing interdisciplinary research partnerships because the global problem climate change requires international cooperation. Thorsten Wichmann, professor of spatial planning at Technical University Dortmund (member of the University Alliance) argued that we need to move away from the ideological ballast of the discussion and focus on the facts. This was supported by Johannes Boettger, landscape architect from Cologne. He further added that municipal partners are aware of the challenges and rely on landscape architects to offer well-designed pragmatic solutions. The moderator Sebastian Schlecht from the Laboratory for Landscape and Architecture for the Ruhr Metropolis (la.la.ruhr) summarized that our international collaboration on climate change is even more important in the current political context.

Please join us when we continue the discussion in New Jersey, at the Rutgers Cook Campus (IFNH 101) on September 17, 2025 at 4:00 pm.

Read More: Climate Bridge – Rutgers University Press

LANDEZINE features Rutgers faculty Anette Freytag

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June 3, 2025

Anette Freytag standing on beach with waves in background
Photo credit: Urska Skerl

“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

NJASLA Guided Tour of the Drumthwacket Estate

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Group taking on tour of the Drumthwacket Estate

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)

Honors College Faculty Fellows’ Tea to discuss research opportunities with Dr. Freytag

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Faculty Fellows’ Tea

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

Faculty Fellows' Tea poster thumbnail

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.

Kathleen John-Alder, RU Landscape Architecture Color Mosaics: A Natural History of the New Jersey Pinelands

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 April 9,2025

Abstract

Close-up of leaf showing vibrant fall colors

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.