Main Content
This is a partial listing of our lectures.
Tom Carman, LLA, Principal at Melillo Bauer Carman Reimagining the Backyard: Urban Rooftop Open Spaces in Multi-Family Developments
Date of lecture: December 4th, 2024 Abstract As urban density increases, the traditional single-family backyard is evolving into a shared, multi-family open space, particularly within these environments. This lecture explores the transformation of private backyards into communal, multifunctional spaces that cater to the needs of residents, most particularly in mid to high-rise settings. We will…
Mark V. Mistretta, RLA Director, Niagara Region, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation: Shepherding America’s Oldest State Park, Niagara Falls
Date of lecture: November 20th, 2024 Bio Mark V. Mistretta, RLA, ASLA, has served as the Niagara Region Director of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation since May 2018. The region encompasses all of Erie and Niagara Counties and consists of 18 parks, two historic sites, three marinas and one…
The Steve Strom Memorial LectureIstván Valánszki, Associate Professor and Chair Department of Landscape Protection and Reclamation Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences Public participation GIS and perception of cultural ecosystem services in Central-Eastern Europe
Date of lecture: November 13th, 2024 Abstract: The lecture contains two main parts: 1) Cultural ecosystem services (CES) concept and PPGIS as a tool for landscape assessment and evaluation, 2) Research findings related to perception of CES in Central-Eastern Europe. The first part of the lecture includes a general introduction of ecosystem services, possible categorizations…
Arianna Lindberg, Assistant Teaching Professor Labor + Care in the Landscape of the Local: Migrant farm labor and diverse economies in Community Supported Agriculture
Date of lecture: November 11th, 2024 “Labor and Care in the Landscape of the Local: Migrant farm labor and diverse economies in Community Supported Agriculture” Abstract: The objective of my dissertation research in human geography has been to engage in spaces of New Jersey’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in order to understand and make visible…
Gonzalo Cruz AECOM, Vice President and Principal of Design Climate Adaptation, Infrastructure and Urbanism
Date of lecture: October 30th, 2024 Abstract Projects that explore the intersection of climate change, infrastructure and urbanism. The work puts forward innovative concepts at the intersection of large-scale landscape infrastructure and placemaking. Examples include South Battery Park City Resilience’s Wagner Park and Pier A Plaza, Brooklyn Montgomery Coastal Resilience’s Waterfront in Lower Manhattan and…
Rutgers Students Summer Travels Summer Program Spain and Roy DeBoer Prize Winners
Date of lecture: October 23rd, 2024 Our Rutgers Students will be sharing their summer travel trip to Spain and our Roy DeBoer Prize winners will be speaking as well Presenters will be: Brooke Belmonte Su Lin Josh Chang Maggie Bazurto Dean Awari Ana Maria Olinyck
Continue Reading Rutgers Students Summer Travels Summer Program Spain and Roy DeBoer Prize Winners
Stephen Whitehouse, Co-founder and Principal— Starr Whitehouse PLLCIntent and Action, Pivots in Practice
Date of lecture: October 16th, 2024 Abstract Stephen Whitehouse, a founder of Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners in New York City, discusses the interplay between the aspirations of landscape practice and the creative adaptation to challenges and opportunities. Bio: Stephen Whitehouse is a co-founder of Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners in New York…
Jon Carnegie, Executive director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Centerat Rutgers University15-Minute Neighborhoods: A Pathway to Creating Healthier,More Just, Resilient & Sustainable Communities in New Jersey
Date of lecture: October 2nd, 2024 Abstract The 15-minute neighborhood concept gained visibility as the global pandemic demonstrated that local access to basic life needs is critically important. In addition to being an important contribution to New Jersey’s efforts to achieve its goals of reducing pollution that causes climate change, 15-minute neighborhoods provide residents with…
Students from Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, Germany Where We Come From – Workshop Guests Introduce Themselves
Date of lecture: September 25th, 2024 Where We Come From Students from Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, Germany From 9/21 to 10/4, 8 students with their Professor Dr. Henrick Schultz, will visit our department and join an Internation Desing and Planning Workshop with the Senior Studio. On their trip, we show them around in New…
Andrew Simmons, Public Finance Initiative: To context, to scale: Place valorization in contemporary practices of city design
Date of lecture: September 18, 2024 Abstract Building on early work developed as a cultural heritage specialist and social scientist with Arup’s integrated urban design practice, Andrew will present a typology of values to guide a discussion of values and valuation – of how social constructs and contexts shape the planning profession and city building…
Class of 2025: What We Found – Graduate Students Summer Field Work
Date of lecture: September 11, 2024 Graduate Class of 2025 Field work is one essential aspect of most research in landscape architecture, understanding a place is at the core of any landscape design. Over the summer, students of the MLA class of 2025 did individual explorations of their study areas, ranging from the Caribbean to…
Continue Reading Class of 2025: What We Found – Graduate Students Summer Field Work
Denise Mattes: A Profession of Resilience: Balancing Life and a Career
Abstract In this lecture, Denise Mattes, the Brooklyn Design Director of NYC Parks Capital Projects, will discuss her journey through the last 30+ years. She will demonstrate on how this profession has so many avenues to explore, underline the importance of volunteering, and ultimately finding the work one can enjoy. She will also talk about…
Continue Reading Denise Mattes: A Profession of Resilience: Balancing Life and a Career
Divine Ndemeye: Afrofuturism
Abstract The lecture will use critical spatial discourses to unpack the colonial stories in Landscape Architecture and describe equity-based alternatives. Afrofuturism can be used as a framework to daylight and dismantle colonial narratives based in extractive and oppressive systems with methodologies for life-stewarding practices. It is rooted in ancient wisdom from Africa and around the…
Dr. Anita Bakshi: Inflections - Necessary Distance from the Einstellung effect
Abstract “The Einstellung effect occurs when a person is presented with a problem or situation that is similar to problems they have worked through in the past. If the solution (or appropriate behavior) to the problem/situation has been the same in each past experience, the person will likely provide that same response, without giving the problem too…
Continue Reading Dr. Anita Bakshi: Inflections - Necessary Distance from the Einstellung effect
Simin Bian: Walking as a Method
Abstract Based on the concern and reflection on the topic of “walking”, this lecture will first explain the relationship between walking and critical cognition through three cultural trends in the middle and upper 20th century that are closely related to “walking” and “walking people”. Then, the process of forming critical cognition through the activity of…
Anette Freytag: Landscape Topology, Biophilia, and Spatial Justice. Impacts on Landscape Architecture
Abstract How can a revived love for plants and a deep understanding of form-giving to our environment lead us out of the many crises we are currently facing? At its best, landscape architecture merges ecology and design to create landscapes that work with the site, not against it. In this lecture, Anette Freytag gives an…
Signe Nielsen: Landscape Architecture is an Optimistic Profession
Date of lecture: February 28, 2024 Abstract As our urban areas get denser, how can we make transformative changes that recapture degraded or abandoned industrial land, convert roadways to pedestrian spaces, embed social and environmental justice into communities, prepare for future impacts of climate change, and make our environment more beautiful? By becoming a landscape…
Continue Reading Signe Nielsen: Landscape Architecture is an Optimistic Profession
Denice Frohman: Poetry of Resistance
Margaret O. Cekada Memorial Lecture When: 3/27 at 6:00 PMWhere: Kathleen Ludwig Global Village Center, 9 Suydam StreetParking: Please register your vehicle. Denice Frohman, Award-winning poet and performer Poetry of Resistance For The Margaret O. Cekada Memorial Lecture 2024, the Department of Landscape Architecture partners with the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice…
Dr. Wolfram Hoefer: Research on the Bicycle.
Exploring Cultural Landscapes around Budapest, Vienna, and the Ruhr Region. Landscapes are shaped by people; local cultural narratives have an impact on how we see the spaces around us. At the same time, enjoying landscapes is an individual aesthetic experience. I will share my impressions from four months traveling across Europe, using the bicycle for…
Continue Reading Dr. Wolfram Hoefer: Research on the Bicycle.
Dr. Elise A. Mitchell: “the land will not expose their designs”
Date of lecture: January 24, 2024 Abstract In 1518, a severe smallpox epidemic swept the Caribbean and American coasts. Subsequently, in the 1520s, enslaved Africans, predominantly Senegambians, waged the first slave revolt in the Americas. Drawing on early modern European (predominantly Portuguese) chronicles about West Africans’ holistic community healing strategies, this paper argues that revolt…
Continue Reading Dr. Elise A. Mitchell: “the land will not expose their designs”
Dominique M. Hawkins: Flooding in Florida: The Bellwether of Climate Change
Date of lecture: February 21, 2024 Abstract The goals of historic preservation are often at odds with efforts to protect properties from climate change. While preservation encourages maintaining a property’s historic appearance, climate change adaptation often requires change, sometimes radical change, to maintain the safety of a building and its occupants. As the impacts of…
Continue Reading Dominique M. Hawkins: Flooding in Florida: The Bellwether of Climate Change
Isabella Guttuso: St. Augustine: History and Resiliency of a First Coast City
Abstract Coastal cities historically built in floodplains have adapted through time to the challenges that arise from settling in a landscape shaped by water. Climate change has exacerbated the natural events that these communities face. St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European and African-American origin in the United States, is grappling with vulnerability…
Continue Reading Isabella Guttuso: St. Augustine: History and Resiliency of a First Coast City
Roy DeBoer Travel Prize – 2023 Recipient Presentations
About the prize: “Roy passionately believed that students should have an educational travel experience as undergraduates. For many years he led summer study-abroad courses for the department and saw the profound impact that travel has on the appreciation and study of landscape architecture. To encourage students to develop their own independent study-travel experiences, he founded…
Continue Reading Roy DeBoer Travel Prize – 2023 Recipient Presentations
Gardens, Nutrition, and Health for People with Disabilities
Panel discussion at IFNH 101 followed by a visit to the Rutgers Universal Access Garden Pilot at 178 Jones Avenue. Photos by Robert Acklen, Anette Freytag, and Julia M. Ritter This vibrant panel on gardening, nutrition, and disabilities will include our partners in academia, the community, as well as individuals with disabilities who have perfected…
Continue Reading Gardens, Nutrition, and Health for People with Disabilities
Ben Barsotti Scott: Direct Action Landscape
Abstract If a radical redistribution of space and materials is already here, how will landscape architecture participate? Increasingly, neoliberal cities like New York enact the long-term project of coastal resilience through the private sector. In contrast, “Direct Action Landscape” calls for designers to look to the new, often informal, practices of care that emerge in…
Continue Reading Ben Barsotti Scott: Direct Action Landscape
Robert Gerard Pietrusko « the landscape of data »
World GIS Day Abstract This lecture will discuss the interplay between cartography, spatial datasets, and the conceptual underpinnings of citizenship at a global scale through two intertwined projects—In Plain Sight (2018) and my current book project, High Contrast. “In Plain Sight” is a data documentary originally commissioned for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, exploring geospatial…
Continue Reading Robert Gerard Pietrusko « the landscape of data »
Davy Knittle: Queer and Trans Justice from Urban Redevelopment to Climate Emergency
Strom Lecture Abstract This talk uses a literary and cultural archive to explain how urban and environmental change have shaped the core questions of queer and trans studies in the U.S. since the 1950s. In the talk I argue that an urban environmental history of queer and trans studies is useful for explaining the tools…
Continue Reading Davy Knittle: Queer and Trans Justice from Urban Redevelopment to Climate Emergency
MLA Class 2024 – Candidate presentations
Avery Kaplan: Filling A Hole Lain Lomery: Saving Two Birds with One Facade Katharine Schumacher: Two miles to School Bronson D. Gallagher: Weaving Green Infrastructure into Adaptive Reuse Development Jay G: Abolitionist NYC 2050 Jordan Upadhyay: Green Streets for People Kathleen Hammerdahl: Beyond Boring: How Artist’s Books Can Be Used by Landscape Architects Asia Wright:…
Jose Juan Terrasa-Soler: Tropical Landscape Cyborgs
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…
Continue Reading Jose Juan Terrasa-Soler: Tropical Landscape Cyborgs