Erle Ellis just got to the GSD for his stint as visiting associate professor of landscape architecture and he’s already making a splash. In an opinion piece for the N.Y. Times, he challenges the conventional wisdom that human population growth is outstripping the earth’s ability to provide sustenance.
GSD students took part in an unconventional experiment at MoMA PS1 this summer, aimed at generating bold solutions to our pressing environmental problems. Brennan Baxley (MLA), Stefan DiLeo (MAUD), Yoonjee Koh (MArch), Yina Ng (MArch) and Patricia Semmler (MArch) joined peers from Cornell for a 2-week residency, living and working in a temporary installation at the museum.
As the world copes with significant climate events, Landscape Architecture is breaking out of its pigeonhole of gardens and grounds and assuming a role as convening discipline for urban problem-solving. Last term’s core studio Flux City, led by Chris Reed (HU ’91, professor of landscape architecture) took sea level rise as its focus, and students creaeted interventions to reverse the vulnerability of Jamaica Bay, NY.
he largest indoor sport fish hatchery in North America is the first ever recipient of the EnvisionTM Gold award for sustainable infrastructure. The award ceremony that honored the William Jack Hernandez Fish Hatchery of Anchorage Alaska was the culmination of 6 years of collaboration by the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the GSD with the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure to create a rating system for infrastructure sustainability. It also marked the start of a new phase in implementing the Envision standards on a wide scale.
Two MDesS students are using the GSD as a laboratory to show how Gund’s outdoor spaces can be more inviting and social while also working to improve water quality. Ecaterina Dobrescu and Rebecca Bartlett created “Stormwater Modules,” with help from an Office for Sustainability grant, to transform a concrete patio through a modular system of vegetation and planters that will absorb and purify stormwater
“Helsinki Link,” a proposal by Matthew Jull (MArch ’08) and Leena Cho (MLA ’09) of Kutonotuk, received honorable mention in the Helsinki Central Library International Competition.
Chris Reed’s (adjunct associate professor of landscape architecture) Flux City studio was recently featured on Urban Omnibus. The report details student work that reconceives the vulnerable coastal span of NY’s Jamaica Bay as a more dynamic and fluid urban landscape able to meet the challenges of sea level rise and storm surges. Rendering of Shifting Gradients by Cara Walsh and Andy Wisniewski
GSD faculty and alumni were among the 2013 honors recipients in a recent announcement by The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).
Elise Baudon and Benjamin Scheerbarth (MUP’14) organized and moderated a panel discussion at Beyond Resilience: Actions Toward a Just Metropolis, the Planners Network annual national conference in New York on June 8. The panel explored the financing model and the social justice implications of post-Sandy recovery in New York City.
Xiaowei R Wang (MLA I ’13) air quality project selected as finalist in the INDEX Design Award competition.