SAT-B04 _ The Academy’s Disciplinary ContributionResearch and CasesSaturday, October 21, 2017

L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S :

• Understand how the production of knowledge is targeted within specific disiplinary issues

• Explore a series of recent case studies presented by academics from leading research universities.

• Discover direct links between the development of pedagogy to form the core of disciplinary knowledge.

• Identify the reciprocal relationships between the academy and practice.

NOTES:PRESENTATION OUTLINE

The relationship between the academy and practice is reciprocal, the training of designers and production of knowledge occurs within both realms. This session specifically explores the role of academics and the ways in which they use pedagogy and research to identify nascent topics to evolve how the discipline operates.

Design Lab as Research Model _ Bradley CantrellThe development of new tools for constructing, observing, and generating landscapes is integral to landscape architecture’s autonomy in the design professions. What models exist for this type of research? How do designers collaborate with scientists, coders, and engineers in productive and meaningful ways. What are the products of this type of research and how is it applied in practice?

• Overview of the design lab as a model of research in landscape architecture.

• Engagement with allied disciplines• Reciprocal relationships within the discipline and with practice

What’s New in Political Theory, Geography and Philosophy? / Socio-Ecological Imaginaries _ Elizabeth K. Meyer

Public Space design informed by the environmental humanities• Personal standpoint• What is the environmental humanities• Key concepts

Examples of pedagogical modalities for exploring new conception and practices of public space• Seminars• Studios• Exhibitions and conferences• Research centers

Reciprocal relationships between academia and practice• Existing from the academy to practice• Future potential collaborations. From practice to academy and back again

Coastal Resiliency Strategies _ Kristina Hill

A heuristic approach to design research: Urban flood infrastructure • Review cases and typologies in relation to new performance needs• Map spatial and temporal patterns of new vulnerabilities, driving

processes • Examples of strategic insights from identifying patterns in spatial data in

relation to types

Examples of pedagogic approaches that are central to evolving professional practices • A heuristic approach to types and contexts (asking questions, searching

the “solution space”)• A focus on the interactions between processes and patterns/forms/

materials through mapping• A willingness to propose new functional types and allow them to evolve as

a result of inter-disciplinary analyses and implementation experience• An ability to link experiential aesthetic goals to other functional goals

What reciprocal relationships with professional practice exist, and what is missing?• Partnerships that allow real projects to “germinate” using student work• Partnerships that assess built work (LAF’s CSI program), share knowledge

widely• Partnerships that support risk-taking in professional practice• Partnerships that support faculty research, student research

History Research Makes Practice Harder _ Thaisa WayWhile historic narratives are often used to develop a design concept, a deeper inquiry can also challenge designers to think beyond history as mere background story. With a focus on histories that reveal conflict and disturbance, designers might explore issues of race, gender, and class in more provocative and potentially more productive ways in their design process and development. This may well describe a particular role for designers in facing the significant issues of the 21st century urbanizing world. What is the role of design in addressing neglected, uncomfortable, and often challenging histories of landscape and place? History as Serious Research – there is a discipline after all• Conflicted histories• Painful histories• Neglected histories

What do we do with these histories?• in teaching• in practice• as a profession

Readings• Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in

NOTES:

Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)• Richard Lonstreth, “The Difficult Legacy of Urban Renewal” CRM Journal,

Winter 2009, https://www.nps.gov/CRMJournal/Winter2006/view1.pdf• Daniel Duane, Goodbye Yosemite, Hello What? https://www.nytimes.

com/2017/09/02/opinion/sunday/goodbye-yosemite-hello-what.html• McInnis, M. D. “Mapping the Slave Trade in Richmond and New Orleans.”

Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, vol. 20 no. 2, 2013, pp. 102-125. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/538683.

• Degraft-Hanson, K. (2005). The cultural landscape of slavery at Kormantsin, Ghana. Landscape Research, 30(4), 459-481.

PRESENTER BIOS

Bradley CantrellASLA, FAAR, Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia School of Architecture | Charlottesville, VA

Bradley Cantrell is a landscape architect and scholar whose work focuses on the role of computation and media in environmental and ecological design. Professor Cantrell received his BSLA from the University of Kentucky and his MLA from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His work points to a series of methodologies that develop modes of modeling, simulation, and embedded computation that express and engage the complexity of overlapping physical, cultural, and economic systems.

Thaisa WayProfessor of Landscape Architecture and Director of Urban@UW/ University of Washington

Dr. Way is an urban landscape historian teaching and researching history, theory, and design. Her books include Unbounded Practices: Women, Landscape Architecture, and Early Twentieth Century Design (2009, UVa Press) and From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design: the Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag (UW Press 2015). Landscape Architect A.E. Bye: Sculpting the Earth, Modern Landscape Design Series is forthcoming. Dr. Way is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Garden & Landscape Studies and was the 2015-2016 Garden Club of America Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome.

Kristina HillAssociate Professor, UC Berkeley

Kristina Hill is a researcher and professor working on adaptations for urban water systems as drivers of biodiversity, health and social justice. She consults in the US and Europe, wrote and edited “Ecology and Design: Frameworks for Learning,” and lectures internationally. Her current book project is on adaptation of urban water systems to climate change. She holds a BS in geology, a Masters and PhD in landscape architecture from Harvard. She is an expert on flood risks and responses: super dikes, soft sand barriers and floodable greenways urban districts. Kristina lectures often both nationally and internationally.

Elizabeth MeyerFASLA, Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of

Virginia School of Architecture | Charlottesville, VA

Elizabeth Meyer is a landscape architect and theorist who has taught and published for 30 years about the affective power and hybridity of the designed landscape. Her writings deploy thick site descriptions and construct critical theories to interpret contemporary landscapes as well as to imagine future landscapes. She recently founded the UVA Center for Cultural Landscapes to foster transdisciplinary research, interpretation and practice of pressing landscape topics. Meyer has served in several leadership positions at UVA including Department Chair and Dean. She holds a Presidential appointment to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a position she has held since 2012.