Landscapes in Process documents a year in the life of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design during the 2024–2025 academic year. This is the 29th issue in this series, and my third as the Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. We are excited to launch a new format for Landscapes in Process, working in partnership with the New York graphic design team Common Name.
As well as including selected student work, Landscapes in Process provides a summary of the program’s history, philosophy, and curriculum. The issue also includes a record of the events and lectures the department has hosted during the past year, as well as news pertaining to faculty achievements and student awards. Sections are also devoted to the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, PennPraxis, the department’s flagship publication LA+ Journal, and the recipients of the annual American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Pennsylvania-Delaware Chapter student awards, for which a select group of students curate a presentation of their work completed during their time at the school.
The core studios for the 2024–2025 academic year included sites in Philadelphia and on and around New York’s southernmost borough, Staten Island. Fall option studios traveled to Tokyo, Japan; Paris, France; Tirana, Albania; Dakar, Senegal; the Bronx, New York; and the Netherlands. Spring studios traveled to Sobral, Brazil; Rome, Italy; Atlanta, Georgia; and the Meadowlands of New Jersey. From green gentrification to novel afforestation to shade equity, the geographic reach and complexity of issues engaged by these studios reflect our department’s broad ambitions for the discipline of landscape architecture.
I am delighted to welcome this year’s entering class of landscape architecture students to our extraordinary department and the greater Weitzman School of Design. I’d like to express my gratitude to Dean Fritz Steiner, to our department’s faculty, and to our talented students for all that they bring to shape this diverse community. In our department home, our stellar administrative team welcomed Melissa DiGiacomo in the spring of 2025; she has ably stepped into the role previously held by Eric Baratta after his professional move to the Master of Environmental Studies program. Together with Rae Zarate and Erin Obszarny, Melissa keeps everything moving forward, in partnership with so many other members of Weitzman’s administrative staff.
In May 2025, our beloved Professor Emeritus and former department chair Richard Weller passed away in Perth, Australia. Richard celebrated the world’s rich biodiversity, and his love for our planet and all its creatures was reflected in all his work. I remain grateful for Richard’s trust, his wise counsel, and his departmental groundwork, and it is my honor to lead the Department of Landscape Architecture as we move collectively and collaboratively into the future, embracing diversity and change. Onward!
Catherine Seavitt
Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture
December 2025
The Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design was initially established in 1924 and later revitalized under the leadership of Professor Ian L. McHarg in the 1960s. Over the last 50 years, McHarg’s legacy has been actively and critically extended in a variety of ways by the department’s subsequent chairs: Anne Whiston Spirn, John Dixon Hunt, James Corner, Richard Weller, and now Catherine Seavitt. The Department is recognized internationally for its innovative ecological approach to the design of landscapes, public works, public spaces, and infrastructures. Ecology addresses the rich and entangled web of everyday environmental relationships between living things—humans, plants, and animals—as well as the mineral world. The Department’s faculty and students continue to advance the landscape discipline through design research at multiple scales, from seeds to systems, from urban to rural, and from a multiplicity of positions. A diversity of ecological approaches to our planet’s many natures and cultures is necessary to address the ongoing climate crisis as we work toward both decarbonization and reparative social and environmental justice. Landscape architecture has the capacity to change the earth; we are worldbuilders equipped with design imagination.
The Department of Landscape Architecture’s professional curriculum supports exploratory independent research and inventive design while encouraging collaborative learning in both the classroom and the field. The curriculum has four distinct interconnected sequences of coursework: Studio, Workshop, History/Theory, and Media. The sequence works both horizontally and vertically across the three years of the program, encouraging students to expand their critical thinking and creative imagination while gaining techniques for visualizing and realizing their ideas in the world. Advanced studios in the final year of study allow students to select from a wide array of options that investigate critical topics around the world. In their final year, students may also pursue their own independently conceived research projects.
The Department’s landscape faculty is internationally distinguished and provides expertise in design, urbanism, representation, technology, plant science, and history and theory. In their research and teaching, faculty specialize in subjects such as advanced digital modeling, global biodiversity, environmental justice, decarbonization, green energy policy, nature-based infrastructures, cultural geography, environmental sensing, the interface of nature and technology, and brownfield regeneration. In addition, leading international practitioners and theorists are regularly invited to lecture, teach research seminars, or lead advanced design studios. Together with strong links to the other departments in the Weitzman School of Design and across the wider university, the Department is exceptionally well-served by talented and committed educators and practitioners.
The Department’s flagship research center is the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology. Launched in 2019 as a transdisciplinary platform for collaborative research supporting the future of life on earth, the Center funds and broadcasts original scholarly research, convenes students, faculty, and practitioners, and awards the annual McHarg Fellowship. The McHarg Center is active in the core research areas of climate policy and post-carbon futures; biodiversity and global land use planning; public realm
equity and reparative justice; and environmental modeling, sensing, and visualization. The Department is represented in the broader public and academic arenas by a prolific array of significant books by faculty and the award-winning biannual journal LA+, devoted to advancing interdisciplinary ideas and expanding critical inquiry through the lens of landscape architecture. Additionally, students may be employed on a wide range of not-for-profit design and planning projects through PennPraxis, the applied research, engagement, and practice arm at the Weitzman School of Design, which champions community engagement and design justice.
The Department offers two primary courses of study leading to a professionally accredited Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA). The first professional degree program is three years in length and is designed for students with an undergraduate degree in a field other than landscape architecture or architecture. The second professional degree is two years in length and is designed for those who already hold an accredited bachelor’s degree in either landscape architecture or architecture. Dual degree programs with architecture (MLA/MARCH), city planning (MLA/ MCP), historic preservation (MLA/MSHP), urban spatial analytics (MLA/ MUSA), fine arts (MLA/MFA), and environmental science (MLA/MES) are also available. The Master of Landscape Architecture degree may be combined with many of the school’s certificate programs, three of which— Urban Resilience, Urban Design, and Landscape Studies—are hosted by the department. The department also offers an undergraduate Minor in Landscape Studies for students in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences.
The School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania was started in 1890 with programs in architecture and fine arts (including music and art history), with Warren Powers Laird as its first dean. Landscape architecture was first introduced as a subject in 1914 through a series of lectures by George Bernap, landscape architect for the United States Capitol. In 1924, a new department of landscape architecture was founded, with Robert Wheelwright as director, and authorized to award the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree. Wheelwright was co-founder and co-editor of Landscape Architecture Magazine and a practicing landscape architect in New York and Philadelphia. He outlined his definition of the profession in a letter to the New York Times in 1924:
“There is but one profession whose main objective has been to coordinate the works of man with preexistent nature and that is landscape architecture. The complexity of the problems which the landscape architect is called upon to solve, involving a knowledge of engineering, architecture, soils, plant materials, ecology, etc., combined with aesthetic appreciation can hardly be expected of a person who is not highly trained and who does not possess a degree of culture.”
This first phase of the department’s history was brief. The department was suspended for ten years during the 1940s, and from 1941 to 1953 no degrees were awarded in landscape architecture. Though a single course of landscape architecture was offered in 1951, it was incorporated into a Land and City Planning Department founded by the new Dean, G. Holmes Perkins. Perkins subsequently recruited Ian McHarg to rebuild the program in landscape architecture.
In 1957, landscape architecture was re-established as an independent department offering a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture and a one-year Master of Landscape Architecture degree for architects. McHarg obtained scholarships to support eight students and advertised the new program in Architectural Review; the first class of 14 students came from around the world (including eight from McHarg’s birthplace of Scotland). In 1962, McHarg, in partnership with David Wallace, founded Wallace McHarg (later Wallace McHarg Roberts and Todd), initiating a close connection between the department and professional practice that persists to this day. With a single exception, tenured faculty in the 1960s were all practicing landscape architects.
The decade from 1965–1975 was one of growth in universities throughout the country, from which Penn’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning also profited. In 1965, a large grant from the Ford Foundation enabled McHarg to establish a new Regional Planning program and to assemble a faculty in natural sciences (meteorology, geology, soils science, ecology, and computer science). In the early 1970s a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health permitted McHarg to add several anthropologists to the faculty and to integrate social sciences into the curriculum. The integration of research and practice in community service has been a long-standing tradition in the department since the 1970s, when faculty and students produced an environmental plan for the town of Medford, New Jersey, and the Landscape Development Plan for the Penn campus.
While enrollment in landscape architecture remained stable during the 1970s, with a modest increase, enrollment in the regional planning program soared and shaped faculty tenure appointments (all three tenure appointments from the late 1970s to early 1980s were natural and social scientists). By 1985, with changes in governmental policies and reduced funding for environmental programs, the enrollment in regional planning collapsed and many landscape architects on the faculty reduced their teaching commitment and shifted their focus again to practice. Indeed, the department served as a laboratory and launching pad for many new professional practices, with nationally prominent firms such as WMRT (now WRT) and Collins DuTot (now Delta Group) in the 1960s, Hanna/Olin (now OLIN) in the 1970s, Andropogon Associates in the 1970s, and Coe Lee Robinson (now CLRdesign Inc.) in the 1980s.
In 1986, Anne Whiston Spirn was recruited to succeed McHarg as chair with the mandate of extending the department’s legacy and renewing its commitment to landscape design and theory. The task of the next eight years was to reshape the full-time faculty in order to teach landscape architects—now the vast majority of students in the department—and to rebuild the regional planning program in collaboration with the Department of City and Regional Planning. In the 1980s and 1990s the department’s tradition of community service continued with the West Philadelphia Landscape Plan and Greening Project that engaged faculty and students with neighborhood residents in the planning, design, and construction of local landscape improvements.
The 1990s were a period of growing deficits and shrinking financial resources in universities throughout the nation, and Penn’s Graduate School of Fine Arts was no exception. Despite these constraints, the department continued to respond to the needs of landscape architecture education and practice. Indeed, since the late 1960s a central idea sustaining the curriculum has been process—process in terms of design, ecology, and social ideas, especially as these relate to the needs of the profession. The addition of humanist and artistic perspectives to natural and social scientific emphases culminated in a major revision of the curriculum during 1993 and 1994.
In 1994, John Dixon Hunt was appointed professor and chair of the department. He continued the department’s strong tradition of chairs as authors and editors and brought an established international reputation as one of the world’s leading theorists and historians of landscape architecture. Between 1994 and 1999, the faculty developed significant advances in the collaboration between design and conceptual or theoretical inquiry, giving landscape architectural design a fresh visibility at the critical edge of practice. Hunt also launched an internationally recognized publication series on landscape topics, the University of Pennsylvania Press Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture.
In May 2000, James Corner, a graduate of the MLA program under Ian McHarg, was named department chair. His commitment to advancing contemporary ideas and innovative design set the ongoing tone of the department, where renewed emphases upon ecology, technology, digital media, theory, and urbanism drive the design studio sequence to this day. His own practice, Field Operations, has produced many well-known works of early twenty-first century landscape architecture including New York
City’s High Line. Together with other recognized practices affiliated with the program—including OLIN, WRT Design, Andropogon, PEG, and PORT Urbanism—a strong presence of professional practice greatly enriches the landscape architecture program at Penn.
In July 2003, the Graduate School of Fine Arts changed its name to the School of Design. This change reflected the broader nature of the departments and programs under its domain together with the School’s emphasis upon design. Under the previous Deans, Gary Hack and Marilyn Jordan Taylor, and now with the leadership of Dean Fritz Steiner, the School has enjoyed a renewed commitment to transdisciplinary work, scholarly and professional leadership, and international visibility—all of which have directly benefited and enriched the landscape architecture program. In 2019, the school was renamed the Weitzman School of Design in honor of a generous endowed gift from the designer and Penn alumnus Stuart Weitzman.
In January 2013, Richard Weller joined the faculty as professor and department chair, succeeding James Corner. During Weller’s term as chair, the department renewed its commitment to social and environmental justice and increased its international prominence through a series of highprofile events, the establishment of the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, and the launch of its award-winning interdisciplinary journal of landscape architecture, LA+ Journal.
In July 2023, Catherine Seavitt was appointed as Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism. Together with Dean Steiner, she serves as the faculty co-director of the McHarg Center and is the creative director of LA+ Journal, with faculty editor-in-chief, Associate Professor Karen M’Closkey.
A full history of the department from its first courses in landscape architecture in 1914 through 2014 can be found in Transects: 100 Years of Landscape Architecture at the School of Design of the University of Pennsylvania (ARDP, 2014). In the fall of 2024, the school celebrated the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Department of Landscape Architecture with the international symposium Landscape Futures.
STANDING FACULTY
Catherine Seavitt, Department Chair, Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism
Frederick Steiner, Dean and Paley Professor
Randall Mason, Professor (joint appointment with Historic Preservation)
Karen M’Closkey, Associate Professor
Christopher Marcinkoski, Associate Professor
Sean Burkholder, Associate Professor
Robert Pietrusko, Associate Professor
Nicholas Pevzner, Assistant Professor
Azzurra Cox, Assistant Professor
Jessica Varner, Assistant Professor
ASSOCIATED FACULTY
Michelle Delk, Laurie Olin Professor of Practice
Matthijs Bouw, Professor of Practice (joint appointment with Architecture)
David Gouverneur, Associate Professor of Practice (joint appointment with City Planning)
Ellen Neises, Associate Professor of Practice
Lucinda Sanders, Adjunct Professor
William Young, Adjunct Associate Professor
EMERITUS FACULTY
James Corner
John Dixon Hunt
Laurie Olin
Dan Rose
Dana Tomlin
Richard Weller (1963–2025)
FULL-TIME LECTURERS
Keith VanDerSys, Senior Lecturer
Rebecca Popowsky, Lecturer
Leah Kahler, McHarg Fellow
PART-TIME LECTURERS
Larissa Belcic
Molly Bourne
Greg Burrell
Stephanie Carlisle
Dilip da Cunha
Candace Damon
Anna Darling
Oscar Grauer
Marie Hart
Nick Jabs
Dorothy Jacobs
Anneliza Kaufer
Rebecca Klein
Yadan Luo
Todd Montgomery
Misako Murata
Rebecca Popowsky
Callahan Seltzer
Krista Reimer
Jae Yun Shin
Cindy Skema
Abdallah Tabet
Meghan Talarowski
Judy Venonsky
Patty West
Sally Willig
I
Curriculum Studios Workshops
Media
Urban Ecology History/Theory Elective Courses
Independent Studies
THREE-YEAR MLA REQUIREMENTS
For students with a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree, the total course units required for graduation in the three-year first professional degree program are 28.
TWO-YEAR MLA REQUIREMENTS
For students with a professionally accredited Bachelor of Landscape Architecture or Bachelor of Architecture degree, the total course units for graduation from the two-year second professional degree program are 19.
Students with adequate prior experience may substitute Landscape Architecture elective courses for required courses with the permission of the instructor and with the approval of the Department Chair.
Students who waive required courses must earn at least 14 LARP credits plus the 5 elective credits needed to graduate with the MLA degree. Students may register for up to 5 course units per term.
* All 2-year MLA students are required to attend the Nature Systems/Ecology Week of the Summer Institute and to audit LARP 5130: Workshop II – Planting Design Audit (the schedule of classes is arranged to allow for these sessions to be offered during the first half of the fall term).
Victoria Maria
Montero Arias
Victoria Grace
Siakam-Assokom
Melissa Lynne Bleecker
Lindsay Eileen
Boettiger
Dagny Elise Carlsson
Bakari Joy Clark
Mark E Donofrio
Lily Du
Ou Du
Wenfei Du
Joyce Mengyuan Gu
Sarah Gyurina
Jaye Hoyte Hayes
Autumn Jeter
Bianca Isabella LaPaz
Jay Li
Sayli Limaye
Emily Rose Moses
Olivia Olmos
Tatum Marie Phillips
Reed Putnam
Ainsley Rhodes
Madeline Scolio
Alec Tobin
Amy Xu
Xingtong Yang
Critics: Sean Burkholder (coordinator), Azzurra Cox, Emma Mendel
Teaching Assistants: Zuren Kikon, Harisa Martinos, Qian Li
This first core design studio focuses on ways of exploring, recording, and representing landscape—with an emphasis on material, space, time, and measure—through a range of physical engagements, drawings, and constructions. Students then use these explorations to re-imagine a transformed set of spatial and temporal conditions. Design work bridges digital and analog methods to establish and build hybrid forms of representation and making intended to capture the unique qualities of the landscape. Studio projects evolve through the coupling of site experiences and representational strategies that document and explore those experiences, lessons learned through precedent studies, and formal and conceptual exercises intended to develop new ways of seeing the landscape. Students explore and develop landscape-based skills that characterize and expand the discipline of landscape architecture as a valuable contributor in the intermeshed cultural, ecological, and political dialogues of our spatial world.
This second core design studio explores the relationships among sites, drawings, models, and the making of landscape architectural projects. The studio site is located along the Delaware riverfront in Fishtown, Philadelphia. This site presents a complex set of issues, including fragmentation, lack of access, and contamination. Through the design of a park, students study the roles of concept, organization, and form in establishing new assemblages of public space and the natural world while creating new relationships across the site, its immediate edges, and the larger region. Prior to site-specific work, students experiment with various methods and materials for making formal organization in two and three dimensions. The resulting drawings and models serve as analogous structures to envision possible future organizations and uses for the site. These studies are conducted alongside research and site interpretations ranging from photographs and sketches to measured drawings and diagrams. The objective of the studio is to unite imagination, creative speculation, pragmatic analysis, and technical competency to fully engage with the diverse considerations involved in creating a landscape project.
Xingtong Yang, model
Xingtong Yang, view (top), site plan (bottom)
Rachel Aaronson
Xuliang Ban
Brenton Shenen Cai
Adrian Marcelo Casas
Hannah Lee Cho
Chesney Floyd
Maeve Sheridan
Fogarty
Hanqing Gao
Xiaoyou Guo
Thomas Owen Hellman
Madi Shay Howard
Yuanqi Hu
Haoyuan Huai
Robin Jia
Seoyeon Jeon
Xiaodong Jin
Andrew Nicholas Kennedy
Suhyun Kim
Carson Lin
Baoying Liu
Chenyang Liu
Lydia Huitong Li
Qian Li
Zhenxi Li
Clio Sophia Louise
Macrakis
Dorian Lee Madden
Noa Mori Machover
Harisa Martinos
Shreya Mehta
Nate Meyer Ramsey
Poom Sheeranangsu
Megan Kathleen
Singleton
Ben Joseph Stahl
Daniel Su
Darren Tindall
Laura Elizabeth
VanKoughnett
Liz VanDerwerken
Gabe Quinn Weber
Zihan Wei
Anna Wu
Kexin Xu
Yihang Xu
Binyu Yang
Junyi Yang
Yifei Yuan
Jichu Zhang
Lillian Zhang
Siyu Zhang
Yunzhe Zhang
Yalei Zhu
Critics: Catherine Seavitt (coordinator), Molly Bourne, Nicholas Pevzner, Rebecca Popowsky
The third core design studio focuses on current environmental and social issues in the regional urban landscape, with an emphasis on areas impacted by human activities. We will explore issues of environmental justice and equity, industries and labor, green gentrification, pollution and remediation, novel ecosystems, climate adaptation, and coastal advance/retreat, in addition to conducting field visits, developing critical site analyses, and proposing spatialized design propositions. Research, representation, and design projections will engage with multiple scales of action: from the miniature to the panoramic, from the botanical to the regional. Students in Studio III will develop methodologies for understanding and communicating the complexities of a multi-scalar site, and they will work iteratively on design strategies for spatializing projected design futures. We emphasize systemic thinking at the regional scale— revealing and understanding systems and their overlaps as interacting and entangled—and we explore iterative and projective methodologies leading to spatial propositions across a gradient of multiple, nested scales. Students will record, describe, deconstruct, reveal, and reimagine selected systems and their overlaps. Through a research-informed process, students will then develop methodologies for selecting a territory and working iteratively on design strategies for spatializing projected futures.
Andrew Kennedy, view (left), detail plan (center and right)
Andrew Kennedy, view (left), detail plan (center and right)
Andrew Kennedy, site map
Rachel Aaronson
Xuliang Ban
Adrian Marcelo
Casas
Brenton Shenen Cai
Hannah Lee Cho
Hanqing Gao
Xiaoyou Guo
Madi Shay Howard
Yuanqi Hu
Haoyuan Huai
Seoyeon Jeon
Xiaodong Jin
Robin JIA
Andrew Nicholas
Kennedy
Suhyun Kim
Lydia Huitong Li
Qian Li
Zhenxi Li
Baoying Liu
Chenyang Liu
Carson Lin
Clio Sophia Louise
Macrakis
Dorian Lee Madden
Harisa Martinos
Shreya Mehta
Nate Meyer Ramsey
Poom Sheeranangsu
Megan Kathleen
Singleton
Ben Joseph Stahl
Daniel Su
Darren Tindall
Liz VanDerwerken
Laura Elizabeth
VanKoughnett
Gabe Quinn Weber
Zihan Wei
Anna Wu
Kexin Xu
Yihang Xu
Yufei Fan
Maeve Sheridan
Fogarty
Thomas Owen
Hellman
Yufei Fan
Junyi Yang
Binyu Yang
Yifei Yuan
Jichu Zhang
Lillian Zhang
Siyu Zhang
Yunzhe Zhang
Yalei Zhu
CENTRAL PHILADELPHIA FRAMEWORKS
Critics: Christopher Marcinkoski (coordinator), Todd Montgomery, Jae Shin, Yadan Luo
This fourth and final core design studio focuses on equipping students with the capacity to engage in the shaping of the built environment of the city through physical urban design—specifically, the physical design of a city’s public realm. The studio imparts students with five fundamental capacities essential to the contemporary practice of landscape architecture in an existing urban setting. These include an ability to read and evaluate the built environment/physical urban form; understanding the non-physical systems that structure the built environment; familiarity with the transformative function of the public realm; capacity to define and articulate an urban design proposal; and elevated familiarity with the built environment of Philadelphia. For the purposes of the studio, students develop proposed interventions through a FRAMEWORK—a collection of interconnected urban elements and actions composed and organized in such a way as to facilitate both short- and long-term urban transformation. Students are asked to take an assets-based approach, emphasizing both recognizable and latent opportunities already present within a community, affirming the unique characteristics of a place.
Carson Lin and Junyi Yang, model
Carson Lin and Junyi Yang, diagram (top), view (center and bottom)
Sierra Alexandra
Caley
Yingzi Cui
Wenshu Huang
Zuren Thungdemo
Kikon
Shangyi Liu
Ankita Nagwekar
Ravina Puri
Shuying Rong
Hanzhang Xiao
Shuyuan Zhang
Yi Zhang
Yixuan Zhou
URBAN FUTURES, TOKYO BAY, JAPAN
Critic: Christopher Marcinkoski
Teaching Assistant: Sierra Caley
This advanced design studio explored speculative futures for Tokyo Bay through the intersection of philosophy, ecology, and design. Drawing from recent texts on the Anthropocene, degrowth, and speculative design—including Kohei Saito’s Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto and Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s Speculative Everything—students imagined Tokyo in 2055, re-envisioning the city’s reclaimed landscapes as sites of social and ecological transformation. Working in pairs, students crafted narrative and visual depictions of short works of “socio-economic climate fiction” set within the public spaces of a future Tokyo—developing written stories, digital drawings, and physical dioramas that speculated on new urban and ecological conditions. Grounded in the historical and environmental context of Tokyo Bay’s extensive land reclamation, the studio invited critical reflection on capitalism, growth, and environmental justice while challenging technological and economic assumptions embedded in contemporary urban redevelopment initiatives. The studio embraced speculative design as a method to envision plausible, post-growth urban futures that balanced human flourishing with planetary limits.
Zuren Thungdemo Kikon and Yi Zhang, view
Zuren Thungdemo Kikon and Yi Zhang, view
Zuren Thungdemo Kikon and Yi Zhang, view (left and above)
Joseph John Bondi
Devon Caroline Bruzzone
Maggie Chen
Maria Elizabeth
Fairchild
Yucheng Feng
Clarasophia Zigana
Winje Gust
Chaowu Li
Ruiyang Li
Saw Yu Nwe
Minzhi Tang
Qiyu Wang
Xinyun Xie
Cassie Zhuang
Critics: Ellen Neises, David Gouverneur, Rob Levinthal
Teaching Assistant: Joseph Bondi
This interdisciplinary Studio+ engaged planning and design students in developing a vision for the Dakar Greenbelt, an urban extension of Africa’s Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI)—a continental effort to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land across the Sahel. The studio examined how this ecological and social infrastructure could take shape within Dakar, Senegal’s rapidly urbanizing capital, balancing growth with conservation and resilience. Working in collaboration with the Senegalese Department of Water and Forestry, the French National Center for Scientific Research, and PennPraxis, students contributed to a UN-supported feasibility study exploring green and blue infrastructure networks for metropolitan Dakar. Through fieldwork, stakeholder workshops, and speculative design, participants analyzed urban systems, informal settlements, and ecological resources, proposing strategies to restore biodiversity, manage water, and mitigate urban heat. The Dakar Greenbelt studio advanced the mission of Studio+, a Weitzman School initiative promoting interdisciplinary action on climate resilience, equity, and community partnership—linking design research to implementation and envisioning an inclusive and sustainable urban future for Dakar and beyond.
Joseph Bondi and Saw Yu Nwe, plan
Joseph Bondi and Saw Yu Nwe, view
Joseph Bondi and Saw Yu Nwe, view
Fabienne Sigrid Bick
Deanna Elizabeth
Botkin
Youyou Fu
Shubhra Goel
Athena Lee
Yingqiao Li
Yuqian Liu
Nitya Patel
Lillia Jean Schmidt
Fanyin Xu
Chun-Cheng Yeh
Jiarui Zhang
LUDIC FUTURES:
Critic: Nick Jabs, Meghan Talarowski
Teaching Assistant: Nitya Patel
This design studio explored how the human capacity for play can strengthen social and environmental resilience in the face of climate change. Set in Shkodër, Albania, a city shaped by historical transformation and climate vulnerability, the studio examined how playful design can inspire community connection, equity, and adaptation to environmental extremes. Students investigated how play—an essential, lifelong mode of learning and joy—can inform public space design across cultural and climatic contexts. Students developed site-specific design proposals that addressed flooding, urban heat, and social inclusion while promoting opportunities for movement, creativity, and collective well-being.
Collaborating with local partners and city leaders in Shkodër and Tirana, students engaged in fieldwork, workshops, and seminars focused on the history and psychology of play, play as urban infrastructure, and play as a process of design. By centering joy, imagination, and collaboration, the course demonstrated how designing for play can become a catalyst for human and ecological flourishing in an era of rapid environmental change.
Deanna Elizabeth Botkin and Fabienne Sigrid Bick, detail plan
Deanna Elizabeth Botkin and Fabienne Sigrid Bick, diagrams
Kaustabh Banerjee
Sanika Subhash
Bhide
Harrison Rollinson
Hale
Yitian Lu
Peiyao Luo
Priyanjali Sinha
Kai-Ling Chen
Kodak Han
Myo Myint Han
Wei Li
Alexia Luo
Nadine Nashef
Wenyi Zhang
Critic: Matthijs Bouw
Teaching Assistant: Yitian Lu
This interdisciplinary design studio examined how New York City might adapt to the climate crisis by uncovering and reimagining its buried landscapes—its former creeks, wetlands, and marshes—and integrating them into a more resilient urban fabric. The studio investigated how ecological systems can inform future urban transformations in a postfossil world. Students began by researching New York’s natural and urban histories, focusing on climate risk, environmental justice, stormwater management, and community adaptation. A study trip to the Netherlands provided insight into global models of water management and ecosystembased urbanism. Students developed design proposals for sites such as Tibbetts Brook in the Bronx and Kissena Creek in Queens, envisioning how restored waterways could mitigate flooding, reduce carbon, and enhance biodiversity while serving community needs. The studio emphasized design as a tool for collaboration across scales and disciplines—linking natural history, social equity, and climate adaptation. Together, these projects formed a speculative atlas for a climate-just New York, demonstrating how design can “make room for water” while reimagining the city’s future.
Harrison Hale and Myo Han, site map
Harrison Hale and Myo Han, detail plan (top), view (middle and bottom)
Hsin-Cheng Chien
Chesa Siyue Wang
Yingxuan Yang
Yousef Fahed Almana
Carlotta Claire
De Bellis
Ruoxi Li
Kelly Lopez
Natsuko Tiffany Nozaki
Jeremy Hoang Pham
Holly Nicole Smithberger
Qinjunkai Yan
Qiang Zhang
Critics: Annette Fierro and Matthias Armengaud, ENSAV
Weitzman team: Annette Fierro, Eduardo Rega, Perry Kulper, Robert Pietrusko, Sebastienne Mundheim
Teaching Assistant: Joseph Depre
Architecture exists in a constant state of negotiation with its ecological context—its permanence continually challenged by nature’s reclaiming forces. This studio began by accepting the transient character of architecture and examined how built form, landscape, climate, and nonhuman agents interacted over time. Students explored the reciprocal evolution of architecture and environment through mapping, drawing, and narrative forms that revealed systems of exchange and transformation. The studio travel site, a bend of the Seine River outside Paris, offers a landscape shaped by industrial use, ecological change, and cultural memory. Through field research and analytical mapping, students uncovered the temporal patterns and hidden rules governing this dynamic territory. The semester culminated in a collaborative “opera,” a live interdisciplinary performance merging spatial, temporal, and sonic explorations into a collective expression of place. Conducted jointly between studios in Philadelphia and Versailles, the course fostered collaboration across disciplines and cultures, reimagining how architecture and landscape might coexist amid climatic and social transformation.
Hsin-Cheng
Chien, Ruoxi Li, Natsuko Nozaki, and Qiang Zhang, diagram (above), Urban Opera performance, photos courtesy Annette Fierro
Yousef Almana, Jeremy Pham, Yingxuan Yang, and Qinjunkai Yan, diagram (above and opposite page), model (top left)
Kaustabh Banerjee
Devon Caroline
Bruzzone
Maggie Chen
Zuren Thungdemo
Kikon
Ruiyang Li
Yuqian Liu
Saw Yu Nwe
Nitya Patel
Lillia Jean Schmidt
Xinyun Xie
Menghan Yu
Yi Zhang
ADAPTING WITH ATLANTA
Critics: Michelle Delk and Kurt Marsh
Teaching
Assistant: Kelvin Vu
This studio engaged the dynamic systems that shaped Atlanta’s urban landscape, focusing on the adaptive transformation of sites along a selected transect of the city. Each site reflected intertwined political, social, and environmental histories that informed the city’s challenges and potential. The work emphasized observation, listening, and interpretation as central to design inquiry—revealing the unseen rather than overwriting what existed. Students investigated how resilience, equity, and environmental justice intersected through design strategies that revitalized not individual buildings, but entire sites and infrastructures. Throughout the semester students engaged with experts (including architects, engineers, scientists, foresters, and others) and discussed how their efforts are relevant to specific contexts (including legal, ethical, and/or cultural frameworks). Collaboration with communities cultivated shared visions rooted in collective understanding. Through lectures, readings, and hands-on modeling, participants explored spatial relationships above and below ground to develop adaptive and responsive interventions. The studio framed design as a process of uncovering connections and reimagining urban systems in ways that honored Atlanta’s ecological, cultural, and historical complexity.
Nitya Patel, site plan
Nitya Patel, views
Fabienne Sigrid Bick
Joseph John Bondi
Hsin-Cheng Chien
Athena Lee
Chaowu Li
Shuying Rong
Qiyu Wang
Zhijie Wang
Chun-Cheng Yeh
Jiarui Zhang
Critic: Dilip da Cunha
Teaching Assistant: Joseph Bondi
This studio examined the dynamic relationship between land and water and the capacity of design to reimagine their boundaries. The work positioned the designer as a catalyst for redefining place through an expanded understanding of environmental, cultural, and hydrologic systems. The premise challenged the conventional separation of land and water—an idea increasingly untenable amid rising seas, flooding, and ecological transformation. Rome served as the site of inquiry, defined by its dual identity as a city both on and within the Tiber River. Through the concept of the traverse—an act of movement, measurement, and discovery— students engaged the city through section-based and experiential methods. Mapping, walking, photographing, and diagramming revealed layered relationships between surface and subsurface, permanence and fluidity. The studio emphasized the articulation of new spatial narratives that dissolved boundaries between the solid and the liquid, the human and the natural. Collective and individual investigations culminated in drawings and representations that speculated on future modes of inhabiting and designing within fluid landscapes.
Chaowu Li, diagram (above and opposite page)
Deanna Elizabeth
Botkin
Yingzi Cui
Maria Fairchild
Clarasophia Zigana
Winje Gust
Harrison Rollinson
Hale
Mariya Lupandina
Noa Mori Machover
Ankita Nagwekar
Shuyuan Zhang
Critic:
Larissa Belcic
Teaching
Assistant: Deanna Botkin
This studio explores the design of large-scale, life-affirming landscapes that cultivate intimacy and connection between human and nonhuman worlds. The studio centered on the lower Hackensack River, a polluted and postindustrial landscape undergoing ecological remediation. Design serves as a medium for imagining new relationships with damaged environments— ones grounded in care, reciprocity, and collective healing. The work engaged the idea of remediation as both material and emotional restoration, seeking forms of healing that extend beyond toxin removal. Through rigorous research, field investigation, and multi-sensory experimentation, students developed spatial propositions that reimagine the river’s future as joyful, just, and interconnected. Projects emphasized the creation of vessels, stages, and scaffolds that host encounters across ecological and social boundaries, encouraging participation, reflection, and renewal. The studio integrated environmental data, sensory experience, and dreamlike imagination to propose spaces of encounter that blend precision with poetry. Designs unfolded as experiential and cultural visions of a river transformed—inviting new ways of living, relating, and thriving together within shared ecological systems.
Deanna Elizabeth Botkin and Noa Mori Machover, drawing
Deanna Elizabeth Botkin and Noa Mori Machover, site map
Deanna Elizabeth Botkin and Noa Mori Machover, model, with photos courtesy Maria Fairchild
URBAN DESIGN
RESEARCH
STUDIO
Yousef Fahed Almana
Sanika Subhash Bhide
Sierra Alexandra Caley
Yucheng Feng
Youyou Fu
Shubhra Goel
Wenshu Huang
Yingqiao Li
Shangyi Liu
Yitian Lu
Yuming Lu
Peiyao Luo
Andreina S Sojo
Minzhi Tang
Chesa Siyue Wang
Hanzhang Xiao
Fanyin Xu
Yingxuan Yang
Yixuan Zhou
Cassie Zhuang
SOBRAL,
Critics: David Gouverneur and Oscar Grauer
Teaching
Assistant: Andreina Sojo
This studio examined the evolving relationship between the city of Sobral, Brazil, and the Acaraú River, investigating how urban growth, environmental change, and cultural identity intersect within a landscape of rich biodiversity and dynamic hydrology. As part of a broader series of Latin American studios exploring fast-growing cities in ecologically sensitive regions, the course considered how design could foster more resilient and equitable relationships between cities and their natural systems. Sobral, located along the Acaraú River at the foothills of the Meruoca Mountains, served as a case study for exploring how infrastructure, public space, and ecological restoration converge. Students developed strategies for reconnecting urban life to the river through flood-adaptive design, the rehabilitation of tributaries, and the creation of civic spaces that integrated ecology, recreation, and cultural identity. Research and design work addressed the ecological, social, and hydrological challenges of the Acaraú basin, recognizing the river’s role as both a connector and divider of the city. Fieldwork in the State of Ceará provided direct engagement with local communities, landscapes, and institutions. Through collaborative mapping, design iteration, and on-site exploration, students proposed interventions that envisioned a more balanced urban-river relationship, celebrating the river as a shared civic and ecological space.
Shubhra Goel, Peiyao Luo, Andreina Sojo, Minzhi Tang, Yixuan Zhou, Cassie Zhuang, site plan (above and right)
Workshop I explores a sequence of sites extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Appalachian Mountains that illustrates the changing geology and topography of the regional physiographic provinces, including the Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Valley and Ridge. In moving westward along the transect, field trips to natural areas and constructed sites will highlight the diversity of regional plant communities ranging from primary dune to salt marsh, serpentine Virginia pine-oak forest to seepage wetland, and more. Analysis of the inter-connections between the underlying geology, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, and human interventions will reveal patterns reflecting process and demonstrate key ecological and cultural systems and processes through the production of field notebooks as well as large-scale measured drawings. Ultimately, students develop a vocabulary (recognition, identification, and nomenclature) of the materials of landscape, its substance, its ecology, and its changing nature, owing to place and time.
Ainsley Rhodes, photo (above left), drawings (above center and right)
Workshop II explores two elemental tools in the practice of landscape architecture–landform and planting design–and their role in placemaking. The shaping and sculpting of the land is both art and science. Workshop II aims to provide an appreciation of landform as an evocative component in design vocabulary, a critical tool in resolving design challenges, and essential in addressing site performance and functionality. The basic techniques and strategies of grading design (slopes, terraces, water management, walls, and steps) are be introduced and applied so that grading design becomes an integral part of the students’ design approach. The planting component provides students with a working overview of the principles and processes of designing with plants from an ecological and artistic standpoint. The natural distribution of plants, concepts of plant community and successional patterns, and the relationship of planting and topography will be used as the framework for planting design as a dynamic system. During the first week of May, a five-day field ecology course focused on techniques of urban revitalization, sustainable land use, reclamation, and restoration. The field trips offer insight into the diversity of approaches to using plants to promote positive environmental change.
Bianca LaPaz, Tatum Marie Phillips, Alec Tobin, grading plan
Instructors: Anneliza Kaufer, Rebecca Klein, Anna Darling
Teaching Assistants: Maria Fairchild, Ankita Nagwekar
Building upon the skills and concepts developed in Workshops I and II, this intermediate workshop explores ways that designed natural systems (landform, hydrology, soils, and planting) can be used to address site performance and functionality. Through the lens of water, students explore ways to layer and weave natural systems with people and program. Topics such as green infrastructure and remediation showcase the potential of designed natural systems as essential components of resilient and meaningful placemaking. Students learn ways to communicate design intent through technical drawing and documentation. Lectures, case studies, field trips, and focused design exercises will enable students to develop facilities in the tools, processes and metrics by which landscape systems are designed, evaluated, built and maintained.
Clio Macrakis, photo (left), grading plan (right)
Clio Macrakis, sections
Instructors: Greg Burrell, Anneliza Kaufer, Becky Klein
Workshop IV focused on the process of communicating design intent with construction documents and how those documents are used to bring the design to fruition. Using their combined professional experience, the instructors used actual projects as a platform to demonstrate the range of elements and processes required. Knowledge was shared using a combination of lectures, discussions, and site visits to Philadelphia landscapes. Lectures focused on construction drawing standards, while site visits focused on details, materiality, and site systems. Topics covered included: preparation of construction documents; industry standards and the role of construction drawings and specifications; evolution of documentation through a project; organizational strategies; review of materials and site systems; coordination with allied disciplines and the development of construction details; and the review of construction precedents and typical sequences that influence design and documentation.
Building upon the skills and concepts developed in Workshops I and II, this intermediate workshop explores ways that designed natural systems (landform, hydrology, soils, and planting) can be used to address site performance and functionality. Through the lens of water, students explore ways to layer and weave natural systems with people and program. Topics such as green infrastructure and remediation showcase the potential of designed natural systems as essential components of resilient and meaningful placemaking. Students learn ways to communicate design intent through technical drawing and documentation. Lectures, case studies, field trips, and focused design exercises will enable students to develop facilities in the tools, processes and metrics by which landscape systems are designed, evaluated, built and maintained.
Madeline Scolio, section perspectives
Instructor: Keith VanDerSys
Teaching Assistants: Thomas Hellman, Qian (Amanda) Li
Workshop IV focused on the process of communicating design intent with construction documents and how those documents are used to bring the design to fruition. Using their combined professional experience, the instructors used actual projects as a platform to demonstrate the range of elements and processes required. Knowledge was shared using a combination of lectures, discussions, and site visits to Philadelphia landscapes. Lectures focused on construction drawing standards, while site visits focused on details, materiality, and site systems. Topics covered included: preparation of construction documents; industry standards and the role of construction drawings and specifications; evolution of documentation through a project; organizational strategies; review of materials and site systems; coordination with allied disciplines and the development of construction details; and the review of construction precedents and typical sequences that influence design and documentation.
Xingtong Yang, perspective view
Instructors: Robert Pietrusko
Teaching Assistants: Saw Yu Nwe, Youyou Fu, Qiyu Wang
How we draw spatial relations informs how we think about them. And how we think about spatial relations informs how we draw them. This is the fundamental cartographic enterprise. Stated so simply, it highlights how cartographic analysis and cartographic depiction go hand-in-hand and can help us explore design’s potential for both critique and world-making. In Media III, students will explore how concepts of space—its nature, organization, and our experience of it—are reflected in, and reinforced by, our drawings. This will include a critical examination of existing spatial datasets—their categories and conceits—as well as the development of new categories that emerge from our drawings. In addition to this theoretical exploration, Media III will provide technical foundations in spatial analysis and representation techniques that combine ArcMap, Rhino, and the Adobe Creative Suite. Students will learn to analyze not only what currently exist but to also determine what may exist. Likewise, students will learn conventional cartographic techniques, gaining confidence in their ability to experiment with these conventions to arrive at new forms of spatial representation. By combining spatial analysis with experimental drawings, students will explore how representations actively supports our design imagination at various scales, while also emphasizing the creation of detailed, beautiful, and evocative drawings that are informative to their audience.
Suhyun Kim, topographic map
Instructors: Nicholas Pevzner, Stephanie Carlisle
Teaching Assistants: Ankita Nagwekar, Nitya Patel
Urban ecology describes the interaction of the built and natural environment. Using the conceptual framework of socio-ecological systems, this course introduced students to the core concepts, processes, and vocabulary of contemporary urban ecology theory, research, and practice. It empowered students to analyze and interpret ecological systems and processes, and to develop more ecologically sound landscape design strategies. A combination of lectures, critical reading, and guest speakers explored the mechanisms underpinning ecological function and performance in urban ecosystems. Through a series of assignments, students applied principles gained in class to diagram and analyze the ecological processes operating on sites. By analyzing the application of ecological concepts in the design and management of urban landscapes, this course prepared students to understand the city as a dynamic, humaninfluenced system.
Chesney Floyd, process diagram
Instructor: Jessica Varner, PhD
Recitation Instructor: Miranda Mote, PhD
Teaching Assistants: Maeve Fogarty, Gabe Weber, Joseph Bondi
This course surveys landscape histories from a distinct perspective—to explore landscape processes and their knowledges over time, to think about the material cultures of landscape, to better understand changing landscapes, and to understand the stakes of landscapes now. Global in method, though with developments in North America at its center, this class orients students to landscape histories and the landscape studies of found and designed landscapes through geology, pedology, physiography, climate, vegetation, ecology, and more. Episodic rather than survey-like or encyclopedic, the course moves chronologically, thematically, and regionally, placing landscapes alongside other historical and interdisciplinary fields and voices, focusing on landscape processes that intersect with human (and nonhuman) lives. Each place, discipline, field, author, or object we encounter is understood in a conversation to comprehend systemic environmental change, ideas of nature, ecological politics, landscape transformation, and more. The class offers tools grounded in the humanities for interpreting found and designed landscapes, such as different ways of periodizing the past, narrating diverse voices and perspectives, and mapping historical change. In addition to reading, analyzing, and discussing texts, the course includes short collaborative projects involving archival visits, short readings, and engaged research site tours in which students are asked to participate. After completing this course, students should have the skills to research and interpret landscapes over time.
Bianca LaPaz, slow observation fieldwork
Instructor: Jessica Varner, PhD
Recitation Instructor: KC O’Hara
Teaching Assistants: Sierra Caley, Maeve Fogarty, Gabe Weber
We inhabit a climate-changed—and changing—world. So, how do practitioners, designers, researchers, historians, artists, and writers make sense of it? How do we witness, notice, or respond to changing landscapes? In diverse writing methods woven throughout this semester, the course practices observation and relationship-building through writing with the living world. The course centers on key topics in contemporary landscape discussions, in addition to reading, analyzing, and discussing texts. Pacing is critical in tuning to shifting landscapes—spending time in a place learning, visiting diverse locations, understanding the complexities between categories of place and time, and knowing nuanced language and words that describe or have described change in the 20th and 21st centuries. The active course includes site visits, short readings, and engaged writing workshops with leading landscape scholars. The course assignments teach how to read landscapes and write about them, think about time and place together, how writing in and with history requires different modes of evidence and witnessing, and that history and writing are active conversations in landscape studies—through the academic essay and beyond. After completing this course, students should have the skills to interpret and write about landscapes over time.
Emily Moses, images from the Lawrence Halprin archive, courtesy Penn Architectural Archives
Topics in Representation (fall) MERCURIAL MAKING
Instructor: Matt Neff
This course explores the unpredictable and transformative nature of landscapes, emphasizing change, uncertainty, and material process as central to design thinking. Students develop a “watery imagination”—an approach that embraced iteration, chance, and observation to understand how landscapes evolve beyond fixed representation. Through lectures, discussions, and hands-on demonstrations, students investigate traditional and experimental printmaking techniques alongside field-based observation and material experimentation. Projects focus on translating temporal and environmental processes into iterative works rather than static images, cultivating new ways to visualize and engage dynamic environments. The course emphasizes inclusivity, collaboration, and respect, welcoming students from all backgrounds and skill levels. By semester’s end, participants gain technical and conceptual skills for representing transformation and temporality in landscape, using making as both a creative and critical act. The course positions image-making as a mode of inquiry into how we perceive, inhabit, and reimagine living environments.
Topics in Representation (spring) HAND DRAWING FOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
Instructor: Jack Ohly
This course develops each student’s drawing sensibility, range, and skill as essential tools for seeing, imagining, and communicating design ideas. Through a series of exercises and projects, students engage in the dialogue between observation and imagination—between faithful representation and creative projection. Working with a range of media, students practice composing and rendering space, form, and atmosphere while learning to take risks and experiment with new techniques. Most class sessions focus on active drawing, often outdoors, complemented by group discussions and reviews of drawings from the broader worlds of design and fine arts. By the end of the course, students strengthen their ability to use drawing as a powerful means of inquiry, experimentation, and design communication from concept to presentation.
Topics in Professional Practice (fall) INQUIRY AND RESEARCH FOR TRANSFORMATION
Instructor: Lucinda Sanders
This course is designed for students who seek to bring about transformation. Using inquiry and research as the vehicle for intellectual growth and the development of self, the semester is dedicated to bringing forward the voices of emerging landscape architects thereby enhancing the efficacy of ambitions in the context of our professional milieu. Whether embarking on a first-
Matt Neff, Mercurial Making, installation photos
Poom Sheeranangsu, Hand Drawing for Landscape Architecture, drawings
time journey of research and inquiry or continuing an established trajectory of research, the cohort works together in dialogue offering mutual support and peer review during lively and probing weekly seminar discussions and presentations. Topics of research and the development of the research questions are explored during the first half of the semester and are refined and crystalized in the second half, including the expansion of an in-depth literature review and the design of the research. Because the researcher can likely never be fully separated from the research, this semester-long investigation becomes a powerful mechanism for developing voices of leadership directed toward positive multi-scalar transformations.
Topics in Professional Practice (spring) DESIGNING ENGAGEMENT
Instructor:
Ellen Neises
This course is an opportunity to participate in research, thinking, making, and conversation about projects that explore ways that community and design leaders can work together to catalyze transformational design, planning, and place-keeping from the ground up. The course goals are to learn from diverse voices about ambitious projects designed in community, to share knowledge and experience through dialogue, and to train ourselves for new practices of creative, collective action. The course involves two concurrent lines of inquiry. Students will learn from texts, speakers, and case study projects that are outstanding examples of community-engaged design practice. Conversations will take place with thinkers and doers in community organizations, consensus organizing, and the design, planning, heritage, and art fields. Students will consider how design can contribute to culture-shifting dialogue between public agencies, funders, and communities, and between communities and the wider coalitions they might form.
Topics in Landscape History and Theory ENVIRONMENTAL READINGS (spring)
Instructor: Fritz Steiner
This course is an opportunity to participate in research, thinking, making, and conversation about projects that explore ways that community and design leaders can
work together to catalyze transformational design, planning, and place-keeping from the ground up. The course goals are to learn from diverse voices about ambitious projects designed in community, to share knowledge and experience through dialogue, and to train ourselves for new practices of creative, collective action. The course involves two concurrent lines of inquiry. Students will learn from texts, speakers, and case study projects that are outstanding examples of community-engaged design practice. Conversations will take place with thinkers and doers in community organizations, consensus organizing, and the design, planning, heritage, and art fields. Students will consider how design can contribute to culture-shifting dialogue between public agencies, funders, and communities, and between communities and the wider coalitions they might form.
Topics in Digital Media (fall) BAYWATCH: MEDIATED ENVIRONMENTS
Instructor: Keith VanDerSys
The Delaware estuary is an unparalleled economic and ecological resource to our region. Yet the lives it sustains, human or otherwise, are increasing imperiled by its ever-changing dynamics. While landscape architects may make claims to coastal resilient expertise, they know little of the environmental information and modeling that forms the foundations in which estuarine dynamics are conceived, projected, and managed. As such, this course introduces students to the practical and speculative opportunities afforded through data collection and modeling of hydrological processes, both computationally and physically. Through hands-on field collection exercises and in-class demos, students are introduced to an array of sensing and modeling tools such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV); GPS survey receivers; hydrodynamic simulation modeling (SRH-2d/ ADCIRC/ SLAMM); and physical flume modeling. In addition to on-site collection trips and software demos, the seminar is supplemented with readings and discussions around theories of “media ecology” as a method to conceptually ground the work beyond a simple fascination with landscape metrics. The seminar also partners with local and federal representatives who are currently working on the coastal wetlands of New Jersey.
Yufei Fan and Yalei Zhu, Designing Engagement, drawing
Topics in Digital Media (spring) SENSING AND SENSIBILITIES: DRONES, SATELLITES, AND GENERATIVE AI
Instructor: Keith VanDerSys
In the history of cartography, land and water are linked opposites, mutually supporting and defining, neither viable nor conceivable without the other. Separating land from water is a fundamental cartographic act. This seminar introduces students to the technical and theoretical ways in which shorelines are translated into regulating boundaries, representationally and politically. In today’s climate, flooding and sea-level rise have brought the lines between land and water into sharp focus as contested zones. Coastlines are not fixed; they rise and fall tidally, migrate as land subsides or precipitation varies, and are rearranged by waves and storms. Through hands-on field data collection, in-class demos, and guest lectures, this seminar introduces students to the tools and techniques central to coastal mapping and modeling: UAV photogrammetry (surveying), satellite image classification (sensing), HECRAS hydraulics (modeling) and Generative Adversarial Network AI (projecting). This seminar works with an interdisciplinary team that includes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, The Water Center at Penn, and the Eastwick Friends and Neighbors Coalition.
Topics
in Construction, Horticulture, and Planting Design (spring) BUILD IT!
Instructor: Abdallah Tabet
The detail is the moment of intersection between the conceptual and the practical, born out of the designer’s effort to merge an idealized vision with a set of imposed – and often conflicting – parameters and constraints. For some, the detail may contain the essence of a project, a representation of the idea made manifest. Yet it may also be the reason the whole thing falls apart. Through case studies of exemplary projects, lectures, discussions, and design exercises involving drawing, modeling, and fabrication at a range of scales, this seminar course explored detailing as an idea, as a process, and as a vital component of design practice and construction methodology. This course offered students the opportunity to develop a strong grounding in the logic and language of details, supporting continued inquiry and critical engagement with design.
Keith VanDerSys, Sensing and Sensibilities, inundation map
Topics in Construction, Horticulture, and Planting Design (fall) UNDERSTANDING PLANTS
Instructors:
Cindy Skema, Tim Block
This course provides an opportunity to learn about plants from varied perspectives: organismal, applied/ practical, aesthetic, environmental, and evolutionary. Utilizing the plant collection of the Morris Arboretum as a living laboratory and the expertise of arboretum staff, this course brings all students – novices and experts alike – to a better understanding of plants. The backbone of this course is focused on temperate woody plant identification, including natives and commonly cultivated ornamentals. Intercalated with this plant ID backbone is an introduction to plant form, families, reproduction, propagation, and evolution – all the topics necessary to grow a more sophisticated knowledge of these phenomenal living organisms.
Topics in Ecological Design (fall) RECLAMATION OF LARGE-SCALE SITES
Instructor: William Young
This course provides an in-depth exploration of key concepts in ecology, practical applications, remediation of brownfields, and carbon capture techniques. The course aims to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of ecological principles and their realworld applications. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, case studies, and hands-on projects, students develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and research skills relevant to the field of ecology. The course also delves into the ecological implications of human activities and explores innovative strategies to mitigate environmental challenges.
Topics in Theory and Design (spring) TAKES ON LAKES
Instructor: Sean Burkholder
This seminar starts with a critical interrogation of the contextual climates – cultural, political, economic, and ecological – that have participated in the creation or management of freshwater bodies (lakes) across the world. In many cases, this creation and management manifests itself in various forms of landscape infrastructure – results that are planned, designed, and engineered for particular ends. Students will use these infrastructure-contingent histories as a method of contextual intervention and world-building that will allow for the speculation of new presents and possible lake-centric futures. The work produced will serve as an example of the rhetorical role of speculation in design research and practice while fostering a larger understanding of the agency and value of freshwater bodies in our conceptualization of the world around us. Students will work creatively with the subject of the graphic novel/comic as a poignant, yet under-explored method of place-based communication within the discourse of landscape.
Topics in Theory and Design (spring) DESIGNING WITH RISK
Instructor: Matthijs Bouw
This research seminar investigates designing with risk, particularly as it relates to the problem of climate adaptation and resilience. The course explores potential roles and tools of design as a means of responding to risk in spatial, infrastructural, and policy projects at a variety of scales. In collaboration with faculty, fellow students, and thinkers in other disciplines, students develop a body of knowledge about risk and how it relates to streams of intellectual energy around resilience. They identify design tools and strategies to manage both climate risks and project risks. This research seminar collectively scopes the openings where design can have the greatest agency – in either reducing risk or leveraging the potential for change that risk and instability create.
Spencer Relihan, Takes on Lakes, drawing
Topics in Theory and Design (spring) PUBLIC HEALTH, CITIES, AND THE CLIMATE
CRISIS
Instructors: Matthijs Bouw, Janice Barnes
This course tackles the intersectional issues that climate change requires us to consider for public health and the design of cities. Jointly offered between Penn’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program and the Weitzman School of Design, the course explores the relationship between health and design as related to climate change. Community-based interdisciplinary design projects will raise climate change risk awareness across disciplines and identify strategies (policies, programs, projects) to ameliorate or adapt to those risks with health outcomes used as the benchmark for success, with design-thinking as a framework. These projects are identified with our collaborators across Penn and in collaboration with local communities, ultimately enabling students to co-create design strategies with these communities.
Topics in Theory and Design (spring) AESTHETICS AND METHODOLOGY
Instructor: Krista Reimer
Topics in Theory and Design (fall) DECOLONIZING LANDSCAPE: DESIGN IN A MILIEU OF OTHERING
Instructor: Dilip da Cunha
Landscape is a language conceived with intention and implemented with purpose. It asserts an earth surface called land, inscribes this surface with a line confining water, and puts this water to work for land, supplying and draining it among other labors. Over centuries, this land-served-by-water has been embraced as the ground of habitation, observation, disciplines, and governance. It has also been imposed on people everywhere, most of whom were encountered by the scientific expeditions, voyages of discovery, military campaigns, and settler initiatives that this ground triggers, even encourages. In the process, landscape has brought great success to some and much misery to others. Today, however, the surface and line are in trouble from rising seas, increasing storm events, floods, droughts, fires, species extinction, and migrations. Can we devise another language of place, a place that does not presume an earth surface? This course – structured around weekly presentations, discussion, readings, and on-going projects – explores ten means by which landscape is imposed on planet and people: land, river, floodplain, city, forest, garden, mountain, colony, nature, and representation. Each is a work of design.
Today, landscape aesthetics are imagined, promoted, and propagated largely through imaging. Given the world-wide range of images, one might expect this to have produced a broad array of aesthetic approaches; the result however has proven to be, on the contrary, remarkably homogenizing. This seminar explores possibilities for developing a wider range of approaches by scrutinizing how images are used in design methods and as a counterpoint investigating non-image-based methods. Through a series of analytic and generative techniques, students developed design work that took an articulate and considered position on aesthetics. Students deepened their knowledge on the history of landscape aesthetics, developed their individual design skills to advance critical aesthetic ideas, and had the opportunity to test experimental and unconventional approaches to landscape form, material, and expression.
Topics in Theory and Design (spring) CLONES, ZONES, AND MIGRANTS
Instructor: Leah Kahler
This seminar investigates the American tree and seed nursery trade industry as a critical yet often overlooked force shaping contemporary landscapes. Students trace the geographic, economic, and political systems that bring plant material from nursery to construction site, revealing how market demands, federal policy, and climate initiatives influence what – and how – we plant. Through readings, discussions, and guest talks with experts in nursery production, ecology, and landscape design, the course examines how current nursery
practices respond to growing calls for reforestation, urban cooling, and carbon capture. We seek to better understand the complex geographies, technical procedures, and tired narratives around plants, planting, and the landscapes and labor required to produce nursery stock. Students will analyze the tensions between market trends and ecological adaptation, exploring how design can engage more critically and creatively with the living supply chains that sustain built landscapes.
Topics in Theory and Design (spring) DESIGNING PLAY
Instructor: Yadan Luo
This course is dedicated to exploring the unique role of play in human development and playground design. We delve into the history of playgrounds, playground evolution alongside societal development, play observation, and playground design. The course emphasizes the importance of play in fostering creativity, problem-solving skills, and social interaction, highlighting how thoughtfully designed playgrounds can support these aspects of development. Students will study the history of playground design after WWII, the transformation of regulations and public perception over time, and analyze successful playground examples, both formal and informal, to understand how children play. The course also involves a hands-on, playful design process where students will conceptualize and create their own playgrounds. Utilizing a variety of tools and technologies, the design process itself becomes an act of play, encouraging students to experiment, collaborate, and innovate.
Topics in Urbanism (spring) CASE STUDIES AND URBAN DESIGN EXPLORATION
Instructor: David Gouverneur
Teaching Assistant: Adrian Casas
Over half of the world’s population lives in cities, many of them large metropolitan areas, megacities, and urban regions. This urbanization trend is expected to continue, particularly in the nations of the Global South. Climate change, environmental stress, energy scarcity, food and water shortages, social inclusion, and conflict resolution are some of the topics that will be at the center of the political debate and professional endeavors. To be responsive to such challenges it is important to understand the theoretical framework and the practices that have influenced city making throughout history, particularly those ideas that still shape the contemporary city and will continue to do so during the next decades. This course will also explore methods for advancing new criteria, design, planning, and managerial visions for urban design with innovative, meaningful, and appropriate morphological/ aesthetic implementation tools.
Topics in Urbanism (spring) IMPLEMENTATION OF URBAN DESIGN
Instructors: Candace Damon, Callahan Seltzer
This course focuses on the various ways in which urban design is affected by opportunities and constraints associated with market conditions, development feasibility, political and community dynamics, and the various incentives and restrictions applied by the public sector to influence development. The course walked students through the process of proposing and refining a redevelopment plan for a parking lot located in the vicinity of the University of Pennsylvania. Students were tasked with demonstrating the feasibility of their redevelopment plan from a market, financial, community, and public policy perspective. Students furthered their understanding of key concepts that drive urban transformation through case studies, group presentations, class debates, and conversations with leading design, real estate, and public sector professionals from the Philadelphia region and beyond.
Jingyi Ling, Clones, Zones, and Migrants, diagram
TMITBD: CHOREOGRAPHY AS METHOD: THREE MILE ISLAND IN MOVEMENT AND CRISIS (spring)
Student: Quoc-Kha (Kelvin) Vu
Faculty Advisors: Robert Girard Pietrusko, Catherine Seavitt
This LARP 7000-level independent studio is a performance-based experiment that applies choreographic theory, methods, and modes for landscape architecture research, analysis, and design to foreground landscape narratives on Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. It speculates on how performance can make choreographic dynamics sensible and how performative actions might productively intervene in the face of crisis. It also proposes avenues of practice for landscape architects as researchers, designers, performers, and bodies. Three Mile Island is the site of a famous nuclear reactor failure in 1979 and is now back in the news, as Microsoft recently signed a deal to reopen a reactor there in 2028 to power its data centers. The studio probes the island’s landscape history, entanglements, and identities through its environmental relations and material geographies. Four distinct choreographic concepts (scores, improvisational technologies, choreographic objects, and documentary choreography) are used to produce an intermedial landscape performance as the final deliverable.
SEA AND SURVIVAL IN PRACTICE: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND DATA ACQUISITION (fall)
Student: Joseph Bondi
Faculty Advisor: Sean Burkholder
Additional Advisors: Keith VanDerSys, Senior Lecturer
Paul Feuerstein, High Bar Harbor Marsh Committee
Jim Dugan, Mordecai Island Land Trust
Stuart Shore, Temple MLA
Through various conversations with stakeholders and working group members, specifically the team members leading the NEP grant application process, several layers of information and analysis were determined to be lacking from an initial grant application for Sea and Survival. In order to secure further grant funding, several layers of data acquisition would need to be pursued. The work includes verifying existing site conditions such as project area bathymetry, topography, shoreline measurement, soil analysis and bearing capacity, water level datums, water quality, land benchmark elevations, vegetation, habitat, and protected species inventory.
RECLAIMING STREETS IN PHILADELPHIA (spring)
Student: Lillia Schmidt
Faculty Advisor: Christopher Marcinkoski
This independent study proposal focuses on the intersection of play, child-friendly urban design, and pedestrian safety on Philadelphia’s streets. Inspired by William Penn’s civic-centered street grid and its transformation following the rise of vehicles, the study seeks to explore how streets once used as community play spaces have evolved into transitory, car-dominated zones. The project examines historical and contemporary street designs that incorporate play, their impacts on pedestrian safety, and how Philadelphia might use these precedents to enhance street functionality and safety. Research methods include interviews with stakeholders, observations of street typologies, and case study analyses. Expected outcomes include an academic paper and a series of advocacy-focused op-eds aimed at bridging the gap between urban design professionals and the broader public, fostering discussions on reimagining Philadelphia streets as equitable, child-friendly public spaces.
LANDSCAPES OF DISPLACEMENT: INTERCONNECTION AMIDST DISPLACEMENT ON THE THAI-MYANMAR BORDER (spring)
Student: Saw Yu Nwe
Faculty Advisor: Catherine Seavitt
Additional Advisor: Sarah Lopez
This independent study investigates the interconnections of refugee camps and temporary settlements for internally displaced people (IDPs) along the Thai-Myanmar border, focusing on the dynamic flows of aid, materials, food, people, and knowledge that sustain these communities. The ongoing conflict and displacement crises in Myanmar underscore the need
Kelvin Vu’s performance “TMITBD: Choreography as Method,” with photos by Chaowu Li
to understand both formal humanitarian aid systems and informal networks that blur the confining boundaries of the refugee settlements and defies the preconceived understanding of them as temporary, standalone systems. Using a combination of primary and secondary research methods, this study aims to map these networks and flows and analyze their impact on the settlement’s functionality and resilience. By integrating personal insights and academic rigor, this study challenges traditional notions of refugee settlements and emphasizes their complexity and adaptability. It seeks to contribute to the field of landscape architecture by exploring how these spaces function as dynamic, interdependent systems, and explores the processes of building with plant-based material circularity in “temporary” refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border.
POLICY-DRIVEN STRATEGIES AND RUST BELT REVITALIZATION (spring)
Student: Shuyuan Zhang
Faculty Advisor: Catherine Seavitt
This independent study explores the direct and indirect impacts of bipartisan policy on both international and domestic migration choices, as well as on urban revitalization and population growth in the United States’ Rust Belt. Migration dynamics in the Rust Belt have shifted due to deindustrialization and growing urban-rural disparities. Once an economic powerhouse, the region now faces challenges such as population decline, unemployment, and urban decay. As a result, policies such as Opportunity Zones and the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) have been introduced to attract migrants and investment to address these issues. This study examines how bipartisan policies influence migration choices, focusing on the tension between direct incentives (e.g., tax benefits, employment opportunities) and indirect impacts (e.g., economic growth, cultural environment). It also examines how policies developed under different political administrations converge or diverge in their effectiveness in addressing migration and socio-economic disparities.
CATALYTIC: THE EMBODIED LANDSCAPES OF PRECIOUS MINERALS (spring)
Student: Noa Mori Machover
Faculty Advisor: Catherine Seavitt
“Catalytic” is an interdisciplinary investigation of catalytic converter theft, exploring how global material economies and environmental phenomena become legible through place-based relationships. Through site research and interviews with scrap metal refiners and participants in informal economies, literature review, and spatial and material investigations, this study provides a foundation for a subsequent MLA/MFA thesis project. The independent study provides a proof-of-concept for process-driven inquiry foregrounding bodily engagement and spatial specificity.
HOW TO NOT STEP IN THE SAME RIVER TWICE (spring)
Student: Harrison Hale
Faculty Advisor: Sean Burkholder
By studying five dams along the Housatonic River in Western Massachusetts, this independent study investigates how humans’ relationships to rivers in
the American Northeast have changed during the processes of colonization up until the post-industrial era. These dams demonstrate a shift in how rivers and their sediments are valued, and how the infrastructure and traces of successive economic eras accumulate and interact. The goal of this study is to produce work that speculates thoughtfully about the future of the Housatonic River, even as a tourist economy threatens erasure of a complicated history. This requires an understanding of the history of pre- and post-colonial Massachusetts, the geology that made damming possible, the purpose of the dams, the level of pollutants present in the sediment that accumulated post industrialization, and the desires of people living adjacent to the river.
IMPLEMENTING THE DAKAR GREENBELT: NATUREBASED PILOT SITES FOR A RESILIENT FUTURE
(spring)
Student: Maria Fairchild
Faculty Advisor: Azzurra Cox
Additional Advisor: Ellen Neises
This independent study explores research and design of nature-based solutions for floodwater and public space infrastructure in peri-urban Dakar, Senegal to support the Dakar Greenbelt Initiative. Building on prior design work from the fall studio, the study will explore low-cost stormwater management strategies and develop construction-level drawings for pilot projects that can be implemented in 2025–2026. Deliverables include technical research on nature based solutions, design drawings for three pilot sites, and communication materials for local communities. This study will contribute to the understanding of resilient green-blue infrastructure in urbanizing areas while refining skills in research, documentation, and community-engaged design relevant to a future career in landscape architecture.
DESIGN AFTER DARK: URBAN LANDSCAPES IN THE COOLER HOURS
(spring)
Student: Sierra Caley
Faculty Advisor: Catherine Seavitt
Additional Advisor: Lucinda Sanders
Nocturnal design interventions may not be critical everywhere, but it seems particularly significant in urban districts that are embracing the concept of a 24-hour city. The relationship of landscape architecture and the night could be investigated through many different lenses; however, this study explores the potential of the increased use of urban landscapes in the darker, cooler hours of the day due to climate change. In the last decade, cities have been expanding their focus on latenight and early-morning hours, largely through 24-hour policy and economic initiatives. As more people engage in nighttime activities and gravitate toward the cooler hours between sunset and sunrise, these initiatives raise questions about the impact this will have on energy and resource consumption, accessibility, and adaptability of the public realm. Cultures with habitually warm climates have long adapted to night hours as a ‘leisure landscape’ because of the relief of cooler temperatures. However, many of our public spaces in the United States that serve as welcoming spaces during the day transform into uninviting spaces at night. This study askes how existing urban landscapes can adapt to new patterns of nighttime activity due to the impending increase in temperature.
II Graduates Student Awards ASLA Honor and Merit Awards
Master of Landscape Architecture
December 2024
Priyanjali Sinha
Mengjie Wang
May 2025
Kaustabh Banerjee
Sanika Subhash Bhide
Fabienne Bick
Joseph John Bondi
Deanna Elizabeth Botkin
Devon Caroline Bruzzone
Sierra Alexandra Caley
Zimeng Maggie Chen
Hsin-Cheng Chien
Yingzi Cui
Maria Elizabeth Fairchild
Yucheng Feng
Youyou Fu
Shubhra Goel
Clarasophia Zigana Winje Gust
Harrison Rollinson Hale
Wenshu Huang
Zuren Thungdemo Kikon
Yin Ching Lee
Chaowu Li
Ruiyang Li
Yingqiao Li
Shangyi Liu
Yuqian Liu
Yitian Lu
Peiyao Luo
Mariya Lupandina*
Ankita Manoj Nagwekar
Saw Yu Nwe
Nitya Rohitkumar Patel
Shuying Rong
Lillia Jean Schmidt
Andreína S Sojo Faria*
Minzhi Tang
Q. Kelvin Vu*
Chesa Siyue Wang
Qiyu Wang
Hanzhang Xiao
Xinyun Xie
Fanyin Xu
Yingxuan Yang
Chun-Cheng Yeh
Jiarui Zhang
Shuyuan Zhang
Yi Zhang
Yixuan Zhou*
Kexin Zhuang
*Dual-degree graduates
Ian L. McHarg Prize
Awarded to:
Maria Elizabeth Fairchild,
Clarasophia Zigana Winje Gust
Awarded to a graduating student who has demonstrated excellence in design which best exemplifies ecological ideals in contemporary and culturally pertinent ways. This prize is awarded in memory of Ian L. McHarg, 1920-2001, distinguished professor of landscape architecture, pioneer of ecological design and planning, and one of the most influential landscape architects of the twentieth century.
Laurie D. Olin Prize in Landscape Architecture
Awarded to:
Mariya Lupandina
Awarded to a graduating student who has achieved a high academic record and demonstrated design excellence in the making of urban places. Laurie D. Olin is one of the world’s foremost leaders in contemporary landscape architecture and founder of the internationally acclaimed OLIN studio in Philadelphia. The studio designs some of the world’s most significant urban public spaces. The prize was established by the OLIN studio in honor of Practice Professor Emeritus Olin who has served on Penn’s faculty of landscape architecture since 1974.
Faculty Medal in Landscape Architecture
Awarded to: Andreina Sojo
Awarded to graduating students with a high academic record in landscape architecture and outstanding leadership in contribution to the School.
Faculty Medal in Regional Planning Awarded to:
Sandra Saw Yu Nwe
Awarded to a graduating student with a high academic record in landscape architecture and outstanding contribution to the School in leadership.
Photo credit: Kait Privitera
John Dixon Hunt Prize in History, Theory, and Criticism Awarded to:
Quoc-Kha (Kelvin) Vu
Awarded to a graduating student who has shown particular distinction in the theoretical and critical understanding of landscape architecture.
Eleanore T. Widenmeyer Prize in Landscape and Urbanism Awarded to:
Shuying Rong, Wenshu Huang
Awarded to a graduating student who has achieved a high level of design synthesis between landscape and urbanism.
Narendra Juneja Medal Awarded to:
Lillia Schmidt
Awarded in memory of Associate Professor Narendra Juneja, who served the department with distinction from 1965 until his death in 1981, to a graduating student who has demonstrated deeply that they care for the ideas and ideals of the Department of Landscape Architecture.
George Madden Boughton Prize Awarded to:
Joseph John Bondi
Awarded to a graduating student in landscape architecture for excellent design with environmental and social consciousness, and evidence of potential for future effective action in the field of landscape architecture.
Robert M. Hanna Prize in Design Awarded to:
Chun-Cheng (Jason) Yeh
Awarded to a graduating student who has demonstrated great care for the craft, making and construction of landscape architecture. Established in 2010 by the OLIN studio in memory of Robert M. Hanna (1935–2003).
Faculty Acknowledgment Award for Design Progress (First-Year Student)
Awarded to:
Joyce Mengyuan Gu
Awarded to a first-year student in the three-year Master of Landscape Architecture program who has demonstrably advanced the furthest in their design capability across the course of their first year of study.
Faculty Acknowledgment Award for Design Progress
Awarded to:
Fabienne Sigrid Bick
Awarded to a graduating student who has demonstrably advanced the furthest in their design capability across the course of their years of study.
Faculty Acknowledgment Award for Service Awarded to:
Sierra Alexandra Caley, Shubhra Goel, Nitya Patel, Quoc-Kha (Kelvin) Vu
Awarded to a single student or small group of students who have made an exceptional extracurricular contribution to the program.
Faculty Acknowledgment Award for Experimentation and Innovation
Awarded to:
Zuren Thungdemo Kikon, Ravina Puri, Quoc-Kha (Kelvin) Vu Awarded to a graduating student who has applied a particularly high level of innovation and experimentation in their design projects.
OLIN Work Fellowship Awarded to: Gabe Webber
A prize and fellowship is awarded to an outstanding student entering their final year of study.
Wallace Roberts and Todd Fellowship Awarded to:
Andrew Kennedy Awarded to an outstanding student upon completion of the second year of the three-year program.
Bonnie and Gary Sellers Summer Internship Fellowship Awarded to:
Annie Parker
Established by Bonnie (CW’73) and Gary Sellers to allow students to pursue unfunded or under-funded summer internships or jobs in the design fields.
Susan Cromwell Coslett Traveling Fellowship Awarded to:
Dagny Carlsson
Established in memory of former Assistant Dean Susan Coslett, and awarded to students with an interest in traveling to gardens, a passion of Coslett’s.
Sachs Program for Arts Innovation
Student Creative Production Grant
Awarded to: Darren Tindall
The Sachs student grants support students at the University of Pennsylvania in their creative endeavors and provide increased access to the arts.
American Society of Landscape Architects Awards
Certificate of Honor recipients (3 students):
Maria Elizabeth Fairchild, Chen Cheng(Jason) Yeh, Quoc-Kha (Kelvin) Vu Certificate of Merit recipients (3 students):
Clarasophia Zigana Winje Gust, Mariya Lupandina, Sandra Saw Yu Nwe
Awarded to graduating landscape architecture students who have demonstrated outstanding potential for contribution to the profession.
Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship in Garden History and Design Awarded to:
Bakari Clark, Bianca LaPaz
Sponsored by the Garden Club of America (GCA), this fellowship was established in 2000 by Mr. and Mrs. Wilmer J. Thomas, Jr. and is awarded annually through the Landscape Architecture Foundation to an exceptional graduate student to assist with study and research at a leading American institution.
Studio III, view
Studio I, site surveys
Studio VI, model
Studio VI, section
Quoc-Kha (Kelvin) Vu, MLA/MArch 2025
Decolonizing Landscape, diagram, with Deanna Botkin
Performance of “TMITBD: Choreography as Method,” photo courtesy Chaowu Li
Performance of “TMITBD: Choreography as Method,” photo courtesy Chaowu Li
Chun-Cheng
Studio VI, views
Studio V, view
Studio IV, axonometric view, with Xinyun Xie
Studio VI, diagram
Studio V, section perspective and views
Studio III, section perspectives
Studio I, section
Studio VI, diagram with Maria Fairchild and Mariya Lupandina
Studio II, view
Decolonizing Landscape, diagram
Studio VI, design policy papers
Studio V, aerial perspective, with Joseph Bondi
Studio III, detail map
Studio V, view, with Joseph Bondi
Studio III, views
III Faculty News PennPraxis McHarg Center Lectures and Events
LA+ Journal
Frederick Steiner was awarded the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) in March 2025 at their annual conference in Portland, Oregon. In addition, he was awarded the 2025 Medal of Excellence by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in October 2025 at their annual conference in New Orleans. The ASLA Medal of Excellence “recognizes significant contributions to landscape architecture policy, research, education, project planning, and design, or a combination of these items.” The medal, which has been awarded since 2005, is given to individuals, firms, programs, organizations, and agencies. Steiner is only the fifth individual to receive the Medal of Excellence.
Catherine Seavitt was inducted into the Academy of Fellows of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) in March 2025 at their annual conference in Portland, Oregon. Members of the Academy are recognized as outstanding landscape architecture educators and represent the highest level of achievement within the CELA membership. Seavitt’s
recent publications include the essay “Strange Fruit; or, Carmen Miranda Sings at the World’s Fair,” appearing in LA+ EXOTIQUE, Volume 20 (Fall 2024) and the book review of Environmental Histories of Architecture, edited by Kim Förster, appearing in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 83:3 (September 2024). Her chapter “Pawpaws on Campus” will appear in the forthcoming book Penn’s Sylvania, edited by Frederick Steiner and Ignacio F. BunsterOssa, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2026. Seavitt presented the paper “Roberto Burle Marx: From Amazônia Legal to Ecological Crime” on the panel entitled Forest Histories: The Architectures of Amazônia and Beyond at the May 2025 annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians in Atlanta, Georgia. She presented the paper “George E. Waring, Jr.: Health, Sewerage, and the Social Statistics of Cities,” on the History, Theory, and Culture panel at the March 2025 annual conference of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in Portland, Oregon. Together with Assistant Professor Vanessa Grossman, Seavitt co-organized the international symposium and exhibition Architectures and Ecologies of Amazonia at the University of Pennsylvania in February 2025, and presented the paper “Amazon Fire: Who Owns the Amazon?” on the symposium panel entitled Forest Spaces. In June 2024,
Seavitt was an invited lecturer at Southeast University in Nanjing, China and at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.
Karen M’Closkey, who serves as editor-in-chief of LA+ Journal, edited LA+ SENSE, Volume 21 (Spring 2025) and the upcoming issue, LA+ ENVIRONMENT, Volume 22 (Fall 2025). She lectured on the work of PEG and the EMLab at LudwigMaximilians-Universität München, Munich, and at the University of Guelph, Ontario. M’Closkey was a speaker and moderator for several symposia and colloquia, including “Beyond Biophilia” at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, “RealTime Nature” at Harvard University’s Doctor of Design symposium, and the “Global Landscape Architecture Conference” in Taipei, Taiwan.
Christopher Marcinkoski was recognized with honorary membership by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), which recognizes “persons other than landscape architects whose achievements of national or international significance or influence have provided notable service to the profession of landscape architecture.” Trained and licensed as an architect, Marcinkoski is founding partner of PORT, an award-winning Philadelphia- and Chicagobased public realm planning and design practice. PORT received a 2025 ASLA Pennsylvania/ Delaware Chapter Honor Award in Communication for the research project “Constructing the American Public Realm.” PORT received a 2024 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Philadelphia Chapter Honor Award for the Fairmount Park Centennial District Vision, and a 2024 AIA Tri-State NY/NJ/PA Chapter Impact Award for the Cobbs Creek Nature Playground. Marcinkoski also led Southeast University’s two-week summer workshop and symposium entitled “Innovative Rural-scape” with Penn students in Nanjing, Shanghai, Huizhou, and Hangzhou, China. In July 2025, Marcinkoski served as a Subject Expert for the Mayors’ Institute on City Design National Session 81 in Providence, Rhode Island. He has secured the University of Pennsylvania as the host of the next special session of the Mayors’ Institute on City
American Society of Landscape Architects President Kona Gray, FASLA, presents the ASLA Medal of Excellence to Paley Dean and Professor Frederick Steiner, FASLA, October 2025. Image courtesy ASLA.
Design, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, forthcoming in August 2026.
Robert Gerard Pietrusko collaborated on two exhibitions, “A Satellite Symphony” and “The Next Earth,” both on view at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Carlo Ratti. Widely seen as the world’s most important survey of contemporary architecture, the Venice Biennale opened in May 2025. The installation “A Satellite Symphony,” created with design firm Space Caviar and astrophysicist Ersilia Vaudo of the European Space Agency, explores how satellites frame how the Earth itself is understood. The project, displayed in Venice’s Arsenale, uses satellite imagery harvested to assess damage from the storms, floods, and landslides which battered the Veneto region in 2018 as material for a large-scale composition seen and heard in a viewing structure constructed from trees that were lost in those storms. In addition, Pietrusko convened the international symposium Proxy Landscapes with the McHarg Center for Urbanism
and Ecology at the Weitzman School of Design in March 2025, exploring his long-standing interest in environmental test sites. He also curated the Department of Landscape Architecture’s Fall 2024 lecture series, entitled “Uncharted.” In May 2025, Pietrusko was honored at the Weitzman Graduation Ceremony with the G. Holmes Perkins Distinguished Teaching Award for Academic Year 2024–2025. This award, based on nominations by students, is presented annually to members of the Weitzman faculty to recognize distinguished teaching and innovation.
Sean Burkholder, Keith VanDerSys , and Karen M’Closkey of the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology’s EMLab and the Wetlands Institute are recipients of a 2025 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Professional Honor Award in the Research category for the project “About Time: Adaptive Management for Coastal Salt Marshes.” The same project received the 2025 Outstanding Award from World Landscape Architecture (WLA) in the Concept - Analysis and
Planning category. The project team is working with federal and state agencies to model and monitor six wetland restoration sites (about 500 acres) along New Jersey’s coast to inform sediment placement, marsh elevation targets, and vegetation recovery.
Sean Burkholder achieved tenure and promotion to Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, effective July 1, 2025. In addition, together with his partner Karen Lutsky (MLA’11), he was awarded the 2025–2026 Gilmore D. Clark and Michael Rapuano/ Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture by the American Academy in Rome. Their proposed project will explore their ongoing work on lake-based infrastructure and storytelling.
Nicholas Pevzner presented the paper “Stashing Carbon, Supporting Thinning: Exploring the Diversity of Biomass Utilization Industries,” exploring fuels reduction thinning projects in national forests and the potentials of biomass carbon sequestration, on the Service Learning and Community Engagement panel at the March
Robert Gerard Pietrusko, “A Satellite Symphony,” installed at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Image courtesy Gaia Cambiaggi / Studio Campo.
2025 annual conference of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in Portland, Oregon. At the same conference, he hosted a panel discussion entitled “Configuring the Energy Layer: Landscape’s Role in the Energy Transition” with Yekang Ko, Jasper Hugtenburg, and Rebecca O’Neil. Pevzner recently received a research grant from the Department of Energy and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which will support a national workshop at Penn in August 2025 exploring the design of multi-benefit transmission corridors.
Azzurra Cox was designated the Andrew Gordon Assistant Professor, effective July 1, 2025, a title which includes research support funding. She presented the paper “Detroit’s Island Park: How Belle Isle Fulfilled and Defied Olmsted’s Hopes and Visions” on the History, Theory, and Culture panel at the March 2025 annual conference of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in Portland, Oregon. She also curated the Department of Landscape Architecture’s Spring 2025 lecture series, entitled “Making our Way.”
Jessica Varner ’s new book, Climate Changed: Models and the Built World, co-edited with Mara Freilich, Irmak Turan, and Lizzie Yarina, was released in 2025 by Columbia University Press. Together with Lily Baum Pollans, Varner organized the
panel An Environmental History of Plastics , with presentations by Elsa Devienne, Colleen Lanier, and Carl Zimring, at the April 2025 annual conference of the American Society of Environmental History (ASEH) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Varner chaired the panel Agrochemical Knowledge and Control, with presentations by Leo Chu, Jayson Maurice Porter, Omri Polatsek, Colleen LanierChristensen, and Charlotte Abney Salomon, at the 2024 annual meeting of History of Science Society (HSS) in Mérida, Mexico. Recent publications include “In Conversation: Worlding Energy Transitions,” with Nerea Calvillo, Rania Ghosn, Meredith TenHoor, and Jessica Varner, in Journal of Architectural Education, 78:2 (Fall 2024); “Precluding Environmental Protection Chlorpyrifos and the Reign of De-placed Knowledge in EPA Risk Assessments, 1980–2024,” in American Journal of Public Health, May 2025, with Chris Sellers, Ellen Kohn, Mark Chambers, Marianne Sullivan, Gretchen Gehrke, and Jessica Varner; “Too Heavy: On Plastics, Art, and the Place(s) of EPS,” in Everlasting Plastics, U.S. Pavilion, Venice Biennale Catalog, Columbia University Press (May 2025); and “People and Plastics: Interview with Jess Conard, East Palestine and Beyond Plastics,” in LA+ ENVIRONMENT, Volume 22 (Fall 2025).
Michelle Delk , a partner with the international firm Snøhetta in New York City, delivered the inaugural Anne Whiston Spirn Lecture in February 2025, presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology of the University of Pennsylvania. The annual lecture showcases a practitioner or scholar in the field of landscape architecture whose work expands the disciplinary boundaries of research and practice. Delk’s lecture, “Snøhetta Landscapes,” focused on her recent work with the firm, where she leads the landscape architecture practice in the Americas. The Snøhetta project Vesterheim Commons, located in Decorah, Iowa, received a 2025 AIA New York Design Honor Award in the cultural category and a 2025 IES Illumination Award of Merit for lighting design. The Blanton Museum of Art Grounds at University of Texas Austin received a 2025 AIA New York Design Honor Award in Urban Design. The Imagine West End Waterfront Vision Plan received a 2025 ASLA New York Chapter Honor Award in Analysis, Planning, Research, and Communications, and a 2025 CIP Canadian Award for Planning Excellence. The Cherry Creek and Speer Boulevard Vision Study for downtown Denver received a 2024 ASLA Colorado Chapter Merit Award in Analysis and Planning. Snøhetta’s project for 550 Madison was awarded the 2024 MASterworks Award for Best Restoration by the
EMLab’s adaptive management of salt marsh restoration projects around The Wetlands Institute, Stone Harbor, New Jersey. Image courtesy Environmental Modeling Lab (EMLab).
Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS), and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library received the 2024 METROPOLIS Planet Positive Award for Innovation.
Matthijs Bouw ’s firm ONE Architecture & Urbanism received the 2025 American Society of Landscape Architects Professional Honor Award in the Analysis and Planning category for their Sea2City Design Challenge for Vancouver, British Columbia, in partnership with Mithun. This nature-based climate adaptation plan for the much-loved False Creek in Vancouver envisions a return to the historic shoreline where Host Nations are active, celebrated partners in the transformation. ONE received a 2025 Texas ASLA Professional Honor Award for Landscape Architectural Research for the Campus Rainworks project at University of Texas at Arlington, together with Sherwood Design Engineers and Climate Resilience Consulting. In addition, ONE received the 2024 Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan from the American Planning Association (APA) for the Newark360 Citywide Master Plan:
Shaping our City Together, where the firm served as a member of the consultant team for the City of Newark. Together with coauthors Jos van Alphen, Stephan van der Biezen, Alex Hekman, Bas Kolen, Rob Steijn, and Harm Albert Zanting, Bouw published the paper “Room for Sea-Level Rise: Conceptual Perspectives to Keep the Netherlands Safe and Livable in the Long Term as Sea Level Rises” in the journal Water, 17:3 (Spring 2025). Bouw presented the Hotspot Stoplight project at various symposia in late 2024, including the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia, and the 12th World Urban Forum in Cairo, Egypt.
Rebecca Popowsky was appointed as a full-time lecturer in the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Wilks Family Director of the McHarg Center of Urbanism and Ecology. Prior to joining the Center, she spent fifteen years as a practicing landscape architect and researcher at OLIN, where she co-led the firm’s internal research practice, OLIN Labs. A licensed landscape architect and SITES accredited professional,
Popowsky is a leader in expanding the role of research in landscape architectural practice. Her applied research initiatives include waste-based material design and construction, soils engineering, and innovation in practice-based research models. Rebecca earned dual master’s degrees in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design in 2010 and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and Urban Studies from Yale University in 2003.
Snøhetta, public landscape of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. Image courtesy Plomp.
Executive Director: Ellen Neises
PennPraxis is the non-profit practice arm of the Weitzman School of Design that supports design action in solidarity with students, and community and Indigenous leaders working for change. PennPraxis creates a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration and supports “beyond the market” projects that actively promote justice, capacity-building and impact in places that design does not usually serve well. These projects allow students and faculty to join forces with leaders in communities, and in other fields, to solve problems imaginatively. Over the past year, landscape architecture students worked on a number of important projects as Praxis Design Fellows.
Dakar Greenbelt
PennPraxis worked with PhD student Rob Levinthal and four landscape students to extend and edit the work of a 2024 studio in order to support the creation of a regional greenbelt which will protect Dakar’s natural assets, strengthen climate resilience, and shape Senegal’s rapid growth. With funding from the United Nations Environment Programme and PennGlobal, we worked with
the Senegalese Ministry of Water and Forest, and local mayors and environmental activists to develop the vision for the greenbelt and 5 pilot projects. Design Fellows Maria Fairchild, Clarasophia Gust, Joe Bondi and Mariya Lupandina worked on a variety of presentations, videos, drawings and documents to share with communities and all levels of government in Senegal, as well as planning congresses in Africa. They created the Dakar Greenbelt Design Prospectus, which included a cost estimate for the pilot projects, to enlist investment from the Great Green Wall Initiative and other funders. PennPraxis engaged MASS Design and Biohabitats in this international research and design action project, increasing its credibility in Senegal and students’ learning experience.
Camden Coastal Resilience Plan
Twelve students in landscape, planning, and fine arts, worked with faculty and alumni to support the Center for Environmental Transformation, an environmental justice organization in Camden, in increasing grassroots planning capacity and developing a community-based coastal resilience plan for the city of Camden. The Water Center at Penn, eDesign Dynamics, and Drexel’s civil engineering faculty complemented the expertise of PennPraxis. The plan was wellreceived by government, and the William Penn Foundation provided grants for implementation of 3 pieces
of the plan in the year ahead: the design of landscape infrastructure, neighborhood planning to increase the resilience of individual homes and community networks, and research to measure the environmental burdens on residents before (and later, after) the implementation of the Camden Coastal Resilience Plan. Students participated in grassroots climate action planning, and observed how environmental justice leaders built partnerships and shaped effective focus groups and community meetings that engaged Camden residents in decisionmaking about priorities and the design of resilience projects.
Case Studies in Design
PennPraxis launched a case studies program to deepen research into interdisciplinary design, planning, preservation and art projects designed in community. Three landscape alumni, Ally Nkwocha, Zoe Morrison and Farasha Zaman, are among the teams of authors supported with $50,000 to develop a teaching case study about an exemplary engagement process that shaped an exceptional project. Praxis created an online public library for the 15 case studies with Penn Libraries, and Design Fellows are helping us organize a 2027 summit aimed at shifting the practice of community leaders, designers and people in government who shape public projects.
North Philly: A Black Freedom Jawn Design Fellows in landscape, planning and preservation are working with North Philadelphia Black heritage leaders to develop an intergenerational neighborhood history and culture project for the 250 anniversary of the founding of the United States. The Society to Preserve Philadelphia African American Assets (SPPAAA), the Black Docents Collective, The Frator Heru Institute, and other leadership and youth organizations are mapping assets with the community and training young and elder residents to lead Black history tours and events.
Many more student Design Fellows participated in Praxis’ long-standing collaborations with the Ramapough Lenape Turtle Clan, West Philadelphia schools and community organizations, regenerative agriculture leaders, and Design to Thrive, our youth climate action program.
Studio visit to Dakar, Senegal, photo courtesy Chaowu Li.
Faculty Co-Directors: Frederick Steiner, Catherine Seavitt Wilks Family Director: Rebecca Popowsky
The academic year 2024–2025 was rich with events at the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology. On September 26–27, 2024, the Weitzman School of Design and the McHarg Center celebrated the centennial of the 1924 establishment of Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. The McHarg Center faculty co-director and department chair Catherine Seavitt convened a two-day symposium entitled Landscape Futures, a reflection on the significant contributions of the department to the discipline of landscape architecture. Keynote talks were delivered by former chair James Corner (MLA’86), founding partner and CEO of Field Operations; former chair Anne Whiston Spirn (MLA’74), the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at MIT; and the investigative journalist Jeff Goodell, author of the New York Times bestseller The Heat Will Kill You First, among six additional books on the environment and the climate emergency. The symposium also convened three panels of guest speakers. The first panel, The Household of Nature, moderated by Assistant Professor Nicholas Pevzner, included Sonja Dümpelmann, Lydia Kallipoliti, and Rob Holmes. The second panel, The Astronaut, moderated by Assistant Professor Azzurra Cox, included M. Christine Boyer, Andrew Zolli, and Alvin D. Harvey. The third panel, The Naturalist, moderated by Assistant Professor Sean Burkholder, included Jared Farmer, Sally Willig, and Tessa Lowinske Desmond.
The Center hosted four moderated book talks this year. On September 16, 2024, Virginia Hanusik presented her book of photographs, Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in Southern Louisiana. On October 10, 2024, the Center welcomed the co-authors and contributors to Silt Sand Slurry:
Dredging, Sediment, and the Worlds We Are Making, including Rob Holmes, Justine Holzman, Brett Milligan, Gina Wirth, and Assistant Professor Sean Burkholder, who moderated the panel discussion. On January 23, 2025, alumnus Chris Reed and photographer Mike Belleme presented their co-authored book, Mise-En-Scène: The Lives and Afterlives of Urban Landscapes. Their presentation was followed by a moderated discussion with Assistant Professor Azzurra Cox and LARP 7000 student Chaowu Li. On February 27, 2025, the Center hosted Jeffrey Nesbit, who presented his book Ground Control: Technical Lands for Departing Earth. Jeffrey was introduced by Associate Professor Robert Gerard Pietrusko, and joined in a panel discussion after his talk with LARP students Mel Bleecker, Dawn Jin, and Noa Machover.
In the spring semester, the McHarg Center hosted the first annual Anne Whiston Spirn Lecture on February 6, 2025, delivered by Michelle Delk and entitled “Snøhetta Landscapes.” Delk is the Laurie Olin Professor of Practice and a partner at the New York City office of Snøhetta. The annual Anne Whiston Spirn Lecture showcases a practitioner or scholar in the field of landscape architecture whose work expands the disciplinary boundaries of research and practice. The lecture title honors Anne Whiston Spirn, MLA’74, who led the Department of Landscape Architecture as chair from 1986 through 1994, and whose work inspires deeper engagements with both people and planet.
On February 7, 2025, the McHarg Center co-presented international symposium Architecture and Ecologies of Amazonia, convened by Assistant Professor of Architecture Vanessa Grossman and Department of Landscape Architecture chair Catherine Seavitt. The symposium featured three panels and the keynote speakers Vanda Witoto, climate activist and educator of the Instituto Witoto in Manaus, Brazil; and Emanuele Coccia, philosopher and Associate Professor, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. On April 10–11, 2025, the McHarg Center presented the symposium Proxy Landscapes, convened by Associate Professor Robert Gerard Pietrusko. This symposium also featured three
panels of international speakers and keynote speaker Susan Schuppli, Director of the Centre for Research Architecture in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths University, London.
The McHarg Fellowship program is now in its third year, with Leah Kahler joining the Center for academic year 2024–2025. Kahler taught in the department’s foundation core Studio I in Fall 2024, coordinated by Assistant Professor Sean Burkholder, and developed a Spring 2025 elective seminar entitled “Clones, Zones, and Migrants: Taking Stock of the American Plant Nursery Trade,” exploring the movement of plants across cultures and the relationships between recreational and productive landscapes. Kahler delivered a schoolwide lecture on her research, “Before a Plant Arrives on Site” on April 24, 2025. Kahler is now a Research Assistant Professor at Tulane University School of Architecture and the Built Environment in New Orleans, Louisiana.
And finally, we are so delighted to announce the appointment of Rebecca Popowsky as our new Wilks Family Director of the McHarg Center. Prior to joining the Center, she spent 15 years as a practicing landscape architect and researcher at OLIN, where she co-led the firm’s internal research practice, OLIN Labs. This spring, Popowsky organized the Center’s annual Earth Day event, Greetings from Earth, featuring a panel conversation with three faculty research leads (Catherine Seavitt, Azzurra Cox, and Christopher Marcinkoski) and their student research assistants (Liz VanDerwerken, Gabe Weber, and Lillia Schmidt). Each of these students is conducting an interview with their respective faculty member about their collaborative research, to be published as part of an ongoing initiative of the McHarg Center entitled “Perspectives.”
DEPARTMENT LECTURE SERIES
Fall 2024 Lecture Series
UNCHARTED
Curated by Robert Gerard Pietrusko
Nocturnal Medicine
Larissa Belcic and Michelle Farang
Shofet
“Transmuting the Wound: Operations on Nature Consciousness” October 24, 2024
Jeremy Kamal Filmmaker
“Forbidden Fruit” November 7, 2024
Rosetta Elkin
Associate Professor and MLA
Academic Director, Pratt Institute
“Landscapes of Retreat” November 14, 2024
Spring 2025 Lecture Series
MAKING OUR WAY
Curated by Azzurra Cox
Garnette Cadogan
Tunney Lee Distinguished Lecturer in Urbanism, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Landscapes of Letters” February 13, 2025
David Malda
Principal, GGN
“Landscapes as a Relational Practice” March 20, 2025
Michelle Arevalos Franco Assistant Professor, Ohio State University
Más Común
“Jardineros” April 17, 2025
PUBLIC EVENTS
LANDSCAPE FUTURES:
Centennial of the Department of Landscape Architecture
Symposium convened by Catherine Seavitt
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Keynote Speakers:
James Corner, Founding Partner and CEO, Field Operations
Anne Whiston Spirn, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jeff Goodell, Journalist and Author
Panelists:
The Household of Nature
Sonja Dümpelmann, Lydia Kallipoliti, Rob Holmes
Moderated by Nicholas Pevzner
The Astronaut
M. Christine Boyer, Andrew Zolli, Alvin D. Harvey
Moderated by Azzurra Cox
The Naturalist
Jared Farmer, Sally Willig, Tessa Lowinske Desmond
Moderated by Sean Burkholder September 26–27, 2024
Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in Southern Louisiana
Book Talk
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Dredging, Sediment, and the Worlds We Are Making Book Talk
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Speakers: Sean Burkholder, Rob Holmes, Justine Holzman, Brett Milligan, Gina Wirth
October 10, 2024
LA+ Journal Launch Party
Vol. 19 BOTANIC, Vol. 20 EXOTIQUE
Presented by the Department of Landscape Architecture
Speakers: Karen M’Closkey, Catherine Seavitt
November 22, 2024
Mise-En-Scène: The Lives and Afterlives of Urban Landscapes
Book Talk
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Speakers: Chris Reed, Mike Belleme
January 23, 2025
The Anne Whiston Spirn Lecture: Michelle Delk
Laurie Olin Professor of Practice and Partner, Snøhetta
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
“Snøhetta Landscapes”
February 6, 2025
ARCHITECTURES AND ECOLOGIES OF AMAZONIA
Symposium convened by Vanessa Grossman and Catherine Seavitt
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, the Department of Architecture, and the Department of Landscape Architecture
Keynote Speakers: Vanda Witoto, climate activist and educator, Instituto Witoto, Manaus, Brazil
Emanuele Coccia, Associate Professor, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France
Panelists:
Forest Environments:
William Balée, Paulo Tavares, Clark Erickson, Kristina Lyons, Túlio Andrade
Moderated by Marco Salazar
Forest Spaces:
Isabella de Bonis, Catherine Seavitt, Fernando Luiz Lara, Glenn H. Shepard Jr.
Moderated by Dagny Elise Carlsson
Forest Experiences:
Rodrigo Simon de Moraes, Marcio
José de Araujo Costa, Carolina Angel Botero, Priscilla Brasil
Moderated by Clarisse Figueiredo de Queiroz
February 7, 2025
Ground Control: Technical Lands for Departing Earth
Book Talk
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Speaker: Jeffrey Nesbit February 27, 2025
PROXY LANDSCAPES
Symposium convened by Robert Gerard Pietrusko
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Keynote Speaker: Susan Schuppli, Director of the Centre for Research Architecture in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths University, London Panelists:
Panel 1:
Lisa Messeri, Danielle Choi, V. Mitch McEwen
Moderated by Kelvin Vu Panel 2:
Dietmar Offenhuber, Lukáš Likavčan, Alexander Arroyo
Moderated by Gabe Weber Panel 3: Jason Ur, Emily Hammer, Geoff Manaugh
Moderated by Mel Bleecker April 10–11, 2025
Earth Day: Greetings From Earth
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Speakers: Liz VanDerwerken, Catherine Seavitt, Gabe Weber, Azzurra Cox, Lillia Schmidt, Chris Marcinkoski, Rebecca Popowsky, Mel Bleecker
April 22, 2025
Leah Kahler
2024–2025 McHarg Fellow
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
“Before a Plant Arrives on Site” April 24, 2025
ASLA Pennsylvania-Delaware Student Awards Jury
Jurors:
Megan Born, Associate Partner, Field Operations
Sean Garrigan, Principal, Landscape Architect and Senior Planner, Stromberg/Garrigan & Associates
Yangpu Riverside Minghua Sugar Warehouse, Shanghai, China
Presented by the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology and Tongji University, Shanghai
July 6–August 6, 2025
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EVENTS
Penn Weitzman Alumni Association (PWAA) Firm Crawl
Presented by Penn Career Services and Weitzman Professional Development
September 19 & 26, 2024
Rome Prize Information Session
Presented by American Academy in Rome
September 24, 2024
What I Did Last Summer
Presented by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Weitzman Professional Development Student Lunch and Summer Employment Discussion
September 25, 2024
Weitzman School of Design
Alumni Reception
ASLA 2024 National Conference, Washington, DC
October 8, 2024
Alumni Insights Virtual Series: Preparing for Your Career after Penn
Presented by Penn Career Services and Weitzman Professional Development
Speaker: Jared McKnight, WRT
October 23, 2024
Alumni Insights Virtual Series: Preparing for Your Career after Penn
Presented by Penn Career Services and Weitzman Professional Development
Speaker: Krystin Che October 29, 2024
Portfolio Workshop with Common Name
Presented by the Department of Landscape Architecture
Speaker: Ken Meier
January 21–22, 2025
Portfolio Speed Reviews
Presented by the Department of Landscape Architecture
LARP Faculty and LARP 7000 students
January 28, 2025
Landscape Job Talk Q&A
Presented by the Department of Landscape Architecture
Speakers: Ellen Neises, Lucinda Sanders
February 5, 2025
2025 Weitzman School of Design
Career Fair
Presented by Penn Career Services and Weitzman Professional Development
February 6, 2025 (in-person)
February 12, 2025 (virtual)
Editor-in-Chief: Karen M’Closkey
Creative Director: Catherine Seavitt
Art Director: Colin Curley
LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture is a biannual print and digital publication produced by the Department of Landscape Architecture. Launched in 2014 by Dr. Tatum Hands and former department chair and professor emeritus Richard Weller (1963–2025), the journal’s mission is to reveal connections and build collaborative conversations between landscape architecture and other disciplines by exploring each issue’s theme through various perspectives. In addition to the design professions, each issue includes works by a range of disciplinary authors, including historians, artists, geographers, anthropologists, psychologists, planners, scientists, and philosophers. This interdisciplinary approach both enriches landscape architecture and introduces landscape architecture to new audiences in other fields. LA+ Journal is committed to featuring content that promotes a global diversity of cultural perspectives while encouraging an expansive understanding of the discipline of
landscape architecture and the contribution of landscape thinking. With 22 issues published to date, LA+ has gained a strong global readership and is distributed internationally via subscription. It is also available for purchase at museum bookstores, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal, the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, and the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.
Each semester, LA+ conducts two concurrent graduate seminars where students are integrally involved in the process of designing and producing an issue of the journal. During the 2024–2025 academic year, LA+ published two issues edited by Karen M’Closkey – LA+ EXOTIQUE and LA+ SENSE. In production for the 2025–2026 academic year are LA+ ENVIRONMENT and LA+ MEDIA. We will begin work on LA+ MEMORY in Fall 2025, guest-edited by Azzurra Cox.
LA+ Journal is generously supported by the following donors: Gold Patrons: Bionic, Field Operations, OLIN, Starr Whitehouse, W Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Hollander Design Silver Patrons: MNLA, One Architecture & Urbanism, Port, Stoss Bronze Patrons: Future Green Studio, Reed Hilderbrand, Topotek1, WILDING X, WRT.
