LAEP Symposium: “The Shape of the Land: Aesthetics & Utility”

Organized by Marc Treib and Louise Mozingo

Saturday, March 7
Sunday, March 8
9:00AM to 5:30PM
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
 

This event is sponsored by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, University of California, Berkeley.

The Greek origin of the work topography suggests “the collective features of a place” to both lives of its people. Over the centuries we the word has come to describe reshaping the land to increase agricultural yields, manage the physical environment, construct bulwarks for defense, and even create works of art. Many of our most consequential products of infrastructure, in fact, have been essentially those that changed topography at a major scale: consider the rice terraces of southeast Asia or the Panama Canal—or even the carving of presidential faces on Mt. Rushmore. Shaping the land often constitutes the primary act in making landscapes, and yet in many instances the aesthetic potential of these functional programs has been neglected.

The Shape of the Land: Aesthetics & Utility invites twelve well-known practitioners and academics to discuss the forms and ramifications of topography modeling. Subjects under discussion will range from pre-industrial precedents found in the work of Humphry Repton, to a new digital topographic modeling system without contour lines, to the treatment of waste, to the grand earthworks of the American Southwest. Other speakers will discuss their own works through the lens of modeling the earth that addresses both aesthetics and utility. In all, the symposium will review the history, reasons, and results of at least three centuries of shaping topography while suggesting pathways into the future—as new technology and necessity increase the demands upon landscape architects, while at the same time offering new means for expression.

A reception will follow the close of the symposium.

Speakers

Click speaker's name for more information

Stephen Daniels / University of Nottingham, UK

Stephen Daniels is emeritus professor of cultural geography at the University of Nottingham, a landscape historian, a fellow of the British Academy. His abundant writings include the co-authored Iconography of Landscape which broke new ground in cultural landscape studies, and Art of the Garden. Well versed on numerous landscape subjects, he is also known as the leading authority on Humphry Repton, his theories, and landscapes.

Georges Descombes / Geneva, Switzerland

Georges Descombes is an architect, landscape architect, and emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Geneva whose work has been widely published and awarded. He has undertaken numerous projects both within Switzerland and abroad, including the Jardins d’Eole in Paris and the Parc de Lancy in Switzerland. His decades-long project for the renaturalization of the River Aire outside Geneva has become a model for all design work in this arena.

Adriaan Geuze, Rotterdam / The Netherlands

Adriaan Geuze is a founding principal of West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, with projects in The Netherlands, Britain, Europe, and Asia. Recent projects include the Rotterdam railroad station and its environs, Governor’s Island in New York, and the water garden at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.

Jennifer Guthrie / GGN, Seattle

Jennifer Guthrie, FASLA, is a founding partner of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, based in Seattle—the recipient of the 2017 American Society of Landscape Architects National Landscape Architecture Firm Award. GGN’s work ranges broadly, encompassing urban districts of green streets and mixed-use housing, public squares, rooftop gardens, urban farms, and cultural institutions.

Kathleen John-Alder / Rutgers University, New Jersey

Kathleen John-Alder, FASLA, is associate professor of landscape architecture at Rutgers University and a practicing landscape architect and scholar who explores the interplay of environmental perception, representation, and design. She holds degrees in environmental planning and landscape architecture from Rutgers, Pennsylvania State University, and University Yale. Among the awards she has received are those from the National Park Service and the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Ana Kucan, Ljubljana / Slovenia

Ana Kučan is professor of landscape design and theory at the Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She holds a MLAUD degree from Harvard University and a PhD from the University of Ljubljana, and is a principal in the landscape architecture and urban design Studio AKKA, which she founded with Luka Javornik in 2007. Her landscapes and urban design projects have been exhibited in Slovenia and abroad and have received national and international awards.

Karl Kullmann / UC Berkeley

Karl Kullmann, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley, teaches design studios and digital representation, and maintains a selective design practice. His research and publications have addressed the cultural agency of complex topography in landscape and urban design as well as issues of representation and those facing landscape architectural practice and education.

José Miguel Lameiras / University of Porto, Portugal

José Miguel Lameiras is professor of landscape architecture at the University of Porto and a researcher at the university’s Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources. He holds a PhD from the University of Porto; his dissertation explored the use of digital terrain design incorporating state-of-the-art developments in Building Information Models.

David Meyer / Berkeley, California

David Meyer was a partner at Peter Walker Partners before establishing Meyer Studio Land Architects in Berkeley. In addition to practice he serves as adjunct professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. A fellow of the American Academy in Rome, he credits his Iowa origins for his love of simple, sensual, deliberate designs that employ nature’s palette judiciously.

Elissa Rosenberg / Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel

Elissa Rosenberg, associate professor in the Graduate Program of Urban Design at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, studies the ways that topography has been used as a generative idea and an expressive medium in landscape design, and how the shaping of the ground is bound up with ways of seeing, moving and knowing the world. Her research has focused on contemporary landscape architecture and urban design, including post-industrial landscapes and urban infrastructure.

Bas Smets / Brussels, Belgium

Bas Smets is the principal of Bureau Bas Smets based in Brussels, Belgium, a practice whose work spans from the small scale of the garden to large-scale infrastructure and territorial visions. Recent projects include the 25-acre Thurn & Taxis Park, in Brussels, the landscape for the new motorway between the ports of Antwerp and Zeebruges, and the memorial for the victims of the terror attacks in Brussels.

Laura Solano / MVVA, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Laura Solano is principal at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) where she oversees the firm’s projects in the Cambridge office. She has had a significant role in many of MVVA’s award-winning projects including Teardrop Park in New York, and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis. She is associate professor in practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she has taught grading for many years.

 

Schedule

Download Here.

Fees

• Students of the University of California, Berkeley: $25. [ID required]
• Students of others schools: $30. [ID required]
• Faculty of the University of California, Berkeley: $75. [ID required]
• Faculty of other schools: $100. [ID required]
• All others: $150.
• Registration is required and limited to 175.

Directions

Driving Directions

The College of Environmental Design is located in Wurster Hall, in the southeast quadrant of the University of California, Berkeley, campus, near the intersection of Bancroft Way and College Avenue. UC Berkeley is close to many Bay Area freeways, including I-80, I-580, I-880, Hwy 13, and Hwy 24. You can connect to these freeways from I-5 and US 101. The directions below begin when you have reached the East Bay from points north, south, and east.

Parking

Street parking in the neighborhood surrounding Wurster Hall is controlled by parking restrictions (e.g., two hour limits). If you park in the City of Berkeley, please check carefully for posted parking restrictions. Most parking meters now take quarters, nickels and dimes.

The following list of public parking lots located near Wurster Hall will help you if street parking is unavailable. These lots are also indicated on the downloadable Campus Map. All lots require a fee for parking. Parking is at your own risk:

• College Avenue between Bancroft Way and Durant Avenue (east side of street)
• Bancroft Way between College Avenue and Bowditch Street (left side of street)
• Bancroft Way between Bowditch Street and Telegraph Avenue (left side of street)
• Bancroft Way between Telegraph Avenue and Dana Street (right side of street)
• Durant Avenue/Channing Way between Ellsworth Street and Dana Street
• Channing Way between Ellsworth Street and Dana Street

Public Transportation

If you’re coming to campus via BART, get off at the Downtown Berkeley Station along the Richmond line; it drops you off one block from the west side of campus. From nearby Shattuck and Addison Streets, you can catch a BearTransit shuttle, which will let you off along the perimeter of campus, including near the Law School. On average, this shuttle departs every fifteen minutes. For more information on using BART, visit www.bart.gov. Alternatively, you can take the AC Transit Bus lines 1 or 51B that drop you off along the south edge of campus, including a stop near Wurster Hall For those who enjoy walking, the west entrance to the Berkeley campus is only one block away from the Downtown Berkeley BART Station. Wurster Hall is on the far side of the campus, about a 15-20 minute walk.

Hotels

• Bancroft, 2680 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
• Graduate Hotel, 2600 Durant Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704
• Hotel Shattuck Plaza, 2086 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

DINING

Local Cafes & Restaurants

Cafe Strada 
2300 College Way
Sa, Su 6:30–12:00 am

Henry’s
2600 Durant
Sa, Sun 7:00–10:00am;
5:00–10:00pm

Top Dog 
2534 Durant
843.7250
Sa, Su 11:00–2:00 am

Café Milano
2522 Bancroft Way
Sa, Sun 8 am–10pm

Ladle & Leaf
2512 Bancroft
Sa, Su 11:00-7:00

Subway
2490 Bancroft Way
Sa, Su, 7:00am–9:00pm

Café Durant
2517 Durant
Sa, Su 7:30 –9:00

Chipotle
2311 Telegraph Ave. 
11:00 am–10:00pm

Questions

Registration

Users who are experiencing payment or registration difficulties with the Aventri should call Aventri support at: 1-800-516-4265

Program

The Symposium program will be posted shortly.

Other

For all other questions please email: laepchair@berkeley.edu

Refund Policy

Refunds via Aventri are available 4 weeks before the Symposium. Refund requests on February 8, 2020 and after will not be issued and your payment will be considered as a donation.