Derek Lazo

Derek Lazo is a designer, artist and educator who investigates how landscape architecture intersects with social issues and can help uplift disadvantaged communities. Derek is a member of the Design As Protest Collective and a member of Dark Matter University, a new anti-racist pedagogical movement. He has worked with various Bay Area landscape firms most recently at SurfaceDesign, Inc. in San Francisco.

Lazo completed his graduate studies at University of California, Berkeley developing his thesis dissertation on activating Oakland’s public parks and lands as emergency navigation centers for the city’s homeless population, and completed his BS in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California.