As emergence theory is invoked and “operationalized” in a wide range of projects and studios, cities are becoming adaptive in ways they never were before. But the concepts mobilized by systems thinking require us to reexamine the very nature of our human encounter with the world, whose complexities are not often considered in landscape architecture. With the aid of key concepts of emergence such as difference, disturbance, and assemblage, this Harvard Graduate School of Design lecture will attempt to situate designers within the systems they intervene in while acknowledging that the systems are within them too. Rod Barnett is a visiting professor of landscape architecture. The Olmsted Lecture is an annual honorific lecture in landscape architecture. It will take place Thursday, October 3, beginning at 6:30 pm in the Piper Auditorium of Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge, and is free and open to the public. For more information contact events@gsd.harvard.edu.
