Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard Graduate School Of Design

  • Wednesday, April 15, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – An Evening with Adriaan Geuze

    As a cofounder of West 8, Adriaan Geuze has established an international reputation based on a unique approach to design, relating contemporary culture, urban identity, architecture, public space, and engineering in the individual project, always taking the context into account. With an international team of 70 architects, urban designers, landscape architects and industrial engineers, West 8 has implemented projects such as Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam, Governor’s Island in New York, Madrid Rio, and Miami Beach SoundScape Park (pictured.) He will speak on Wednesday, April 15, from 6:30 – 8 in the Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge. This Daniel Urban Kiley Lecture is an annual honorific lecture on landscape, free and open to the public. For more information contact events@gsd.harvard.edu.

  • Wednesday, March 4, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Charles Eliot and the Modernization of Boston’s Landscape

    Charles Eliot was the son of Harvard President Charles William Eliot, a visionary landscape architect, and protégé of Frederick Law Olmsted. He inspired the 1891 Trustees of Public Reservations — what is now the oldest regional land trust in the world — and had a central role in shaping the Boston Metropolitan Park System. He was the guiding vision behind the transformation of the banks of Charles River in Cambridge and, although he did not live to see his plans reach fruition, his work accelerated the rescue of the Charles from a virtual sewer to one of the most picturesque features of region’s landscape. On Wednesday, March 4, from 5:30 – 7 pm, at the Massachusetts Historical Society offices at 1154 Boylston Street in Boston, Professor Anita Berizbeitia will talk about Eliot’s work and his legacy in landscape design.

    Anita Berrizbeitia is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture Degree Programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her research focuses on design theories of modern and contemporary landscape architecture, the productive aspects of landscapes, and Latin American cities and landscapes. Berrizbeitia has taught design theory and studio, most recently at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, where she was Associate Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. Her studios investigate innovative approaches to the conceptualization of public space, especially on sites where urbanism, globalization, and local cultural conditions intersect. From 1987 to 1993, she practiced with Child Associates, Inc., in Boston, where she collaborated on many award-winning projects. She was awarded the 2005/2006 Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, she studied architecture at the Universidad Simon Bolivar before receiving a BA from Wellesley College and an MLA from the GSD.

    The Landscape Architects series of the Massachusetts Historical Society has been made possible by the generous underwriting of Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects and is cosponsored by the Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum. $10 fee (no charge for Fellows and Members of MHS, Mount Auburn Cemetery, and the Nichols House Museum.) Register online at https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EventDetail.asp?cguid=76FBBAD5-59FC-442D-8347-A5AE40DBF561&eid=50858&sid=30B92800-1EE0-40A8-94EC-6D7F80E0E8E9

  • Wednesday, October 29, 10:00 am – Nature in the City and Stewarding Our Native Ecology

    The Annual Meeting of The Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America will take place Wednesday, October 29, at The Country Club, Clyde Street, Brookline, beginning with coffee and registration at 10:00 am, and the business meeting at 10:30 am, followed by a keynote speech by Peter Del Tredici on Nature in the City and Stewarding Our Native Ecology. Dr. Del Tredici is Senior Research Scientist, Arnold Arboretum, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

    “My research interests are wide ranging and mainly involve the interaction between woody plants and their environment. Over the course of thirty plus years at the Arnold Arboretum, I have worked with a number of plants, most notably Ginkgo biloba, conifers in the genera Tsuga and Sequoia, various magnolias, and several Stewartia species (family Theaceae). In all of my work, I attempt to integrate various aspects of the botany and ecology of a given species with the horticultural issues surrounding its propagation and cultivation. This fusion of science and practice has also formed the basis of my teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (since 1992), especially as it relates to understanding the impacts of climate change and urbanization on plants in both native and designed landscapes. Most recently, the focus of my research has expanded to the subject of spontaneous urban vegetation which resulted in the publication of Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide (Cornell University Press, 2010).”

    The program is open to members of the Garden Clubs which comprise The Boston Committee (www.bostoncommittee.org) who will receive written invitations with information on attendance fees.  If you are not a member, email info@bostoncommittee.org for more information.  Image from www.peterdeltredici.com.

  • Thursday, November 14, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Airport Landscape Keynote Lecture

    Adriaan Geuze is founder and principal of West 8, an international urban design and landscape architecture practice whose designs are informed by contemporary culture, urban identity, architecture, public space, and engineering. West 8 has done landscape projects for Schiphol Airport (below) since 1992 and has won international design competitions for the Toronto Waterfront (2006), Governors Island in New York (2007), Playa de Palma in Mallorca (2008), and the master plan for Yongsan Park, Seoul (2012). Among his many awards, Geuze was the 2002 recipient of the Veronica Rudge Green Prize for Urban Design. He was curator of the 2005 International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam. In 2012 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Dutch government. Mr. Geuze will give the Airport Landscape Keynote Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge, on Thursday, November 14 beginning at 6:30 pm. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information email events@gsd.harvard.edu.

    http://www.west8.nl/images/dbase/3053.jpg

  • Thursday, October 24, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Walid Raad and Theaster Gates: On Art in Cities

    Theaster Gates, an artist trained as an urban planner and sculptor (pictured below courtesy of www.chicagomag.com,) has developed a practice that includes space development, object making, performance, and critical engagement with many publics. Among recent projects, he was a participating artist in Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, for “12 Ballads for Huguenot House.” Gates, a 2011 Loeb Fellow, is a Creative Time Global Resident for 2012–13 and was honored by the Wall Street Journal as an Arts Innovator of the Year in 2012. Walid Raad is a New York-based artist and associate professor of art at The Cooper Union. His works include The Atlas Group, a fifteen-year project about the history of Lebanon between 1989 and 2004; the ongoing projects Scratching on Things I Could Disavow and Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut); and several books.  They will be in conversation on Thursday, October 24, from 6:30 – 8 in the Piper Auditorium of Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, in a free program sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  For more information email events@gsd.harvard.edu.

    http://chicagomag.com/images/2012/0212/C201202-ST-Theaster-Gates.jpg

  • Thursday, October 3, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Nonlinear Encounters: Emergence in Landscape Architecture

    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.

    http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/images/content/5/5/v3/558884.jpeg

  • Thursday, April 18, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Land vs. Landscape

    “Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.” In this way Oscar Wilde explains in The Decay of Lying that the fogs above the Thames were first seen only when Turner painted them. Similarly, a “land” becomes a “landscape” only through an artistic process. Land can be considered the zero degree state of a landscape that is waiting to be discovered. With a background in civil engineering, architecture and landscape architecture, Bas Smets, Principal of Bureau Bas Smets in Brussels, has developed a specific approach to representation that enables him to reveal an unseen landscape, starting from a very precise reading of the existing land. His projects range from the conception of territorial strategies to the construction of public spaces. In addition to these public missions, he creates one private garden a year.

    This Sylvester Baxter Lecture of the Harvard Graduate School of Design will take place in the Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge on Thursday, April 18 from 6:30 – 8 and is free and open to the public.

    http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2538/4158017814_85c93a5d96.jpg

  • Thursday, April 11, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – A City is (Not) a Tree: New Models of Urban Space

    In the face of persistent change, the recurrent geological and biological metaphors in modern urban theories may betray a collective fear of not being able to produce an environment with the “second nature” feeling of the traditional city. But rather than dream of a brave new world we should reconsider our practice of “grafting” new spaces on the existing ones, because inevitably, the landscape of the new world will be a mixture of man-made and natural environments. The beauty of the city may overwrite that of nature but we can take comfort in its imperfection, however multiple, occasional, and fallible it may be. Reflections on these themes will frame a critical review of urban and architectural design experiences in Italy and Europe by Cino Zucchi Architetti (Milan). Cino Zucchi is the John T. Dunlop Visiting Professor in Housing and Urbanization. The program, sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Design, will take place Thursday, April 11, from 6:30 – 8, at the Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge, and is free and open to the public.

    http://www.admnetwork.it/wp-content/gallery/cino-zucchi-il-pianeta-della-fortuna/Cino-Zucchi%20-%20Ravenna.jpg

  • Wednesday, April 11, 7:00 pm – Landscape as Urbanism

    A leading scholar in the field of landscape architecture, Charles Waldheim, Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Consulting Curator of Landscape, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, will speak about the role of landscape in defining our communities on Wednesday, April 11, beginning at 7 pm.  Mr. Waldheim is also the editor of The Landscape Urbanism Reader.

    Tickets: $15 members of Trinity/Arnold Arboretum, $20 general admission, available at www.arboretum.harvard.edu or by phone or in person at The Shop at Trinity 617.536.0944 x225. The lecture will take place at the Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre Street, Roslindale, MA 02131. Questions: Kathy Acerbo-Bachmann 617.536.0944 x217 or kacerbobachmann@trinitychurchboston.org.

    This lecture is part of the Garden & Spirit Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Trinity Church, Boston and The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.

  • Wednesday, February 29, 6:00 pm reception, 6:30 lecture – Phytotechnologies: A Productive Planting Approach

    Phytotechnology, the ability of plants to uptake and remove contaminates from soil, is gaining attention in the fields of sustainability and landscape architecture. From gas stations burdened with fuel spills, to brownfields contaminated with heavy industrial pollutants, cost-effective, natural cleanup methods can be an effective strategy in mitigating pollutants. This Wednesday, February 29 presentation at the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum will cover the basic fundamentals of phytotechnology, advantages and limits of plant-based cleanup, and implications for future integration in design and planning. Current case studies will also be presented by Niall Kirkwood, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Technology, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Kate Kennen, Principal, Kennen Landscape Architecture.
    Fee: Free to Arnold Arboretum and BSLA members; $25 nonmember. Register online at www.arboretum.harvard.edu. Offered with the Boston Society of Landscape Architects.