| Spring 2007 LAEP Colloquium |
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LD ARCH 253 Wednesdays 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. Each semester the Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Colloquium brings together distinguished speakers (professionals, academics, practitioners, and graduate students) to present projects relevant to the landscape architecture and environmental planning professions. The colloquium attracts a diverse group of students from the College of Environmental Design, and the entire Berkeley community is invited to attend. January 17, 2007 Robert Bruegmann Robert Bruegmann will lecture on his recent book Sprawl: A Compact History.
Robert Bruegmann is an historian of architecture, landscape and the built environment. He received his BA from Principia College in 1970 and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976 with a dissertation on late 18th and early 19th century European hospitals and other institutions. In 1977 he became assistant professor in the Art History Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is currently Professor and Chair of the department with appointments in the School of Architecture and the Program in Urban Planning and Policy. He has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia College of the Arts, MIT and Columbia University. He has also worked for the Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record of the National Park Service. Clare Cooper Marcus Shared Outdoor Space, A Sense of Community, and the Needs of Children
Clare Cooper Marcus came to the U.S. from England as a graduate student in 1961. From 1969 until her early-retirement in 1994, she taught courses in the departments of architecture and landscape architecture at UC Berkeley on the social and psychological implications of design. Her areas of special interest include medium-density housing, senior housing, the needs of children, public open space, post-occupancy evaluation, and healing gardens in healthcare. She is the author of five books and many academic and professional articles. Tim Duane From Academia to Action: A View of the Landscape from the Concrete Tower Academics are often portrayed as being isolated from society and the "real" world in their ivory (or concrete) towers, where they theorize about action but rarely engage in it. In some respects, the tenure and promotion process of a major research university like UC Berkeley encourages this view by emphasizing theoretical contributions to the literature over practical applications to society. In other ways, contributions to action that challenge the dominant power structure of society threaten the university's funding sources in both the legislature, Governor's office, and among corporate and alumni donors. Turning academic work into socially and environmentally meaningful action is therefore challenging. In this talk, Professor Duane outlines a half-dozen examples of how his teaching, research, and public service have turned academia into an action vehicle during his career. In doing so, he will show that academic work often lies dormant for a long time before springing to life to be translated into action that affects the "real" world outside academia. Tim Duane, who teaches environmental policy and planning, has been on the faculty at UC Berkeley since 1991. He joined the faculty after receiving his Ph.D. in 1989 from Stanford in civil and environmental engineering, then he continued his studies recently by returning to school to get his J.D. from Boalt Hall in 2006. He is the author of Shaping the Sierra: Nature, Culture, and Conflict in the Changing West (University of California Press, 1999) and articles on land use, resource management, environmental planning, and energy regulation. He has also had an active consulting practice in the field since 1985. Shay Salomon Humans Per Square Foot: Why Efficiency is a Function of Scale
Live in less space but have more room and enjoy it. Does that sound like a contradiction? Smart readers will discover that on the contrary, living small can free up your mind, your wallet, and your soul. With the cost of living rising, the environment suffering from excessive building, now is time to scale back. Join the small house movement. In Shay Salomon's newly published book, with a foreward by Francis Moore Lappe, Little House on a Small Planet is a guidebook and an invitation, with floor plans, photographs, advice, and anecdotes. Discover how to build, remodel, redecorate, or just rethink your needs. Live close and simple and apply spiritual and social needs to your material desires. Pockets of people all over the continent are realizing the benefits of scaling down. You too can build a joyful, sane life that emphasizes home life over home maintenance.
Little House is split into three sections; building small houses, altering existing houses, and the politics of housing and lifestyle choices. The book is informative and hopeful, even empowering. Salomon takes a refreshing approach, instead of focusing intently on the problem of current housing trends, she provides the data needed to understand them, then spends her energy on drawing out solutions that each one of us can choose to follow through on. In fact, the politics of housing is a theme threaded throughout the entire book. Reading news coverage after Hurricane Katrina, Salomon learned that in Houston, where many of the refugees were headed, 14% of all housing units (homes, apartments, duplexes, etc) were vacant. Salomon did some research on how this compares to the rest of the country. She found that in the year 2000 there were 10.4 million vacant units and 250,000 people sleeping in homeless shelters. This meant there were nearly 45 homes that were completely empty per person sleeping in shelters. Salomon asks, "How is it that we have a housing crisis? Maybe a homing crisis, or a sharing crisis, but this isn't a housing crisis." Shay Salomon is a natural builder who incorporates mindfullness practise into her building and teaching work, where she tries to reconnect the mind and body of self and world. She is a cofounder of the Small House Society, and has written the popular self-help/home improvement guide, Little House on a Small Planet. Toby Minear Uses of Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Landscape Architecture
Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) has been used in many other fields such as engineering and architecture to capture topographic data. In addition to topography, TLS captures vegetation information, yet this technology has not been well-utilized in the landscape architecture community. Toby will present results of a recent study using TLS on a number of sites in the Bay Area and discuss TLS applications Toby Minear is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, working under the direction of Professor Matt Kondolf. Toby's research interests include stream and river restoration, geomorphology, and hydrology. Trathen Heckman Reverence & Resiliency: Sustainability Education for Inspired Lives & Healthy Communities Why not richer lives AND a better world? Why not indulge in the felt power of learning to grow your self, your home, and your community strong and resilient each day, through each act? Every choice we make matters and to achieve a healthy, just world requires an informed, inspired and activated citizenry. Daily Acts Organization's Sustainability Tours provide a model that enables participants to smell, touch and revel in the heart-filled work of some of Northern California's finest SOULutionaries. When highlighting brilliant people and exciting models, we sample what a healthy culture can be and experience how to cultivate the simple but powerful relationships, actions and ideas to make it so. Trathen will discuss the 5-year history and successes of the tours, how the model is evolving and how to bring it to your neighborhood and community. Trathen is an author, activist and wordsmith who writes, teaches, and organizes around cultivating and harnessing the power of our daily actions to restore and restory our world. Seeking to inspire the engagement of hearts, minds, and senses, he weaves a tasty blend of Buddha-mind and eco-design as consciously applied to the simple acts at the heart of healthy lives and communities. Trathen has given 100+ local, national, and international talks and workshops on Sustainability, Ecological Design, and the power of our daily actions to renew the world. He lives in the Petaluma River Watershed where he grows food, medicine, and wonder while working to compost apathy and lack. Rosey Jencks Designing a Soft Water Path: Stormwater Designs from North America & Europe
Rosey Jencks, MLA 2005, received the Geraldine Scott traveling fellowship to research innovative urban stormwater management designs in the Pacific Northwest and Europe. She looked for multi-purpose stormwater designs that combine aesthetics and function in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden. Her presentation will include green streets, urban creek daylighting, stormwater swimming pools, a rain-fed laundry mat, and much more. Shannah Anderson & Kathryn Gaffney Planning for Urban Wildlife
Coyotes in Washington, D.C. Mountain lions in Palo Alto, California. Moose in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Whether humans desire it or not, wildlife is adapting to urban settings and we face a turning point of choosing to embrace nature with thoughtful planning, research, and management, or regressing to past practices of extrication and extermination. In a rapidly urbanizing landscape, in a regulatory setting becoming ever more protective of our remaining natural environment, and with growing public awareness, the option of choosing the latter is disappearing. Our research focuses on the popular culture approach to planning and managing for urban wildlife. Community groups and grassroots organizations largely lead the effort to develop wildlife supporting landscapes in urban areas. Working with limited resources, such groups attempt to design and manage urban landscapes to attract wildlife in a manner informed by landscape and species ecology. Simultaneously, government agencies of various scales across the country and abroad are working to develop creative management approaches to urban wildlife. We will discuss case studies for urban wildlife enhancement and management efforts, including successful partnerships across the private and public sectors and how interdisciplinary sciences and government policies are influencing planning efforts. Shannah Anderson is an Associate Research Specialist for the Center for Environmental Design Research at UC Berkeley, where she manages the California node's collaboration in the National River Restoration Science Synthesis and lectures for the Environmental Sciences Dept. Shannah has also been a consultant to grassroots creek groups in the San Francisco Bay Area for nine years, advising on watershed and river restoration planning projects. She is a Commissioner on the Contra Costa County Fish and Wildlife Committee, a Steering Committee member for the San Pablo Watershed Neighbors Education and Restoration Society, and a member of the Contra Costa Watershed Forum. Kathryn Gaffney is an environmental specialist and program manager with Jones & Stokes' Water Resources Team. She has experience in conservation planning, permitting, resource planning, and environmental assessment. Kathryn has also worked on development of BMPs, design guidelines, and natural resource management in urban settings. Kathryn's work in permitting has included developing permit application packages for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, California Department of Fish and Game, and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. Kathryn is currently working on a team developing the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Conservation Plan/Natural Communities Conservation Plan (HCP/NCCP). David A. Rubin, ASLA Visioning UC Berkeley's Southeast Campus: Applying Theory to Design
In conjunction with the design of the Student Athlete High Performance Center and the Law and Business Schools' Connection Building, the University of California at Berkeley has undertaken a master plan for the area bounded by the east edge of California Memorial Stadium, Bancroft Street, the Haas School of Business and College Way. Undertaking a broader, more comprehensive vision that extends beyond any one particular capital project is a new venture for the UCB administration and Olin Partnership was charged with developing a framework into which these two specific projects and several others might be developed. The visioning process, in conjunction with the development of the aforementioned projects, incorporated both the resolution of pragmatic issues (mitigating extensive slopes and accessibility, visual and physical corridors, and aspects of connectivity across Piedmont) and more theoretical approaches to design (precedence, history, materiality). This presentation will review the methodology and results of this effort for an integrated and holistic future campus. David A. Rubin joined Olin Partnership in 1990, after completing his Masters in Landscape Architecture degree at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts and the History of Art from Connecticut College, New London, CT. David is a registered landscape architect in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California. He has worked on a wide range of projects at Olin Partnership, including the MIT Framework Plan, the U. S Air Force Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Silvercup Studios West in New York City and the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. As a Partner, he is currently leading two projects at the University of California, Berkeley and received a competition win for the University of British Columbia University Square project in Vancouver, which received the 2006 AIA Honor Award for Regional and Urban Planning. David has taught a graduate studio course at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts Landscape Architecture program, as well as participated on several design juries and workshops at that institution and the University of Virginia, and has taught the Introduction to Landscape Architecture studio and the Theory of Landscape History at the Barnes Foundation Arboretum School in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. |
