Hometown

Hmm, my family moved eight times before I went to college, so that is not an easy question to answer. I always felt at home when I was near the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean--whether we were living in New England, New Jersey, Virginia or Puerto Rico.

Why did you choose the University of Virginia?

I was invited to be the Department Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department in 1993. At that time I had a great job was teaching at the GSD, but I thought there were opportunities for more meaningful and innovative cross-disciplinary initiatives at UVA's School of Architecture. I also liked the idea of teaching in a public university with a mission of producing  "useful knowledge" for the public good. I found UVA delivered on both those promises. After two decades on this faculty, I continue to be invigorated by teaching socially-engaged students, inspired by the teaching and research done by, and with, my colleagues, and excited by the future under our new president, Teresa Sullivan.

How did you become interested in Landscape Architecture?

When I was a teenager, I experienced two processes of building and un-building that fascinated and horrified me. The first was the process of government sanctioned "urban renewal" in the cities I knew best-- Washington, DC, Norfolk, VA and Rochester, NY.  The second was the dynamic process of beach erosion and deposition along the Atlantic coast, and the unanticipated disturbances to those processes caused by typical ways of building bulkheads and boardwalks. In both cases, it seemed that so much of value was lost--whether neighborhoods or ecosystems. I wondered if there were more socially just and environmentally appropriate ways to design and plan cities. That curiosity motivated me to become an urban designer. After a couple of years in Architecture School, I found that Landscape Architecture offered me the best opportunity to integrate my interests in the social and ecological aspects of making cities and settlements. An additional degree in Historic Preservation expanded my lens for exploring the cultural as well as biophysical aspects of the landscape medium and landscape architecture as a discipline.

What do you like best about Charlottesville?

Its distinct and legible cultural geography.

I love living in a  small town with a lively pedestrian street (designed by renown landscape architect Larry Halprin) at its historic core, a terrific farmer's market open nine months of the year, a strong local foods culture, and a university campus designed by a retired US President as an experimental model for an academic community. All of this takes place in a narrow (fifteen miles wide) Piedmont valley between the Southwest Mountains (think Monticello, forests, vineyards, and apple orchards) and the Blue Ridge Mountains (great hiking along the Appalachian Trail as well as driving along Blue Ridge Parkway or Skyline Drive to great swimming holes).

These places are constant reminders to me that community is lived and enacted in public space; they prompt me to imagine new ways of interacting and living in the urban landscape. 

What is the most exciting/interesting project you've worked on?

In the 1980s I worked at Hanna/Olin (now Olin Studio) on the renovation of Bryant Park adjacent to the New York Public Library in midtown Manhattan. I was involved during design development and construction, and developed an appreciation for the craft and technology of making vibrant and durable public spaces. The site was fascinating--a two-block historic park that was to be disassembled to build an underground library addition, and then put back together again. The client was a public-private partnership that has become a model for maintaining and building public space in American cities. I learned so much from Laurie Olin, the principal on the project, as well as the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation leadership. Their talent and tenacity contributed greatly to the project's success over the past twenty years.

What have you learned that surprised you?

My manifesto, Sustaining Beauty, and my ongoing research explore the importance of aesthetics in sustainable design. So many people equate aesthetic and beauty with the frivolous. They ignore the intellectual and psychological aspects as well as ethical agency of aesthetic experience. When a topic like aesthetics or beauty is so taboo, you know it is time to interrogate it! While I appreciate the need for better eco-technologies and sustainable practices, I am convinced that the experiential aspects of design matter to a sustainable agenda. My seminars and studios with students are forum for continuing to explore these issues, in hopes that the next generation of designers will find new experimental forms of beauty--from the disturbing and challenging aspects of the post-industrial sublime to the provisional everyday beauties of temporary, pop up urban landscapes.