LANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVES: EQUITY IN + BY DESIGN
2019 HOWLAND MEMORIAL LECTURE
We are reflecting on this April 2019 event at the beginning of 2021—with a big 2020 sitting between. This event was an outgrowth of the 2018 Howland Panel: Landscape Perspectives for Future Publics, which itself was a response to the August 2017 terror attacks in Charlottesville. As new students of Landscape Architecture, we noticed a disconnect between landscape architects & scholars discussing the agency of design to make “resilient communities, promote equitable environments, champion public space for everyone” and their positioning within structurally inequitable schools, firms, or other (mostly white & privileged) institutions.
We knew we didn’t have answers yet, so we framed this event as a way to learn from people working both on designing for equity and on changing the structures of practice, research or academia. In other words, we sought to recognize that we are not only what we make but we are how we make.
The three hours we spent learning from our five guests has fundamentally changed our perspective on what this work is and what it can look like, and furthered our resolve to push for structural change in landscape architecture. We appreciated their honest and thoughtful critique of the field, and their proposals and examples of how to structure it better—whether through a project, community engagement, research, or even the format of this event itself: should it have been more inclusive of the local non-academic community? (Yes.)
The hunger for structural change and racial equity gained momentum during 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, which resulted in the Call to Action at the School of Architecture and continues to galvanize change within the structures of academia. We hope that the record of this event will provide fuel and ideas for how to move forward in landscape architecture. As Sara Zewde put it, equity is not some normative good thing that simply needs to be redistributed. The work is to “Fundamentally redefine and re-imagine what it is that people need or want...to craft a new vision, new imagination, new modes of thinking.” We invite you to dig into the ways that these five designers have begun that work.
-- Chloe Skye Nagraj MLA ‘20 and Taryn Wiens MLA ‘20, Howland 2019 Organizers
We knew we didn’t have answers yet, so we framed this event as a way to learn from people working both on designing for equity and on changing the structures of practice, research or academia. In other words, we sought to recognize that we are not only what we make but we are how we make.
The three hours we spent learning from our five guests has fundamentally changed our perspective on what this work is and what it can look like, and furthered our resolve to push for structural change in landscape architecture. We appreciated their honest and thoughtful critique of the field, and their proposals and examples of how to structure it better—whether through a project, community engagement, research, or even the format of this event itself: should it have been more inclusive of the local non-academic community? (Yes.)
The hunger for structural change and racial equity gained momentum during 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, which resulted in the Call to Action at the School of Architecture and continues to galvanize change within the structures of academia. We hope that the record of this event will provide fuel and ideas for how to move forward in landscape architecture. As Sara Zewde put it, equity is not some normative good thing that simply needs to be redistributed. The work is to “Fundamentally redefine and re-imagine what it is that people need or want...to craft a new vision, new imagination, new modes of thinking.” We invite you to dig into the ways that these five designers have begun that work.
-- Chloe Skye Nagraj MLA ‘20 and Taryn Wiens MLA ‘20, Howland 2019 Organizers
2019 Panelists
Gina Ford is co-founder and principal of Agency Landscape and Planning, which she founded after two decades of practice at Sasaki Associates. In addition to her focus on designing equitable public spaces, Gina advocates for gender equality in the Landscape Profession through activism, writing, and teaching.
Lecture Transcript︎︎︎
Sanjukta Sen is senior associate at James Corner Field Operations. Prior to joining Field Operations, Sanjukta practiced with S. Ghosh & Associates in New Delhi, working on several large scale development projects including the 2,000-acre JSPL Township in Orissa, which involved designing resettlement colonies for displaced people. She was a 2018 Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellow, studying waterfront zoning and resiliency.
Lecture Transcript ︎︎︎
Jha D. Williams is senior associate at MASS Design Group, which she joined after practicing as an architectural designer at Sasaki Associates. Among other projects, she is currently working on a memorial to victims of gun violence. In addition to practicing architecture as a form of activism, she works to create social spaces for artists, especially for LGBTQIA communities of color and she performs as a spoken word artist.
Lecture Transcript ︎︎︎
Maura Rockcastle is principal and co-founder of ten x ten, a landscape firm she founded in her hometown of Minneapolis after working as a designer at James Corner Field Operations and Snohetta. She has worked on equity-focused projects such as Butaro Hospital in Rwanda and Freedom Square, a temporary community plaza for gathering and protest in Minneapolis.
Lecture Transcript ︎︎︎
Sarah Zewde is founding principal of Studio Zewde, a design firm practicing at the intersection of landscape architecture, urbanism, and public art, which she began after working as a designer at GGN. Her 2014 LAF Olmsted Scholar Fellowship led to a design proposal for a memorial at the historic slave port, Volongo Wharf in Rio de Janiero. In 2018 she received a Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship and Graham Foundation Grant to pursue Cotton Kingdom Now, retracing Olmsted’s journeys through southern slave states in 1852, in order to investigate the relationship between Olmsted’s writings and his landscape practice. She participated in last year’s Howland Panel, Landscape Perspectives for Future Publics and we are very happy to have her back this year.
Lecture Transcript ︎︎︎