/ Laura Solano

OCT WED

10BURNS AUDITORIUMKAMPHOEFNER HALL6:00 PM

“Building a living urban landscape that succeeds is a ridiculously difficult assignment. Plants don’t want to be in the city, urban fill is stubbornly infertile, buildings make miserable microclimates, motors spew fumes, and climate change mangles best laid plans today and tomorrow. Why would anyone be nuts enough to try? It’s because landscapes, when they thrive physically, socially, and culturally, make some of the most magnificent places in the city, with no prejudice toward background, income, nationality, or personal preferences.

The noble causes of sustainability and resiliency have created expectations that landscapes must perform---and they should as much as they can---but each in its own way, giving landscape architects the latitude to think out of the box about ecology, the environment, and place. Using three landscapes in Toronto, Laura will share the trials and pleasures of making outdoors spaces that are functional but also strive to be loved.”

/ RE-THINKING

Principal, MVVA | Cambridge

SUSTAINABILITY + RESILIENCY FOR URBAN LANDSCAPES

ANNUAL WOMEN IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (WILA) LECTURE

DEPT

ARTM

ENT O

F LA

NDCA

PE A

RCH

ITEC

TURE

OCT WED

10BURNS AUDITORIUMKAMPHOEFNER HALL6:00 PM

DEPT

ARTM

ENT O

F LA

NDCA

PE A

RCH

ITEC

TURE

/ RE-THINKING SUSTAINABILITY + RESILIENCY FOR URBAN LANDSCAPES

presenter profile

Laura Solano is a principal of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Landscape Architects. For 27 years she has been a leading force in developing the firm’s extensive portfolio of award-winning public parks, urban open spaces, and institutional projects in the US, Canada, and Mexico including Teardrop Park in New York City, the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, TX, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Renovation of the St. Louis Arch Grounds, the US Embassy in Mexico City, and most recently the Port Lands Flood Protection Enabling Infrastructure in Toronto. Since 1992 she has taught at Harvard’s GSD where she is now an Associate Professor in Practice. As an advocate for the profession, she speaks frequently in venues such the ASLA and AIA Annual Conferences, the National Building Museum, and the Soil Science Society of America. Recently she received OSU’s Distinguished Alumnus Award. She served on the executive board for the Landscape Architecture Foundation from 2013 to 2016. She has also authored articles on public process, sustainable landscapes, and urban soil. She received her BLA from The Ohio State University in 1983 after studying Botany at the University of Maryland. She is a registered landscape architect in five states.

FOR VIDEOS OF PREVIOUS LECTURES:Go to: https://design.ncsu.edu/academics/landscape-architecture/lectures/ The Landscape Architecture Lecture Series is produced by the Department of Landscape Architecture in partnership with the Student Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Landscape Architecture Advisory Council.

Contributions to help underwrite the lecture series are graciously accepted payable to the NCSU Foundation, LAR Fund for Excellence. The lecture series is open to the public. Registered landscape architects are eligible to obtain one continuing education unit for each NCBLA approved lecture attended.

The Landscape Architecture Lecture Series welcomes leading practitioners, educators, and re-searchers engaged in critical work affecting the future of our profession and the environment.

ANNUAL WOMEN IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (WILA) LECTURE