The Ian McHarg Center for Urbanism + Ecology

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The Ian McHarg Center for Urbanism + Ecology

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Housed in the Department of Landscape Architecture at University of Pennsylvania, The McHarg Center is a platform for design and planning research that supports the future of life on earth. After centuries of mistakenly believing we could exploit the landscape without consequence (design without nature) we have now entered an age of extreme climate change marked by rising seas, resource depletion,

desertification, ecosystem migration, and unprecedented rates of species extinction. Set against the global phenomena of accelerating consumption, ubiquitous urbanization and rising inequity, these environmental changes are impacting everyone, everywhere. Adapting our cities and their infrastructure to these conditions of rapid environmental change is the central design and planning challenge of the 21st century. The McHarg Center’s purpose is to meet this challenge by providing a platform for environmental and social scientists, planners, designers, policy makers, developers and communities to unite and to research and design new ways of improving the ecological performance and quality of life in cities and towns worldwide.

01/13/2025

Award-winning landscape architect, researcher, and educator Rebecca Popowsky has been named the Wilks Family Director of The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology.
Housed in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Weitzman, The McHarg Center was launched in 2019 as a transdisciplinary platform for collaborative research on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of McHarg’s groundbreaking book ‘Design with Nature.’ The Center funds and broadcasts original scholarly research, convenes students, faculty, and practitioners, and awards the annual McHarg Fellowship.

Popowsky most recently served as a research associate and the OLIN Labs coordinator at OLIN, where she co-led its internal research practice since 2018. Developing innovations in waste-based material design and construction, soils engineering, and practice-based research models, she has established partnerships in the public, private, nonprofit, and academic sectors. In her capacity as landscape designer at OLIN, Popowsky contributed to a wide range of design, planning, and construction projects.

Popowsky has a long history with Penn, having earned her MLA and MArch degrees from the Weitzman School in 2010. She joined the faculty in 2015 and has taught core and advanced design studios and professional practice courses in the Department of Landscape Architecture.

Popowsky succeeds Billy Fleming, who was instrumental in conceiving and producing many of the Center’s public programs and contributed to numerous research initiatives, including as co-editor of ‘Design with Nature Now’ (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2019) with Fritz Steiner, dean and Paley Professor; Richard Weller, professor emeritus of landscape architecture; and Karen M’Closkey, associate professor of landscape architecture and editor-in-chief of the department’s interdisciplinary journal ‘LA+.’

https://www.design.upenn.edu/post/popowsky-named-wilks-family-director-mcharg-center

09/11/2023

Join us October 5th for "Mega-Eco" in Meyerson Hall.

For nearly a century, a new breed of landscape infrastructure megaproject has gone unrecognized, and is now proliferating, according to organizers Richard Weller, Matthijs Bouw, and Robert Levinthal. MEGA-ECO brings together designers and land managers for ecological restoration megaprojects in China, Pakistan, Brazil, Africa, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and the United States to explore cross-border approaches to connectivity, anti-desertification, watersheds, and metropolitan development.
https://mailchi.mp/design.upenn.edu/announcing-mega-eco-and-new-leadership-in-the-center?e=f01c325dbf

04/27/2022

A sprawling new digital project from .cheah and , titled “Field Notes Toward an Internationalist Green New Deal,” asks what it might mean for the rest of the world if the US realizes an ecomodernist vision for the energy transition—and what other kinds of worlds might be possible through different visions?
Link in bio.
Images (in order): title card, Mass Extinction, Deforestation, Rare Earth Elements, Supply Matrix of a Wind Turbine, Supply Matrix of a Lithium-Ion Battery, Global Design Praxis, Global Agriculture, International Development, and Borders.

02/08/2022

Just one week left until the EMLab's "Instruments of Change Symposium” & there is still time to register!
Link in bio!

01/11/2022

Announcing the EMLab’s “Instruments of Change” Symposium. Registration link in bio!

A great deal of knowledge about our environments and landscapes is learned via instruments that detect what is otherwise imperceptible to human senses. Remote sensing, sensors, and image interpretation give rise to particular ways of seeing landscapes, thereby conditioning our design responses; yet the practices by which environmental data are collected and codified remain largely unexplored as part of the creative process in landscape architectural practice.
As frequent users of environmental and spatial data, knowing how, when, and why these data are collected enables landscape architects to improve their literacy about the practices that underpin how landscapes are conventionally represented. This knowledge provides insight into how such conventions can be augmented to develop approaches that better characterize local landscape conditions and dynamics. Sessions will explore ground-based sensors and aerial-and-satellite-gathered imagery, the use of models to simulate material behavior, and place-based experiments that directly manipulate landscape material.
The series is hosted by the Environmental Modeling Lab (EMLab) at emlabupenn.com through the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

12/03/2021

The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design presents Building with Nature, a series of webinars based on the work featured in the book Building with Nature (Rotterdam: Nai010publishers, 2020).

The Building with Nature approach was developed by EcoShape, a consortium of dredging companies, engineers, scientists and NGOs who have now completed a series of projects globally that echo the call of legendary Penn Professor Ian McHarg to ‘design with nature’. Like initiatives such as the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering with Nature, Building with Nature is at the forefront of a renewed appreciation of nature-based solutions for our current climate and biodiversity crisis which have attracted support from governments and institutions including the World Bank.

In a series of daily lunchtime (noon ET) presentations and conversations moderated by Weitzman Professor of Practice Matthijs Bouw (founder and principal at One Architecture & Urbanism), who co-edited Building with Nature with Erik van Eekelen, Penn faculty members and other American and Dutch experts to discuss the various aspects of this approach to hydraulic engineering and design that harnesses the forces of nature to benefit environment, economy and society. Through case studies, the speakers will demonstrate the application of the Building with Nature approach in various landscape types.

10/25/2021

Join us + the Landscape Architecture Foundation on Oct. 28th @ Noon for the Green New Deal Superstudio Showcase (link in bio)!

The Green New Deal Superstudio called on designers to give spatial form to policy ideas focused on decarbonization, justice, and jobs. Over 670 projects were submitted through the year-long open call, which attracted the participation of over 90 universities and hundreds of practitioners from across the design disciplines. In this virtual event, four of those tasked with reviewing and curating the submissions will reflect on the body of work.

An informal "continue the conversation" session will be held following the event until 2pm EDT.

COST: Free but registration is required

INTRO
- Barbara Deutsch, FASLA, CEO, Landscape Architecture Foundation
- Kate Orff, FASLA, Founding Principal, SCAPE and Professor & Director, Urban Design Program, Columbia University

PRESENTERS
Kofi Boone, FASLA, University Faculty Scholar and Professor, North Carolina State University
Kristina Hill, PhD, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Michael Johnson, Principal and Co-Director of Urban Design, SmithGroup
Roberto Rovira, Professor & Chair, Landscape Architecture + Environmental and Urban Design, Florida International University
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06/02/2021

A pair of projects led by Richard Weller illustrate the stakes of global climate change and biodiversity loss at this summer's Biennale di Venezia. Link in bio!

01/01/2021

We’re starting off the New Year right: with a feature in Gizmodo on last fall’s “Designing a Green New Deal” studio, with quotes from A McCullough, Christine Chung, and Claudia Aliff. Link in bio!

12/20/2020

A few previews of the work you’ll see during Monday’s “Designing a Green New Deal” studio exhibition and discussion. Link to join in bio!
Work by: Christine Chung, Erica Yudelman, Al-Jalil Gault, Avery Harmon, Rachel Mulbry, Pat Connolly, Claudia Aliff, Liz Gagliardi, Saloone Chadha, Emily Jacobi, A McCullough, Chris Feinman, Amber Hassanein, Ada Rustow, and Diana Drogaris.

Address

Philadelphia, PA
19104

Website

http://McHarg.upenn.edu/

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