We have an open, full-time, career-track Assistant Professor position. We are looking for someone to join us who has an interest in design justice, climate, and open-ended pedagogy. We have wonderful students, faculty, and staff, with teaching greenhouse, farm, and forest nearby.

More details are found here.  Please reach out with questions: jill.desimini@uconn.edu

Senior Liz Helmin won a CTASLA Honor Award for her project for LAND 3430: Design III.

Project Description: The goal in redesigning downtown Storrs was to provide a seasonally inclusive space that emphasized the importance of placemaking opportunities for visitors, Mansfield residents, EO Smith students, and UConn students. The design included wind and solar/heat mitigation tactics such as the implementation of water in Betsy Patterson Square and shade options including vegetation throughout the downtown. The design pitch emphasized these interventions to take place over a certain period of time and in different stages, allowing there to be time for proper construction documentation and funding to take place. This experience allowed students to meet with Storrs community members and officials, provide design options including site furnishings, stormwater management, and wind mitigation methods, as well as strengthen presentation/communication skills when in dialogue with this community.

Comments from judges: "I really appreciated the process illustrated by the submission. The work clearly illustrates how analysis informed the process of design and allowed the designer to create a unique design that related to the specific site. The graphics were simplistic and powerful allowing for me to visualize the final design and understand the concepts included. I appreciated the thoughts put into not only the user experience but some of the technical aspects of design such as stormwater and materials...

We are an energetic community of researchers working at the intersection of design, climate, justice, governance, and socio-ecological systems. We are committed to imagining a better planet for human and non-human constituents and we are seeking graduate students to help us with these endeavors across our four labs. LA_Grad_Student_Openings

Dr. Sohyun Park receives CELA 2022 Faculty Service-Learning Award for her scholarship, teaching, and professional engagement devoted to the promotion of ecosystem services in cities and landscapes. Dr. Park’s research interest includes the pattern, function, and services of urban green spaces and their relevance to environmental sustainability and community resilience. With her research topics on urbanism, landscape, and ecology, she seeks to understand a unifying theme of “landscape” as a holistic socio-ecological system.

Congratulations Dr. Park!

A team of UConn students, faculty, and staff advisors has won second place in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2021 Campus RainWorks Challenge. Their impressive project, called  Ecologic - L.I. Sound, presents a redesign of UConn's Avery Point Campus to address stormwater runoff and promote terrestrial and marine ecological health.

Congratulations to the team!

Please read more here

Professor Jill Desimini joins UConn as Program Director and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture. Professor Desimini's research investigates design strategies for abandoned landscapes and devalued property, with an increased focus on climate, social systems, and the longview. She is the author of Cyclical City: Five Stories of Urban Transformation (UVA Press, 2022), From Fallow: 100 Ideas for Abandoned Urban Landscapes, (ORO 2019) co-author of Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary (PAP 2016).

Dr. Smachylo recently attended the Urban Forests, Forest Urbanisms & Global Warming conference hosted by KU Leuven in Belgium. This three-day event brought together those working in the sciences, policy, and design to discuss the social and ecological challenges and possible futures surrounding our stewardship of forested environments. Dr. Smachylo’s presentation Legible Landscapes: Incentivizing Forest Knowledge and Action in Southern Ontario focused on shifts in environmental governance, the rise of forest management on private lands, and the extent to which incentive programs are activating landowners to embrace sustainable forest management.

For more information about the conference please visit:

https://architectuur.kuleuven.be/urban-forests-forest-urbanisms-global-warming

Dr. Sohyun Park presented her paper "Disruptive Thinking for the Future of Urban Parks" at the 58th IFLA World Conference in Gwangju, Korea. The conference themed Re:Public pushed to reclaim public leadership in landscape architecture as well as celebrate the 50th anniversary of the profession in Korea.

For more on the conference: https://www.ifla2022korea.com/html/5