Landscape Architecture as Necessity

School of Architecture | University of Southern California
Watt Hall 204 - Los Angeles, CA 90089
Thursday – Saturday, September 22‐24, 2016

As climate change rapidly takes its place at the forefront of contemporary global challenges, landscape architecture is becoming an ever more urgent necessity. Landscape architecture is uniquely able to synthesize ecological systems, scientific data, engineering methods, social practices, and cultural values, integrating them into the design of the built environment. At the same time, its creative capacities, and its visual and spatial vocabularies contribute to shaping questions and formulating novel approaches in more exclusively scientific or data-driven fields.
Expanding and sharing platforms and interests will activate greater comprehension of the value of landscape-based strategies in environmental decision-making. Landscape Architecture as Necessity seeks to demonstrate, through international built work and ongoing design research, that the professions of the built environment, together with expertise from a wide range of relevant fields, are essential to moving beyond rhetoric to address the myriad challenges confronting urban and rural territories alike.

CONFERENCE THEMES
Preemptive Territorial Design | Cultural Agency | Water Urbanism | Landscapes of Infrastructure | Productive Landscapes and Food Security | Energy Fields

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
There will be two types of moderated and respondent sessions 3Ž4 papers and pecha kucha. Submissions for each type will go through a double blind-peer review process.  Speakers should submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and 5 keywords; please indicate which of the 6 conference themes the work is intended to be presented in. Submissions for the pecha kucha should also include five images of the twenty for the presentation. Proposals should be submitted between June 15 and September 14, 2015 to the conference website in the requested format and with all required information. Papers may not have been previously published, nor presented in public. Only one submission per author will be accepted. No paper may have more than two authors.
The sessions of the conference will work as follows:
1 | Paper sessions will allow each presenter 20 minutes to present his or her work and designated respondents to comment.  This will be followed by a moderated general discussion. Final papers for the conference proceedings should be no more than 2500 words in length. Up to five images and a biography should be submitted at the same time.
2 | Pecha kucha (20 slides, 20 seconds each) sessions will have a designated respondent who will also comment vis-à-vis a pecha kucha. Following a number of back-to-back presentations there will be a moderated general discussion.

TIMING
• Submissions on website open: June 15, 2015
• Deadline for abstracts: September 14, 2015
• Notice of acceptance: December 14, 2015
• Deadline for first draft of papers/ pecha kucha: March 28, 2016
• Papers/ pecha kucha returned to authors: June 6, 2016
• Papers/ pecha kucha resubmitted for proceedings: August 8, 2016

EXHIBIT 'Landscape Architecture as Necessity'
Parallel to the conference, there will be an exhibit of university and professional work from Los Angeles and elsewhere that engages with one or more of the conference themes.  A catalogue with invited essays will accompany the exhibition. Please contact the conference organizers if this is of interest to you.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS
Hadley and Peter Arnold (Founding Co-directors, Arid Lands Institute, LA); Gerdo Aquino (Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Architecture, USC, and President, SWA LA); Josephine R Axt (Chief of Planning, US Army Corps of Engineers, LA); Henri Bava (Professor, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and founder of Agence Ter, Paris); Dilip Da Cunha (Adjunct Professor, School of Design,  University of Pennsylvania); Joseph Edmiston (Executive Director, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, LA); Kristina Hill (Associate Professor, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley); Mia Lehrer (landscape architect, Mia Lehrer + Associates, LA); Nina-Marie Lister (Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University, Toronto); Anuradha Mathur (Professor, School of Design,  University of Pennsylvania); Miho Mazereeuw (Director, Urban Risk Lab, and Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, MIT); Catherine Mosbach (landscape architect, Mosbach Paysagistes, Paris); Elizabeth Mossop (Professor of Landscape Architecture, Louisiana State University and Principal, Spackman Mossop and Michaels, New Orleans); Rennie Tang (Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona); Richard Weller (Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania); Jane Wolff (Associate Professor, John Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto); Kongjian Yu (Dean and Professor of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University and founder of  Turenscape, Beijin).

CO-CHAIRS
Alison Hirsch (Assistant Professor, Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, USC); Kelly Shannon (Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, USC).

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Vittoria Di Palma (Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture and School of Architecture, USC); Alison Hirsch (Assistant Professor, Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, USC); Lauren Matchison (Assistant Director, Master of Landscape Architecture Program, USC); Esther Margulies (Adjunct Professor, Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, USC); Kelly Shannon (Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, USC)

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Hilda Blanco (Research Professor, Sol Price School of Public Policy, USC); Bruno De Meulder (Professor and Director of Master of Urbanism Human Settlements and Master of Urbanism and Strategic Planning Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Leuven); Vittoria Di Palma (Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture and School of Architecture, USC); Kristina Hill (Associate Professor, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley); Alison Hirsch (Assistant Professor,  Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, USC); Nina-Maria Lister (Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University); Lauren Matchison (Assistant Director, Master of Landscape Architecture Program, USC); Esther Margulies (Adjunct Professor, School of Architecture USC); Roberta L. Marinelli (Director, Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, USC); Miho Mazereeuw (Director, Urban Risk Lab,  and Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, MIT); Elizabeth Mossop (Professor of Landscape Architecture, Louisiana State University and Principal, Spackman Mossop and Michaels, New Orleans);  Kelly Shannon (Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, USC); Jane Wolff; (Associate Professor, John Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto); Richard Weller; (Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania)

FOR MORE INFORMATION AD UPDATES
• University of Southern California
Tel | (213) 740-9341
Mob | (626) 427-4315
• Facebook page
USC Landscape Architecture Community
• USC Landscape Architecture Conference 2016
Landscape Architecture as Necessity