Dear Alumni and Friends of Landscape Architecture,

Greetings from Cambridge, where we have embarked upon the 125th year of the Landscape Architecture department and the third week of the spring semester. I recently traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, where Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture Sarah M. Whiting, Professor Anita Berrizbeitia MLA ’87, Charles Eliot Professor Niall Kirkwood, and I presented a public symposium on the past three years of option studios focused on the redevelopment of the old port along the Chao Phraya River. We had a remarkable week of visits and events; the research and design work was shared with the governor of Bangkok, several national ministers, and leaders of the community of Khlong Toei, the site of the three studios. The winter temperatures hovered in the lovely low 90s. It’s far colder back here.

Faculty Highlights

I am proud to say that our three new faculty hires this year are off to a prosperous start. Assistant Professor Karen Lee Bar-Sinai PhD LF ’13 is teaching in core studios and assisting in the curation of our Material Orders collection in the Frances Loeb Library toward the inclusion of living matter and related landscape resources beyond the walls of Gund. Assistant Professor Kaja Tally-Schumacher PhD is an environmental historian specializing in matters of climate in the Roman period through archaeology in Pompeii, utilizing LIDAR technologies and ground-penetrating radar alongside traditional excavation methods. She’s teaching in the history/theory sequence and plans to take some of our students on the dig this summer. Finally, Lecturer in Plant Science and Forest Ecology Max Piana PhD has also joined the faculty full-time. Max brings an important kind of field research in forest ecology and ecological restoration to the department. He’s also guest workshopping in at least a half-dozen classes, which is a great use of his valuable presence here in the department.

I’m so pleased to have welcomed these three to our ranks. And special thanks go to Senior Lecturer Ed Eigen and Charles Eliot Professor Niall Kirkwood for managing the searches that led us to this place.

On the curriculum front, given that we now have two environmental historians on the faculty (including Kaja and Lecturer Abby Spinak), I’ve convened all eight faculty members who teach in this area to review our required four-course sequence and make recommendations on how we integrate the incipient environmental humanities into the ways we teach history and theory. I look forward to updating you on our progress as we refine an already strong sequence. One more note regarding history/theory culture in the department: we’ve received a generous gift that provides for a new annual prize at Commencement, the Ronald Lee Fleming MCRP ’67 Award for Landscape History/Theory, recognizing the best paper in any of the department’s history/theory courses. The faculty committee will be reading lots of papers!

I would like to recognize Associate Professor Gareth Doherty DDes ’10 for his extraordinary efforts to expand our knowledge base to landscape architecture on the African continent. Gareth has played a pivotal role in shaping our efforts to get students out in the field and has developed an amazing course on landscape architecture education and practice in Africa, following his year-long sabbatical fieldwork in nearly every nation in Africa. On March 6 and 7, we will host the symposium “African Landscape Architectures: Alternative Futures for the Field.” Featuring speakers from around the world, including the African continent, the event will be live streamed. The symposium is jointly supported by GSD Public Programs, the Department of African and African American Studies, IFLA, the Center for Middle East Studies, and other Harvard entities. This will be a one-of-a-kind event.

This past fall semester, we presented the exhibition Changing Climates in the Druker Design Gallery, which included works from Professor in Practice Bas Smets’ practice, Bureau Bas Smets, along with student work from two of his recent option studios. The parallels are striking—the firm’s work in Paris, Antwerp, and Arles (for the LUMA Foundation) is all focused on altering urban microclimates, and the same is true for the studio work in Manhattan and Central Paris. This fall Smets had his students on the same urgent climate path in Athens, Greece.

Collaborations and Partnerships

There is much to report on this topic. First, we had an outstanding turnout at our alumni event last fall in Washington, DC, held in concert with the ASLA Conference. I, several faculty, and our loyal development partner, Lindsey Grant LaGrasse, were joined by nearly two hundred alumni and friends to share news, recognitions, and merriment. We sponsored ten of our current students to attend the conference, and they joined as well.

One big push we have made this year: we are ensuring that fieldwork and site visits are a vital part of our classes. I’ve raised a fund that provides shared transportation for field trips, and faculty are taking advantage of it. Course budgets often cannot provide for this, but we believe it’s of utmost importance to get our students out into the landscape. We’ve deepened our relationships with the Arnold Arboretum and the Harvard Forest. At the Arboretum, we’ve had tours and workshops with our first-year MLAs, as well as soils workshops with Max Piana and Ecology, Techniques, and Technology III. Next year, we hope to begin some experimental planting that will be monitored over time by successive classes, utilizing protocols developed by Max in collaboration with the National Forest Service. Program Director Karen Janosky MLA ’91 visited the Harvard Forest with her soils class to review the long-duration soils warming work being done there, and six faculty joined the class. These experiences reflect our renewed commitment to making fieldwork a normative practice for learning and researching on sites.

My other concerted effort is to enhance the visibility of our climate adaptation initiatives both within the university and beyond. We have several faculty collaborations going with Harvard’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. Design Critic Amy Whitesides MLA ’12 has joined the Climate Blog at Salata. We’ve initiated another collaboration with the Visualization Lab at Harvard, where real-time climate modeling has advanced to remarkable new heights. Our exhibition in the Druker Design Gallery last spring, FOREST FUTURES, brought a vast audience from across the university and the greater public. Its accompanying conference, “Forest Futures: Will the Forest Save Us All?” was well attended, featuring a special keynote evening with William (Ned) Friedman, Arnold Professor and Director of the Arboretum, who lectured on trees as living archives, followed by responses from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Ed Eigen. It was a packed house in Piper Auditorium that night. A book on both the exhibition and the conference is forthcoming.

We are supporting student internships with several of our Harvard partners. This year, we will have a second intern at Villa I Tatti in Florence. Last summer, Caroline Brodeur MLA ’26, MUP ’26 built a new detailed site plan and conducted a climate risk assessment for I Tatti’s extensive properties, which suffer from extreme long-term drought and ensuing challenges to the historic gardens. They are now adapting Caroline’s site plan as their official garden and facilities map. This summer, Gemrisha Anantham MLA ’26 will begin building a digital twin model of the site and its structures, which will enable I Tatti to tell the story of its historical development and to project its future growth patterns. We are grateful to Alina Payne, Alexander P. Misheff Professor of History of Art and Architecture and Paul E. Geier Director of Villa I Tatti, for supporting this effort and for deepening our relationship with this magical place.

This summer at Dumbarton Oaks, with the assistance of Visiting Professor and Director of Garden and Landscape Studies Thaïsa Way, we’ll have several interns working three days a week in the gardens alongside Director of Gardens and Grounds Jonathan Kavalier and in the archives with Thaïsa for the balance of the week. Lucky students! We’re grateful to Benjamin Prosky, President of the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation and former GSD Director of Communications, for assisting with funding for the DO internships. And special thanks also go to Dumbarton Oaks Professor of the History of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art Tom Cummins for his fervent support of the many threads of our relationship with DO.

Furthermore, we’ll have two interns at the amazing Château de Courances in France, working half-time in the historic gardens and half-time in the organic farm. Lucky, again.

Alumni Notes

I would like to acknowledge the recent passing of Joe Brown MLAUD ’72. Joe was extremely loyal to the department; some years ago, he and his spouse, Jacinta McCann, established a fund to support faculty research, and we miss his leadership and passion for the field. You can find my remembrance of Joe here.

Just two weeks ago, we learned of the untimely passing of Eric “T” Fleisher LF ’08. During his Loeb year, T spent a great deal of time with us in the department, while he was preparing the university to move to organic management of Harvard Yard. And I know that many alums have worked with F2 Environmental Design, T’s firm with his wife and partner Andrea Filippone MArch ’87. T was the guru of soils design, installation, and management for many of us. We will really miss him, and we send our heartfelt sympathies to Andrea.

There was a lovely piece in the November/December issue of Harvard Magazine about the inspired painting and collage work of Darren Sears MLA ’04. Congratulations, Darren, on works of great interest to designers and artists.

Paying Tribute

Finally, I must share tributes to two senior colleagues who will retire this year—sadly for us. Niall Kirkwood, who joined the faculty in 1991 after eight years managing notable projects at Hanna Olin (now Olin), has made contributions of great consequence to the field in the areas of technologies of urban infrastructures, detailing and weathering of material assemblies, phytoremediation applications in restoration ecology, and climate adaptation in Asia, among others. Niall has also served as our primary departmental ambassador to Asia, consistently teaching studios in India, Korea, and Thailand. He has also examined and advised on landscape architecture education and practice in Seoul and Bangkok. Associate Professor in Practice Jungyoon Kim MLA ’00, founder of PARKKIM landscape architects in Seoul and Boston, will graciously assume a primary role in this continuing endeavor. But we are ever grateful for Niall’s dedicated and productive work as a researcher and technologist, design teacher, mentor, department chair, and academic dean of the GSD for the past three years. He’s been a standout colleague and collaborator for three decades, and we wish him the very best in his continued pursuits in Asia and beyond.

Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape Development John Stilgoe PhD has taught jointly in the department and at the college since 1977. A legend in higher education for five decades, he is the author of nearly two dozen books on as many topics and a renowned teacher of countless Harvard students about the provenance and meanings of landscapes, photography, literature, film, public policy, politics, and more. John has a colossal following of alumni who keep him apprised of much going on in the world. He’s been counsel to nine department chairs. I will keep in touch with John—his wisdom never fails to clarify and reveal historical patterns and emerging trends for me, no matter the topic or crisis. After this final semester, his fieldwork trips in the Chevrolet Suburban will be longer and less constrained. Good wishes to John for his “retirement.”

Looking Ahead

As I write this, our students in Option Studios are preparing to travel for their fieldwork to amazing destinations. With Design Critic Rosalea Monacella, students will travel to Australia. Visiting Design Critic Tom Balsley of SWA/Balsley is taking 12 design students and eight Master in Real Estate students to Rotterdam. Visiting Professor Luis Callejas will have students exploring the “Norwegian Scenic Routes” project. Anita Berrizbeitia MLA ’87 and Visiting Design Critic Ignacio Bunster-Ossa LF ’93 will be looking at adaptations to the coastal ecology and infrastructure of the Panama Canal—which is in the news every day lately! Our students are extremely fortunate to be able to spend a full week with their instructors, local experts, and stakeholders in these very real and sometimes exotic places.

There is more to say, but this letter is already long. I send you all my sincere hopes that 2025, a year of significant change, will bring rewards and good health to you all. Additionally, I’d like to thank my full departmental staff for their amazing support: Program Director and Lecturer Karen Janosky MLA ’91; Associate Director of Academic Administration Ryan Jacob; Program Coordinator Briana King; and Executive Coordinator Rebecca Hallowell. They are working on all cylinders to keep the department alive and well and thriving.

Please let us hear from you!

Sincerely,

Gary R. Hilderbrand FASLA, FAAR, MLA ’85
Principal
Reed Hilderbrand LLC

Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture | Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor in Practice
Harvard University Graduate School of Design