Conference beyond ism: Keynotes

GREET DE BLOCK

Associate Professor of Urban Studies, Department of History, University of Antwerp

Greet De Block is an architect and urban planner. De Block’s research mobilizes history to provide insight in, and critical reflection on, the current urban condition and related design theories and practices. Her teaching and writing mirror current resilient design and questions about programmatic uncertainty with earlier sociospatial schemes dealing with open-endedness and risk in a context of rapid change. Recent publications advance an interdisciplinary approach linking landscape and ecological urbanism with political ecology, philosophy, and landscape studies, to explore the (dis)connections between ecological and social resilience.

NOËL VAN DOOREN

Research Fellow at the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam (Amsterdam School of the Arts), Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam

Noël van Dooren is a landscape architect, researcher and publicist. His PhD research Drawing Time, which looks at representation and the factor time in present-day landscape architecture, will be published in 2016. Noël van Dooren worked at H+N+S landschapsarchitecten from 1992 to 1997. Since then he has been working independently. His projects regard themes like climate change and water, which also brought hum to the German Ruhrgebiet area to work o the river Emscher. From 1996 to 2004 he was one of the editors of Blauwe Kamer magazine, introducing design critique onto the journal’s agenda. From 2004 to 2009 he headed the Landscape Architecture department at Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. He is currently a member of the editorial team of the Journal of Landscape Architecture for Under the Sky, the critique section. He stages critique seminars at different universities. In 2014 he was a visiting researcher at Copenhagen University.

ELIZABETH K MEYER

Dean and Edward E. Elson Professor, Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia School of Architecture

Elizabeth Meyer is a landscape architect, theorist and critic. Meyer’s scholarly interests focus on three areas: the re-discovery and examination of modern landscape theory, the establishment of a robust contemporary practice of landscape criticism, and the idea of design as site interpretation (sites replete with cultural layers as well as bio-physical processes). Previously, Meyer taught at Harvard Graduate School of Design and Cornell University. DesignIntelligence has recognized Meyer as one of the most admired design educators in the United States. In 2012, President Obama appointed her to the seven member U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

CHARLES WALDHEIM 

John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Charles Waldheim is a Canadian-American architect and urbanist. Waldheim’s research examines the relations between landscape, ecology, and contemporary urbanism. He coined the term ‘landscape urbanism’ to describe the emergent discourse and practices of landscape in relation to design culture and contemporary urbanization. Waldheim is author, editor, or co-editor of numerous books on these subjects, and his writing has been published and translated internationally. Waldheim is John E. Irving Professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where he directs the School’s Office for Urbanization.