Faculty Voices on Climate Transformations


Our climate future demands transformation—a courageous and collective understanding of our world, novel approaches to living, and generous models of stewardship and intervention. Design and planning possess a distinctive fusion of technical knowledge, synthetic creativity, and inclusive methods that can be defined as both radical and practical. 

How can these practices, which center the physical world and its making, inspire individuals and communities to reimagine the changing environment and their essential relationship to it?

These videos spotlight our faculty across architecture, landscape architecture, and planning, as they share insights on the innovative design and climate research happening at the School of Architecture.


Climate Research at the A-School

Malo A. Hutson
Dean and Edward E. Elson Professor

Malo A. Hutson, Dean and Edward E. Elson Professor, describes how the UVA School of Architecture serves as a convener to debate the pressing climate issues of the day.

 

Landscape Futures

Bradley Cantrell
Chair and Professor, Landscape Architecture

Chair and Professor of Landscape Architecture Bradley Cantrell explains how climate research at the A-School is plural.

 

Pioneering New Material Assemblies

Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann
Assistant Professors, Architecture

Before Building Laboratory's Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann, Assistant Professors of Architecture, define biomaterials and share their promise for the future of architecture.

 

Infrastructure as a Cultural Landscape

Brian Davis
Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture

Associate Professor Brian Davis, Co-Director of the Natural Infrastructure Lab, asks us to consider how accelerating sea level rise can be an opportunity to reimagine the future.

 

Arctic Resilience

Leena Cho and Matthew Jull
Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture and Associate Professor, Architecture

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Leena Cho and Associate Professor of Architecture Matthew Jull, co-directors of the Arctic Design Group, describe their research in the rapidly changing environment of the Arctic Region.

 

Climate Justice

Barbara Brown Wilson
Associate Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning

Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning Barbara Brown Wilson shares how a justice-oriented approach to climate research centers community partners.

 

Nature-based Infrastructure

Michael Luegering
Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Michael Luegering talks about his work at Morven Farms where he is studying multiple ways we can engage plants, through common agricultural grading practices and adaptive management techniques, as well as, through drone technology and non-visible spectra sensing.

 

Building Codes

Jeana Ripple
Chair and Associate Professor, Architecture

Associate Professor of Architecture and Department Chair Jeana Ripple explains how her research addresses what is left out of building codes, like the social impact of how and what materials are used, their longevity and their relationship to urban wellbeing.

 

Imagining Climate Futures

Bradley Cantrell
Chair and Professor, Landscape Architecture

Professor of Landscape Architecture and Department Chair Brad Cantrell asks: "We may know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but we have a very difficult time of understanding of what’s going to happen over the next century and so how can we be more humble as designers?"

 

Immersive Environments

JT Bachman and Katie Stranix
Assistant Professors, Architecture

Assistant Professors of Architecture, JT Bachman and Katie Stranix, describe their ongoing research and body of design work that explores immersive environments, spaces where someone can go, disconnect, unplug, and transition from one environment to another.

 

Beyond Building

Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann
Assistant Professors, Architecture

Assistant Professors of Architecture Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann, Co-founders and Co-directors of Before Building Laboratory, imagine new materials, methods, and technologies that can shape the future of the built environment around us.

 

Community Action

Vaness Guerra
Assistant Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning

Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning Vanessa Guerra explains her research that explores the environmental resilience of informal urban practices in cities in the Global South.

 

How We Live Together

Leena Cho and Matthew Jull
Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture and Associate Professor, Architecture

Co-founders of the Arctic Design Group, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Leena Cho and Associate Professor of Architecture Matthew Jull ask how design, as method of collaboration, allows us to question the past as we face the impacts of climate change.

 

The Practical and the Radical

Andrew Mondschein
Associate Dean of Research and Associate Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning

Associate Dean of Research Andrew Mondschein describes how design and planning, and subsequently climate research at the UVA School of Architecture, possess a distinctive fusion of technical knowledge, synthetic creativity, and inclusive methods that can be defined as both practical and radical.

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