School of Architecture and Planning Hosts International Conference in Baltimore

For the first time since its inception in 1979, the Department of Landscape Architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning is hosting the 2014 Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture annual
conference, which will take place in the Inner Harbor from March 26th to 29th. Close to 500 faculty, students, and practitioners from around the world will gather to present their research and scholarship on topics such as waterscapes, rain gardens, playscapes and park design, urban agriculture, healing environments, storytelling and neighborhood design, and many fascinating research projects. All these presentations are responses to the conference theme, “Layers: Landscape, City, Community”, which intends to deepen the discussion on the role and responsibility of landscape architects in restoring, invigorating, transforming, and building resilient communities and cities.

We also invited key figures to inspire and provoke the participants. Antero Pietila, the famous journalist and author of a Baltimore-based book, Not in my Neighborhood, will lead a plenary discussion on Race and the Landscape. Other plenary speakers include Dr. John Beardsley, Director of Garden and Landscape Studies at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oak research facility and museum in Washington, D.C. and Athena Tascha, a world-renowned environmental artist. We also invited Tom Horton, an environmental journalist, who will observe, peer, and critique the landscape architect discipline as reflected in the papers and presentations.

The Opening Ceremony and Juried Exhibit will be on March 26th at the Center for the Built Environment and Infrastructure Studies, home of the School of Architecture and Planning. Landscape architecture artists will display and install their creative work as an expression of how they interpret the conference theme.

For more information about the conference, go to www.cela2014.com.