Designing a Planet – For Better or Worse? w/ Richard Weller

This lecture will explore ways in which planners, designers and conservationists are now trying to reconcile urban growth and environmental values on a planetary scale.

Richard Weller is the Meyerson Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture and co-executive director of the McHarg Center at The University of Pennsylvania. In over 30 years of practice he has worked simultaneously as an academic and a consultant specializing in the formative stages of design and planning projects ranging across all scales. Weller’s creative work has received numerous awards, predominantly in international design competitions, and in both 2017 and 2018 he was noted by ‘Design Intelligence’ as one of North America’s most admired teachers. He has published over 100 academic papers and 6 books and is the creative director of LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture. His research has concerned scenario planning for cities, megaregions and nations and most recently, global flashpoints between biodiversity and urban growth.