Harvard Speakers Bureau: Professor Martha Schwartz Discusses Sustainable Cities
Dive into a discussion with Martha Schwartz, Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture, founding member of Harvard’s Working Group for Sustainable Cities, and internationally-renowned innovator in design and climate change mitigation.
Sunday, January 10, 2021 @ 5:00PM Pacific Time
Virtual Event via Zoom (details sent after registration)
Cost: No charge, but pre-registration is required
Contact: Kay Park, kayparkmd@yahoo.com
Register: RSVP Below (details will be sent the week of the event)
This event is being hosted by the Harvard Clubs of Southern California, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Hawaii and Maui.
A member of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Climate Change at the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and recipient of numerous national and international design awards, Martha Schwartz has revolutionized the way we think about urban sustainability. For instance, her firm contributed to the Seattle Mass Timber Tower Case Study in 2018, helping local architects develop "strategies that balance LEED requirements, coworking amenities, millennial preferences and, of course, cost of construction." She is the founder and principal of Martha Schwartz Partners, with offices in New York, London, and Shanghai, and examples of her prolific work include Grand Canal Square (Dublin, Ireland), Mesa Arts Center (Mesa, AZ), and Monte Laar Central Park (Vienna, Austria). For more on Martha Schwartz, check out this 2015 Newsweek Q&A.
About Martha Schwartz:
Martha Schwartz is a landscape architect, urbanist, and climate activist. Her work and teaching focuses on the urban public realm landscape and its importance in making cities “climate ready.”
For more than 40 years, Professor Schwartz and her firm have completed projects around the globe, from site-specific art installations to public spaces, parks, master-planning and reclamation. She is now engaged in strategic land-use and landscape planning in assisting leadership in their preparation for the effects of climate change that their city will face in the near future.
Ms. Schwartz is a tenured Professor in Practice at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and is a participant of the GSD Climate Change Working Group. Schwartz foresees landscape architecture as the leading profession to face the challenge of Climate Change. At the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s 2016 “New Landscape Declaration” summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future, Martha’s “Declaration” on climate change became the key proponent of the industry’s current position that Climate Change is a central issue to the practice.
She is a founding member of the Working Group of Sustainable Cities at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, a founding member of the Landscape Architecture Foundation's “Working Group on Climate Change”, and has recently founded MAYDAY.Earth, a non-profit organization focused on educating non-scientists and generalists about geoengineering and global-scale solutions which can be integrated into practice, thus expanding the role of landscape architecture.
Awarded the 2020 ASLA Design Medal, Ms. Schwartz is the recipient of numerous international recognitions, including the Honorary Royal Designer for Industry Award from the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce for her outstanding contribution to UK design; the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award; the Women in Design Award for Excellence from the Boston Society of Architects; an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Ulster in Belfast, Ireland; a fellowship from the Urban Design Institute; visiting residencies at Radcliffe College and the American Academy in Rome; an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects; the Council of Fellows Award by the American Society of Landscape Architects and most recently a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Boston Architectural College.
Virtual Event Instructions: