Landscape Processes Discussion Series: Niall Kirkwood

Niall Kirkwood, professor of landscape architecture and technology and the academic dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, will deliver a talk titled Design Matters: Climate Change, Land Retreat and Mangrove Reconstruction as part of the Landscape Processes online discussion series.

The event is free and will be delivered via Zoom. Register here>>

Presented as part of the spring 2021 Landscape Technology and Landscape elective courses taught by lecturer Alexandra Mei, the Landscape Processes series engages with seven practitioners to explore the details, materials, and technologies embedded in the practice of landscape architecture. Each discussion will focus on the guest speaker's body of work and how their processes to design are pushing the field of landscape architecture forward. During each event, attendees are invited to ask questions in a moderated discussion with the guest speaker. The lectures are enabled by the support of the Sam Fox School's Master of Landscape Architecture program. In partnership with ASLA St. Louis, the Sam Fox School is also providing free online LACES approved credits for this lecture series.

Niall Kirkwood is a landscape architect, technologist, architect, tenured professor of landscape architecture and technology, and the academic dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he has taught full-time since 1992. He held the position of chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the GSD (2003-2009), program director (1998-2003, 2005-2008), and advisor, Master of Design Studies Environment Track (1999-2003). He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland in 2009 for his international contribution to brownfield land regeneration practices and education, and in the same year, he was also made a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (FASLA) and a Honorary Fellow of Kew Guild, Royal Gardens at Kew, England, United Kingdom. Kirkwood is a distinguished visiting professor of the School of Landscape Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, and held the Founding Professorship and Dean of Landscape Architecture, School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing University (also in China); the William Allen Neilson Visiting Professorship, Smith College, Northampton, MA; and the Gerard O’Hare Visiting Professorship, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland.

Kirkwood carries out research, publishing, and teaching into the reuse of former industrial and polluted land, site remediation technologies, urban landscape planning and design, landscape reclamation, landscape detail design, traditional and emerging construction technologies, and the on-going weathering and durability of built landscapes. He is a leading academic internationally in the field of land and landscape regeneration across a range of geographies, countries, and scales of landscape. Areas of specific focus include mining extraction sites, urban brownfields, municipal landfills, the regeneration of superfund sites (United States), decommissioned military bases, closed manufacturing facilities, and the invention and production of remade land using applied remediation technologies. More recently his research has focused on aspects of landscape, technology and urbanization in Ireland, South Korea, P.R. China, Thailand, and India.

His English language publications include Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape (Taylor Francis/Routledge), Principles of Brownfield Regeneration (Island Press), PHYTO: Principles and Resources for Site Remediation and Landscape Design (Taylor Francis/Routledge), Weathering and Durability in Landscape Architecture (John Wiley), and The Art of Landscape Detail (John Wiley). His books has been translated and published in Chinese, Korean, and Arabic languages.

Prior to joining the Harvard GSD faculty, he was a registered and licensed architect and landscape architect with 16 years of experience carrying out land reclamation and urban development projects in Scotland, European Mainland, Middle East, and the United States. Kirkwood has been part of the design offices of Hanna/Olin Ltd. (now The Olin Studio) Philadelphia, Trevor Dannatt & Partners, London, Derek Lovejoy & Partners (United Kingdom) and in that capacity he has collaborated with the design offices of Eisenman and Robertson, New York; Foster Associates, London; Richard Rogers Partnership, London; Office of Frank O. Gehry, Los Angeles; Aldo Rossi, Milan; David Chipperfield, London; Eric Parry, London; and SOM, Chicago and London.