NCSU Landscape Architecture

Join us for the Department of Landscape Architecture final reviews as our students present their work from this semester.

We invite you to stop by, engage with the projects, and celebrate the hard work and creativity of our students.

In case you missed any of our lectures in the Expanded Field of Community series, recordings are available to watch online. We’d also like to extend a sincere thank you to all of our speakers for their inspiring lectures and for taking the time to engage with our students.

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Don’t miss the last of our Spring lecture series and this special lecture on April 1 at 6 PM in Burns Auditorium.

“The Confluence of Culture and Ecology in Landscape Design” with Larry Weaner, FAPLD.

Larry Weaner is one of the most influential voices in ecological landscape design. Hear how he reimagines how our landscapes can do more—supporting biodiversity, merging culture, and driving real environmental change.

Founder of Larry Weaner Landscape Associates and New Directions in the American Landscape, Weaner brings decades of award-winning work, national recognition, and the bold ideas behind Garden Revolution. His projects—spanning over 20 states and the U.K.—show how design can work merge nature and communities.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the foremost voices in ecological landscape design.

Join us for our Spring Preview this Friday as we welcome prospective students to the College of Design’s Master of Landscape Architecture Program.
For more information or questions, email Maddie Behke at [email protected].

Join us tonight at 6 PM in Burns Auditorium in the College of Design for Mario Schjetnan’s lecture Reconciling Community, Nature & City.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Join us for our Spring 2026 Lecture Series Keynote Speaker, Mario Schjetnan.

Mexican landscape architect and founder of Grupo de Diseño Urbano, Schjetnan has spent more than 45 years creating projects that bridge community, nature, and the city, with a strong focus on social justice and urban equity.

A graduate of UNAM with a Master’s in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design from UC Berkeley, he is also a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. His work has received numerous international awards, including the 2025 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.

Lecture: Reconciling Community, Nature & City
Date: March 25, 2026
Time: 6 PM
Location: Burns Auditorium, College of Design

Curating Landscape Narrative: Bridging the Nature–Culture Divide

📍 Burns Auditorium
🗓 Wednesday, March 4
⏰ 6:00 PM

In her 2023 keynote at the American Society of Landscape Architects conference, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson challenged designers to “design in” rather than “design with” nature — calling for a fundamental shift in how we approach land-use design.

Building on this provocation, Elizabeth J. Kennedy, FASLA, RLA will examine the landscape architect’s role as curator of landscape narratives — questioning which cultural memories, identities, and ecological stories are told, how, and by whom. Her lecture explores site specificity, the intersection of cultural heritage and natural systems, and how small-scale design thinking can resonate globally.

Elizabeth J. Kennedy is a Design Trust for Public Space Research Fellow, the 2021 ASLA NY President’s Awardee for Service and Leadership, and the 2022 recipient of the Landscape Architecture Foundation Medal, honoring her distinguished work in landscape sustainability and advancing cultural heritage and ecology in socially just ways. Elevated to the ASLA Council of Fellows in 2021, she currently chairs the Council through 2027.

Founder of EKLA (est. 1994), Kennedy leads a practice known for translating complex cultural narratives into grounded, site-specific design solutions that confront systemic bias and restore visibility to historically marginalized voices. Her disciplined, minimally invasive approach exemplifies landscape architecture’s potential to expand our understanding of place and identity.

Join us for an evening of critical conversation and reflection.

This week we welcome Eric Kramer, FASLA, Partner and Principal at Reed Hilderbrand, whose work has shaped some of the country’s most thoughtful and transformative public landscapes. His work spans Central Wharf Plaza, Duke University’s Student Life District, the Alamo Plaza Interpretive Master Plan, and Pier 4 Waterfront Park. He is also the lead author of the Cambridge Urban Forest Master Plan.

Grounded in scientific field research and deep community engagement, his work asks how design can foster healthier, more resilient communities.

Join us for his lecture, Optimistic Skepticism: Questions for Healthier Communities.

📍 Burns Auditorium
🗓 Wednesday, February 25
⏰ 6 PM

Join us tomorrow night at 6 pm in Burns Auditorium for our first guest lectures, Scott Jordan & Rebecca Asser of Civitas, Inc. for their lecture titled “Community through Collaboration: Creating Transformational Change with Intentionality.”

This semester’s theme, The Expanded Field of Community, explores how the meaning of community is being redefined to include not only human settlements, but also our interdependence with the planet and the complex systems we rely upon. The theme highlights opportunities to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental inequities through design and planning strategies at local to global scales.

We look forward to seeing you!

🌿 LAR 503: Design Development Studio focused on the historic Biltmore Village, where students engaged with real-world challenges such as resiliency, flooding, tourism, and urban growth. Under the instruction of Ben Monette and Stephen Faber, and through collaboration with community members and local experts, they developed landscape architecture solutions that respond to cultural context and environmental pressures. The semester concluded with the presentation of finalized design development and construction documentation.



Photos by Susanna Lohmar

🌆 LAR 507 Advanced Topics Studio: Mexico City students under Maria Bellalta's and Claire Henkel's guidance, developed design proposals for sites across Mexico City, engaging directly with the city’s complex urban fabric. By examining the layered histories and contemporary challenges of neighborhoods such as Tlatelolco and Atlampa, students crafted resilient, community-centered landscape strategies that respond to social, cultural, and environmental dynamics.

Photos by Susanna Lohmar.