Design With Nature Now: Five Themes, 25 Projects

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10:00am to 5:00pm; Saturday, 12:00 to 5:00pm.

Admission is free for all. Visit the project website to learn more about ecological design and Design With Nature Now events.
 

Echoing the title of visionary environmental planner and landscape architect Ian McHarg’s 1969 book Design With Nature, Design With Nature Now takes visitors on a global tour of 25 ongoing or completed projects in 21 nations—from China to the United States, and from Columbia to New Zealand—to measure the political, environmental, and economic dimensions of landscape architecture as practiced today.

Design With Nature Now marks the official launch of The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, an interdisciplinary think tank at Penn that brings environmental and social scientists together with planners, designers, policy-makers, and communities to develop practical, innovative ways of improving the quality of life in the places most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

A forthcoming book from Lincoln Institute of Land Policy documents the three exhibitions and extends the dialogue on ecological design with reflections by leading scholars and practitioners including James Corner, Erle Ellis, Ursula Heise, Laurie Olin, Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, David Orr, and Anne Whiston Spirn.

Presented by The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, the exhibition is curated by Richard Weller, co-executive director of The McHarg Center, professor and chair of landscape architecture, and Martin and Margy Professor of Urbanism; Fritz Steiner, Dean and Paley Professor, Stewart Weitzman School of Design, and co-executive director, The McHarg Center; Karen M’Closkey, associate professor of landscape architecture; and Billy Fleming, Wilks Family Director, The McHarg Center.

Design With Nature Now exhibitions have been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.