"ECOLOGICAL URBANISM: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future"  conference at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, April 3 - 5, 2009

CAMBRIDGE, MA (February 11, 2009)—While climate change, sustainable architecture, and green technologies have become increasingly topical, issues surrounding the sustainability of the city are much less developed.  To address these pressing concerns, the Harvard Graduate School of Design will host Ecological Urbanism: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future, a conference to be held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design on April 3-5 at the GSD, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
 
With the aim of projecting alternative and sustainable forms of urbanism, the forthcoming conference and accompanying exhibition will ask: What are the key principles of an ecological urbanism? How might they be organized? And what role might design and planning play in the process?
The event is organized around the premise that an ecological approach is urgently needed both as a remedial device for the contemporary city and an organizing principle for new cities. An ecological urbanism represents a more holistic approach than is generally the case with urbanism today, demanding alternative ways of thinking and designing. 

In addition to our keynote speaker, Rem Koolhaas, Principal of Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the GSD; and Homi Bhabha, Anne T. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Center for the Humanities at Harvard University, the conference will bring together an international group of leading design practitioners and theorists, economists, engineers, environmental scientists, politicians and public health specialists, with the goal of reaching a more robust understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future. Participants, will engage in a series of lectures, roundtables and discussions, dealing with such topics as the productive urban
landscape, curating resources, mobility, infrastructure and energy, measuring sustainability, as well as engineering ecology.

This GSD event will be held in collaboration with the Harvard University Center for the Environment, Harvard University School of Public Health, and the A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, programs at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.

PRESENTERS AND MODERATORS INCLUDE

Andrea Branzi   Principal, Andrea Branzi Architetto, Milan

Bill Dunster   Principal, ZEDfactory, London

Richard T.T. Forman   Professor of Advanced Environmental Studies in the Field of Landscape Ecology,
Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Ed Glaeser  Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics,
   Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government,
   Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government

Susannah Hagan Director, R/E/D (Research in Environment and Design), London
   Professor of Architecture, University of Brighton

Walter Hood  Principal, Hood Design
Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and
   Urban Design, University of California, Berkeley

Nina-Marie Lister Principal, pLandform
Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University, Toronto

William J. Mitchell Dean Emeritus and Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr. Professor of Architecture and Media
Arts and Sciences, Director of the Media Lab's Smart Cities Research Group
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Daniel Schrag  Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and Professor of Environmental Science and
Engineering, Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment

Matthias Schuler Managing Director, Transsolar
   Adjunct Professor of Environmental Technology,
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
   
Donald Swearer  Distinguished Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies and Director
   of the Center for the Study of World Religions
   Harvard University Divinity School

Charles Waldheim Associate Dean and Director of the Landscape Architecture program,
   John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design,
   University of Toronto

 Please visit www.gsd.harvard.edu/ecologicalurbanism

Deborah Johansen Director of Communications
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
(617) 496-0823                        djohanse@gsd.harvard.edu              www.gsd.harvard.edu