EUGENE, Ore. -- (Nov. 4, 2011) -- An award-winning landscape architect from China has reached out to the University of Oregon to help China manage its land use issues, requesting a joint conference to be held in Beijing and offering internship possibilities for UO landscape architecture students. To kick off the relationship, he’ll speak in Portland and Eugene Nov. 8 and 10.
Jie Hu’s award-winning designs include Beijing’s Olympic Forest Park, Tiling Fanhe New City landscape planning, and Tangshan Nanhu Eco-city Central Park. The UOSustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) and the UO Department of Landscape Architecture will host himin Portland on Nov. 8, and in Eugene on Nov. 10, to discuss “Designing the New Cities of China:Blending Ancient Traditions with 21st Century Sustainability.”
Hu is director of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Tsinghua Urban Planning and Design Institute in Beijing, China, and associate professor at the School of Architecture in Tsinghua University.
The UO SCI team is excited to develop a relationship with Tsinghua. SCI Executive Director Robert Liberty traveled to Beijing recently and says, “When I saw the parks Professor Hu designed, I was stunned by their scale and his ambition to introduce amenities and traditional designs into his plans.”
Hu believes understanding ecology is important in today’s contemporary landscape design and attempts to infuse his projects with the spirit of Chinese culture and tradition.He believes it is the responsibility of landscape architects to keep projects environmentally sound and he incorporates local culture and modern ecological research and technology into his designs.
“Professor Hu is to China what Hideo Sasaki or Peter Walker has been to American landscape architecture,” said Deni Ruggeri, UO assistant professor of landscape architecture. “Through his work he is raising the bar and setting the stage for the type of landscape architecture our contemporary world needs – visionary, ambitious, ecologically sensitive and impelling.”
His Portland talk will take place Nov. 8, with a 5:30 p.m. reception followed by the lecture at 6 p.m. in the White Stag Building, 70 NW Couch St. In Eugene, he’ll speak at the UO campus Nov. 10, at a brownbag lunch in 213 Lawrence Hall, 1190 Franklin Blvd., and at a 5:30 p.m. lecture in Fenton Hall, 1021 E. 13th Ave. All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, please call 541-346-8757 or arias@uoregon.edu.
Professor Hu’s lectures are sponsored by the University of Oregon Sustainable Cities Initiative and the UO Department of Landscape Architecture. Other sponsors include the UO Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management and, for the Portland lecture, Parametrix andDavid Evans and Associates.
The Sustainable Cities Initiative is a cross-disciplinary effort that integrates research, education, service and public outreach around issues of sustainable city design. SCI works at a variety of scales, from regions to individual buildings, actively seeking, through multiple perspectives and disciplines, solutions to sustainable city design problems.
The UO Department of Landscape Architecture’s program isan environmental design discipline of broad scope whose central concern is the wise use of land. As a profession, it includes the detailed development of land and sites of all sizes and uses, as well as planning activities, both of which rest on a foundation of ecological understanding that views human value systems as a major force in landscape change.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Contact:Aria Seligmann, SCI communication director, 541-346-8757, arias@uoregon.edu
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