VUW SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
THURSDAY MAY 6TH 2010, 18:30
LT1
Jody Beck
Lecturer in Landscape Architecture
Lincoln University
Contemporary social landscape practices are entirely dependent on high density energy which is not only cheap and readily available but also easily stored and transported. No matter what our ideological background is, our professional landscape practices are set within society’s inhabitation of landscape, and therefore within the same dependency on oil. As oil production peaks, we will need to radically re-organize society – and of prime importance in that re-organization will be society’s relation to landscape. The design professions should be thinking through how these scenarios may play out, and start preparing for a positive role in the inevitable adjustments to social structure, urban form, and city/agricultural relationships.
Jody Beck is currently a lecturer in landscape architecture at Lincoln University in New Zealand. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, and is a registered architect in the State of Texas. He received is PhD in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania where he wrote a dissertation about the political underpinnings of John Nolen’s landscape design. His current research interests include the impact that global declines in oil production will have on our patterns of landscape inhabitation and encouraging greater interaction between people and their landscapes.
