Sean Burkholder & Karen Luntsky / Curious Methods: Contextual Design with Dynamic Landscape Systems
February 16, 2027 | 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Date & Time
Tuesday, February 16, 2027 (4:00-5:00 p.m.)
This talk will explore the role of curiosity, experimentation, and temporality through the work of two landscape architecture educators. It will use written, instructed, and built projects to make a case for a research and design practice that is more open to and inclusive of the spatial and temporal dynamics that make landscapes such delightful collaborators.
Guests
Sean Burkholder, Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture, Cornell University; Co-Founder, Proof Project; Co-Director, Healthy Port Futures project
Burkholder is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University. He is also co-founder of Proof Projects and co-director of the Healthy Port Futures project. His research and practice address challenges facing coastal landscapes, with a particular focus on lake-based geographies. As a member of the Dredge Research Collaborative, he examines coastal sediments and processes as a unifying thread across diverse coastal conditions. His work employs adaptive management, environmental monitoring, speculation, and storytelling to envision positive futures grounded in temporality, curiosity, and experimentation. He co-authored Five Bay Landscapes: Curious Explorations of the Great Lakes Region (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022) and is currently completing Lakemaker: Surveys, Stories, and Speculations of Held Water (AR+D).
Karen Lutsky, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, Cornell University; Director/Founder, Great Lakes Design Labs
Karen Lutsky is an assistant professor of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University and the director/founder of the Great Lakes Design Labs. Before this recent move to Cornell, Karen spent almost a decade in the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Minnesota. Karen’s work focuses on how landscape architects and designers might better design ‘with’ changing landscapes. This work includes the development of the design approach, ‘Curious Methods’, and a particular emphasis on the ‘quick’ littoral landscapes of the Great Lakes Basin and ‘slow’ growth and cycles of trees and vegetation. She recently co-authored the University of Pittsburgh Press book Five Bay Landscapes: Curious Explorations of the Great Lakes Basin (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022) and has also written articles and book chapters for publications such as Places Journal, The Third Coast Atlas, Conceptual Landscapes, 30 Trees, and Scenario Journal.