This event will be conducted in-person in room 315F and through Zoom. 

For Zoom attendance, please register in advance here. 

Lisa will share her work and thoughts on designing immersive landscapes and places that are meant to be explored, discovered, experienced, and felt. She will explain how immersing oneself in all aspects of the work and process, including thought and strategy, site and place, and community and experience, is fundamental to our role as designers of place.

The lecture will be introduced and moderated by Tate Liang. 

Lisa Switkin is a recognized design leader and Partner at Field Operations, a leading-edge landscape architecture and urban design practice, where she leads many of the firm’s complex public realm projects. With a background in urban planning and landscape architecture, Lisa is committed to improving cities through the design of a resilient, holistic, and vibrant public realm, inspired by place, people, and nature. Throughout her career, Lisa has championed design and planning projects that creatively contend with complex issues related to social equity, climate change, and sustainable urbanism. She is known for her collaborative leadership style, thoughtful design sensibilities, and creative approach to public outreach and engagement.

For over 20 years, Lisa has been intimately involved in many multi-disciplinary projects including New York City’s High Line, Domino Park in Brooklyn, Santa Monica’s Tongva Park, Gansevoort Peninsula in Hudson River Park, the 1.5-mile-long River Balcony in Saint Paul, and the transformative master plans for Staten Island’s Freshkills Park, Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, The Underline in Miami, Waterfront Seattle, and most recently, Cleveland’s North Coast Master Plan. Other signature projects include Philadelphia’s Race Street Pier, Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, Newark’s Riverfront Park, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Expansion in Cleveland, and the River Ring Master Plan in Brooklyn.

Lisa is a Past President of the Landscape Architecture Foundation and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Urban Design Forum. In 2008, she was a Rome Prize recipient at the American Academy in Rome. She has a Bachelor of Urban Planning with a focus on Community Development Planning from the University of Illinois and a Master of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. Lisa is a registered landscape architect in New York and has taught graduate level design studios and lectured at universities, symposiums, foundations, and institutions around the world.

The in-person event is open to current Cooper Union students, faculty, and staff only. The public may attend this event through Zoom.