Oberlander Prize Forum V: RE : SEARCH

This event is presented in partnership with .

RE: SEARCH: This full day symposium on October 29 explores how landscape architects are reclaiming and redefining their relationship between research and design. It is bracketed by a plenary keynote reception the evening prior (October 28) and mobile workshops the day following (October 30).

The depth of research that informs the design work of Oberlander Prize laureate Mario Schjetnan and his firm Grupo de Diseño (GDU), is the impetus for the event. At Longwood Gardens, the recent transformation and reconstruction of Roberto Burle Marx’s Cascade Garden by landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand and architects Weiss/Manfredi is a prime example of a holistic research-driven design process that values both natural/ecological and historic/cultural systems. Surveying the work and measuring the success at Longwood, and elsewhere in North America—the focus of this symposium and related events—provides the ideal opportunity to explore how today’s practitioners are building and sharing knowledge with the joint quest of revealing, honoring, and integrating cultural systems and lifeways in the face of inevitable change.

Order of Events:

Paul B. Redman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Longwood Gardens
Claire Agre, ASLA, Principal, Unknown Studio, Baltimore, MD, and Jury Chair, 2025 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize
Mario Schjetnan, FASLA, Founder, Grupo de Diseño (GDU), Mexico City, Mexico and 2025 Oberlander Prize Laureate

Mario Schjetnan at his Mexico City office - Photo by Charles A. Birnbaum, 2025

Opening Keynote: Reclaiming and Redefining our Relationship Between Research and Design through a Cultural Systems Lens
Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, Founding President + CEO, The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Panel I: RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE | Re: Discover, Re: Appraise and Re: Acknowledge
Elizabeth K. Meyer, FASLA, Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, Charlottesville, VA, moderator. Speakers: Kofi Boone, FASLA, Joseph D. Moore Distinguished Professor and University Faculty Scholar at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC; Jennifer Lauer, Project Designer and Cultural Landscape Historian, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, Charlottesville, VA, and Lydia Gikas Cook, Senior Associate, Reed Hilderbrand, Cambridge, MA

Plenary Provocation I: Table Setting for DESIGN PROPOSITIONS
Anne Whiston Spirn, FASLA, FCELA, author, landscape architect, photographer, scholar. Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA

Plenary Provocation II: REALIZING THE WORK
Walter J. Hood, artist, designer, educator. Creative Director and Founder, Hood Design Studio, and Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley, Oakland, CA

Panel II: GROUNDING RESEARCH | Re: Design, Re: New and Re: Activate
Eric Kramer, FASLA, Principal, Reed Hilderbrand, Cambridge, MA, moderator. Speakers: Nina Chase, PLA, ASLA, and Chris Merritt, PLA, ASLA, Founding Principals, Merritt Chase, Pittsburgh, PA, and Indianapolis, IN; Ross Altheimer, PLA, FAAR, and Maura Rockcastle, PLA, Principals and Co-Founders, TEN x TEN Studio, Minneapolis, MN, and Marc Hallé, MLA, B. Civ.Eng., FCSLA, OALA, AALA, Co-President and Partner, CCxA, Montréal, Canada

Closing Panel Discussion | REFRAMING THE NARRATIVE
Mario Schjetnan, Anne Whiston Spirn, and Walter J. Hood in conversation. Moderated by Charles A. Birnbaum

LACES credits will be available, pending approval.

October 30: Mobile Workshops
Explore how a commitment to research, recordation, and holistic site analysis have impacted management and design decisions.

10:00 - 11:30 AM - Longwood Gardens’ Cascade Garden led by Eric Kramer, FASLA, Principal, Reed Hilderbrand; Kristin Frederickson, Principal, Reed Hilderbrand; Joshua D. Kiehl, AIA, NCARB, Principal and Technical Director, John Milner Architects, Inc.; Longwood Garden Staff and Curators

10:00 - 11:30 AM - Longwood at Granogue led by Paul B. Redman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Longwood Gardens and Claire Agre, Principal of Unknown Studio

10:00 - 11:30 AM - Mt. Cuba Center led by Thomas Woltz, FASLA, Senior Principal and Owner, Nelson Byrd Woltz, and Mt. Cuba Center Staff

1:00 - 2:00 PM - Chanticleer Garden led by Chanticleer Staff

1:00 - 3:00 PM - Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library led by Linda Eirhart, Alice Cary Brown Director of Garden; Lori Schnick, Associate Curator Plant Records and GIS; Joe Lazorchak, Landscape Horticulturist; and Carol Long, Garden Manager

LACES credits will be available, pending approval.

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