IAAC Lecture Series – Chris Reed
Date: Thursday, 1st December, 2022
Time: 19.30h (CET)
Title: “Staging”
Location: In-house at IAAC Main hall, C/ Pujades 102 & Zoom
Chris Reed is Founding Director of STOSS, where he leads the design and content of each project. A designer, researcher, strategist, teacher, and advisor, Chris is recognised internationally as a leading voice in the transformation of landscapes and cities and was a recipient of the 2012 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Landscape Architecture.
While running STOSS and its projects, Chris is also a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His commitment to teaching is not only a way to develop the next generation of landscape architects, but also keeps STOSS on a constant quest for new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing, which has helped put the firm at the forefront of the profession.
Staging
The increasingly complex web of environmental, social, political, and cultural dynamics impacting global cities and extended landscapes demand responses that are anticipatory, multivariate, inclusive, and adaptable. As designers we must think and act expansively, acknowledging that our work typically happens at discrete moments in time, while the life of the spaces and places we imagine will continue to evolve.
In this context, the idea of STAGING—setting up, supporting, curating, catalysing—is essential. Conceptually and operationally, Staging opens up possibilities for how we negotiate between the things we make and do and the various ways that time, social and racial dynamics, climatic processes, politics and economics, and regulatory systems and policies will continue to impact and re-make the contexts and performances of our work. This talk will frame how we at Stoss Landscape Urbanism tackle these challenges through collaboration, strategic design practice, and the pursuit of critical social, cultural, and environmental agendas.