Full information on UVA’s website.

As our cities and environments become more complex and face unprecedented challenges, it is no longer sufficient to design for aesthetics alone. Climate change, emerging technologies, and rapid urbanization are major drivers accelerating change in our environments. Designers need to speed up, better equip, and be deft in changing course to begin to meet these challenges with meaningful impact. The practice of urban design, landscape architecture, and planning now demands going beyond typical design services to support deeper insights via foresight, research, experimentation, and innovative advocacy. At SWA Group, dedicating a practice-based research and innovation group to this challenge has altered its professional stance from traditionally service-based in a reactive mode, to a proactive stance. This talk describes the group, XL Lab, its way of working, its research methodologies, how it integrates research into design projects and the firm, and examples of its practice-based research projects, especially those that are future-focused and aimed at making positive climate impacts.  

Speaker: Anya Domlesky