The following is an abstract of the topic for the Robin Smith Memorial Lecture. The lecture will be held the evening of April 23, 2003 as a component of the "Design Week" and Premier's Design Awards at Mendel Art Gallery.
A friend of Mark Twain's once said, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it". While it's true that we can do little to change the weather, we can control the microclimates in which we live. This lecture will describe principles for microclimatic design that are simple yet effective ways of creating comfortable places. The lecture will be illustrated with examples of recent research and practice ranging from the rooftop gardens for the proposed New York Times Tower in Manhattan, to traditional design of ancient Japanese gardens.
Robert D. Brown, B.Sc., M.L.A., Ph.D.
Dr. Brown is Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of
Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph,
Canada.
Professor Brown is on the Editorial Board for the academic journals
Landscape and Urban Planning and Landscape Research, and is an active
contributor to scholarly publications. Professor Brown has received
international recognition and awards including the Certificate of Honor
for
Creative Integration of Teaching and Research from the Council of
Educators
in Landscape Architecture. Most recently he spent 4 months in Japan as
the
prestigious Invited Visiting Professor in the Laboratory of Landscape
Ecology and Planning at the University of Tokyo. During this time he
co-edited a book entitled Satoyama: The Traditional Rural Landscape of
Japan
that was released in January, 2003 by Springer. He is also senior
author of
Microclimatic Landscape Design: Creating Thermal Comfort and Energy
Efficiency published by John Wiley & Sons, New York.