Lecture: Construction as Catalyst

Construction as Catalyst: Building Value through Hands-on Participation 

Andrew Fox, North Carolina State

Wednesday, 9/21 at 4:00 pm,

Cook/Douglas Lecture Hall;

3 College Farm Road

New Brunswick, NJ

How are individuals and organizations that are unfamiliar with the technicalities of design, construction, and maintenance processes supposed to truly understand and value the holistic systems required to both develop and maintain sustainable sites? An inclusive, participatory approach to the design-construction cycle offers one solution. A community-based, hands-on approach helps synthesize beneficial relationships and promote innovation that exceed standard solutions by integrating creative, technical, financial, and managerial aspects into a framework of engagement and education. The strategic partnerships fostered through this site development model produce economical, innovative, and engaging public landscapes because their integrated assemblies nurture cooperation and collaboration, embrace localized environmental processes, and celebrate the deep connections between our social and physical environs. This lecture will describe an integrated design methodology that fuses practice, policy, place, and participation to achieve environmentally responsive and socially responsible solutions in the public realm. Examples from past, present, and future projects will be presented, and conclude with a discussion of how these principles are currently guiding the development and delivery of a Design/Build Initiative at North Carolina State University.

Andrew Fox, ASLA is a registered landscape architect and Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at North Carolina State University. Fox specializes in the design of public landscapes with a strategic focus on low impact development (LID) practices and stakeholder engagement. His experience includes projects that range in scope from citywide transportation and urban design initiatives, to public parks and school sites, to landscape architectural education. During his career, Andrew’s work has been recognized by numerous professional organizations and agencies, including the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), American Institute of Architects (AIA), Council of Educational Facilities Planners International (CEFPI), United States Green Building Council (USGBC), North Carolina State University and the City of Raleigh.