URI Landscape Architecture Lecture Series continues Feb. 26

Balancing sustainability and budget

Todd McLeish, URI

KINGSTON, R.I. –The University of Rhode Island’s 2014 – 2015 Landscape Architecture Lecture Series continues Feb. 26 with a discussion about balancing the need for long-term sustainability with the desire for cost-effective, short-term solutions. 

“Landscape architects are truly interested in making the world a better place,” said speaker Robert J. Golde, partner in Towers/Golde. “However, these altruistic tendencies are often tempered against more pragmatic needs of our clients whose attitudes toward ‘green’ initiatives, and the means to pay for them, can vary considerably.”

Golde will present case studies of green solutions developed in collaboration with clients, and explore how a new “language of sustainability” is allowing all stakeholders to reach solutions. He will also present methods for balancing the two seemingly competing notions of long-term sustainability and short-term cost-effectiveness.

The lecture will take place on Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. in Weaver Auditorium in the Coastal Institute building on URI’s Kingston campus. All lectures are free and open to the public.

Towers/Golde is a large-scale site planning firm in New Haven, Conn. Golde specializes in meeting the needs of budget-conscious clients on difficult and restricted sites. He has amassed a varied portfolio over his career, ranging from park planning in Shenzen, China, to rooftop healing gardens at urban medical centers. He is a mentor in the ACE Mentor Program, which inspires high school students to pursue careers in architecture, construction, and engineering. He received a Fulbright Foundation grant to Greece in 1979.

Upcoming speakers in the lecture series will be Peter Trowbridge of Trowbridge, Wolf, Michael (Mar. 12); MIT Landscape Architecture Professor Anne Whiston Spirn (Apr. 9); and Kaki Martin of Klopfer Martin Design Group (Apr. 23).

The URI Landscape Architecture series is co-sponsored by the Rhode Island chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the URI College of the Environment and Life Sciences, the URI College of Arts and Sciences, and Landscape Forms. Anne Spirn’s lecture will be co-sponsored by the URI Art Department. For more information about the series, contact the URI Department of Landscape Architecture at 874-2983 or Professor Will Green at wagre@mail.uri.edu

Emma Clarke, an intern in the Department of Marketing & Communications and a public relations major, wrote this release.