Kurt Culbertson
Director
225-578-1434 | 302 Julian T. White Hall
kculbe5@lsu.edu
MBA Southern Methodist University
PhD Edinburgh College of Art
Kurt Culbertson received his BLA from LSU, an MBA in Real Estate from SMU, and a PhD from Edinburgh College of Art. He is a Fulbright scholar, a fellow of ASLA, AICP, Bogliasco Foundation, and Dumbarton Oaks. He was named an Honorary Fellow of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.
For thirty-three years, Kurt served as Chairman and CEO of Design Workshop, an international landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm with eight studios around the United States. He is a past Chair of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Young Presidents Organization and is a member of both the Louisiana and Aspen chapters. He received the ASLA Medal in 2016, the highest honor awarded by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA.) He will receive the ASLA Design Medal in September 2026.
His research interests include the biography of George Kessler and the contribution of German Americans and Scandinavians to the development of American landscape architecture. Culbertson’s most recent work focuses upon the application patch dynamics theory toward the ecology of cities with particular emphasis on issues of spatial equity. His research at the Bogliasco Foundation and as a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome focused on the refinement of a human habitat quality model to describe the settlement patterns of our species.
He began as Director of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at his alma mater, Louisiana State University, as of July 2026. He also continues his private practice through President of Studio: Kurt Culbertson with a wide range of projects both domestically and internationally.