This fall 2013, the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture welcomes two new assistant professors: Forbes Lipschitz and Richard Hindle.

In 2012, DesignIntelligence magazine conducted a survey asking deans, chairs, and professors about the top landscape architecture programs and the issues they find significant: “According to 84 percent of the professors surveyed, the design professions’ biggest concern is climate change/sustainability while another 64 percent said urbanization. Following this, some 68 percent also thought the most significant change in the curricula over the past five years has been an increased emphasis on sustainable design.”

The professional experience and expertise of the two new landscape architecture faculty and their respective research interests reflect the shifting issues and concerns of the profession, and their addition to the faculty will help maintain the school’s rankings as one of the top landscape architecture programs in the country.

Assistant Professor Forbes Lipschitz

Forbes Lipschitz’s professional experience in landscape architecture includes a wide range of public, private, and infrastructural projects. As a designer and project manager at dlandstudio, her projects included a pop-up storm-water management pilot for the Harlem River; historic restoration projects in Queens and Manhattan; and the winning entry for YUL-MTL: Moving Landscapes, International Ideas competition.

Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Lipschitz graduated cum laude with a BA in environmental aesthetics from Pomona College in Claremont, California. She received a master in landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded a distinction and ASLA Certificate of Merit award for her thesis, “The New Regional Pattern: Syncing Livestock Production and Urban Systems in the Broiler Belt.” Her research explores the role of geospatial analysis and representation in rethinking landscape systems, with a particular interest in North American agricultural territories.

“I am very excited to be joining LSU this fall,” said Lipschitz. “I think the setting of the school coupled with the high caliber of students and faculty will make it the perfect place to explore the regional sustainability issues I am passionate about.”

Lipschitz will teach a fourth-year undergraduate regional planning studio with Associate Professor Kevin Risk and LA 4201 Planning Theory & Methods.

Richard Hindle earned a BS in horticulture from Cornell University and a master of landscape architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Hindle worked as a senior designer at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates in New York, contributing to projects such as the ASLA Headquarters Green Roof, Lower Don Lands Master Plan, and the District Energy Center by Steven Holl.

Hindle was assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2012–13, where he founded the Horticultural Building Systems Lab and Consultancy to investigate the design, tectonics, and fabrication of emergent landscape technology and urban systems. In 2012, Hindle was awarded a Graham Foundation Award for the “Reconstruction of the Vegetation-Bearing Architectonic Structure and System,” a reification project that materializes the technological origins of the vertical garden as designed by Stanley Hart White from 1931–38.

Assistant Professor Richard Hindle

Hindle’s current research focuses on technology in the garden and landscape, with an emphasis on material processes, patents, and innovation. He is also keenly interested in planting design and was awarded Penn State’s Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture’s A.E. Bye Landscape Architecture Archives Research Fellowship to investigate the innovative plant palettes used by A.E. Bye.

Hindle will lead a third-year undergraduate site design studio and will teach an ecology and technology graduate course focusing on urban vegetation and water systems.

“We are excited to have Assistant Professors Lipschitz and Hindle join our strong and diverse faculty,” said Bradley Cantrell, associate professor and director of the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture. “Richard’s interests in site technology and horticulture help to fill spaces in our program and advance the profession’s lineage and history of constructing innovative landscapes. Forbes Lipschitz brings a passionate research agenda that addresses regional site issues through the lens of sustainability, economics, and infrastructure. I have no doubt their talent and energy will make a difference in the program and the profession.”

For more information about the landscape architecture program at LSU, visit the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture website at design.lsu.edu/landscape.