URI announces spring lecture series in Community Planning and Landscape Architecture
First speaker to discuss conservation
Through subdivision design

KINGSTON, R.I. -- January 29, 2001 -- The University of Rhode Island's spring Community Planning and Landscape Architecture lecture series will feature sculptors, landscape architects, and a conservation planner who'll discuss a diverse mix of design themes.

Sponsored by the URI Department of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture, the lectures begin at 7:30 p.m. and are held in the White Hall auditorium on the Kingston Campus. All are free and open to the public.

The series begins on Thursday, Feb. 8 with a discussion of "Subdivision Design ­ Rethinking how we develop our rural landscape" by Randall Arendt, senior conservation adviser at the Natural Lands Trust. Arendt is a much sought-after speaker on the topic of creative development design as a conservation tool. He has designed "conservation subdivisions" for a wide variety of clients in 16 states, and his designs are considered "twice green" because they succeed both environmentally and economically.

Arendt earned degrees from Wesleyan University and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was a St. Andrew's Scholar. He is the former director of planning and research at the Center for Rural Massachusetts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of more than 20 publications, including Growing Greener and Conservation Design for Subdivisions, both published by Island Press.

The rest of the lecture series schedule is as follows:

Thursday, March 22 ­ sculptors Howard Ben Tre' and Mimi Sammis, on "Public Art in the Landscape." Ben Tre' is a pioneer in the use of cast glass as a sculptural medium, and his work is included in more than 70 museum collections as well as outside the Bank Boston building in Providence. Sammis' sculptures are said to reflect the "divinity of life" and includes a collection recently on display at the United Nations in New York City.

Thursday, April 5 ­ landscape architect Leslie Sauer, principal of Andropogon Associates, a design and planning firm with a national reputation in ecological restoration, on "Sustainable Watershed Management." Sauer is the author of The Once and Future Forest, a guidebook for restoring and managing natural landscapes.

Thursday, April 26 ­ landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand, principal of Reed Hilderbrand and adjunct associate professor at Harvard University, on "Design Inspiration for a New Millennium." He serves on the advisory board of LandForum Magazine and is the author of Making a Landscape of Continuity: The Practice of Innocenti &Webel and The Miller Garden: Icon of Modernism.

For more information about the lecture series, call the URI Department of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture at 874-2249 or email Professor Will Green at wagre@uri.edu.

For Information: Will Green 874-2142, Todd McLeish 874-7892