KINGSTON, R.I. – September 22, 2011 – The first speaker in the University of Rhode Island’s Landscape Architecture Lecture Series will examine the role landscape architecture plays in the designs of roadways in a lecture entitled “Streets as Public Spaces.”

The presentation by David Lustberg, principal of the New Jersey-based street design studio Arterial, takes place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 6 in Weaver Auditorium in the Coastal Institute building on URI’s Kingston campus. The event is free and open to the public.

A graduate of the URI Landscape Architecture program, Lustberg is a landscape architect, planner and urban designer with more than 14 years of diverse professional experience, ranging from streetscape and plaza design to bicycle and pedestrian planning and redevelopment consulting.

He started his firm to change the way that streets and public spaces are designed and planned. As senior associate at the planning and design firm EDAW, he led many of the company’s challenging urban design projects with a focus on the City of Newark. These projects include Broad Street Corridor Master Plan, Newark Penn Station Circulation Improvements and Broad Street Station Transit Plaza. Arterial is currently designing several innovative, high performance streets including a “flexible street” design for South Park Street in Montclair, N.J. and New Jersey’s first protected bicycle lanes on Mt. Prospect Avenue in Newark.

The other speakers in the lecture series are: Graham Young, senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria, on “Transforming Urban Open Space: The Development of Parks in Soweto” (Oct. 27); Terri Hahn, principal of Landscape Architectural Design Associates, on “Rising Waters: Erosion Control Plans in a Time of Changing Weather Patterns” (Nov. 17); Keith LeBlanc, principal of Keith LeBlanc Landscape Architecture, on “Site Responses for Residential Design” (Dec. 1); Catherine Weaver, principal of Tupelo Gardenworks, on “Challenges from the Field” (Feb. 23); Marc Miller, lecturer at Cornell University, on “Prototyping Topography: Landscape, 3D Printing and Practice” (March 8); Calvin Ahbe, principal of Ahbe Landscape Architects, title TBA (March 22); and Thomas Balsley, principal of Thomas Balsley Associates, title TBA (April 12).

All talks begin at 7 p.m. in Weaver Auditorium of the URI Coastal Institute in Kingston.

The URI Landscape Architecture series is co-sponsored by the College of the Environment and Life Sciences, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association, and Gates Leighton & Associates. For more information about the series, contact the URI Department of Landscape Architecture at 874-2983 or Professor Will Green at wagre@uri.edu.