E+DEcology plus Design
Ecological design, education + outreach for a better future
Design is the means whereby we shape our environment. Merging Ecology + Design brings together ecologists and design professionals to research and develop frameworks, criteria, and strategies for planning, designing, restoring, and assessing ecologically productive landscapes.
Wetlands + Climate Change Explored
This episode of the “Growing Impact” podcast by the Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE) features E+D Director Andy Cole’s research into hydrologic changes that may have occurred due to climate changes.
Vision
It is E+D’s vision to be the international center of research, outreach, and education in ecological design.
Mission
E+D’s mission is research-activated ecological design, research-informed ecological design education, and outreach that work to improve the ecological health of the built and natural environment.
This center studies the intersection of ecological science and environmental design to provide innovation and leadership in the design of our built environment to improve ecological function — a claim made frequently by engineers, architects, landscape architects, and other professionals, but rarely substantiated.
Through E+D, we develop ecologically sustainable design procedures and methods that leverage natural system processes, account for landscape history — including social histories — and provide for temporally resilient ecosystems.
Goals
E+D has three primary objectives: research-activated ecological design, education in ecologically-based design, and outreach through a variety of classes, symposia, speakers, podcasts, workshops, and publications. The need for an ecologically-based approach to design is evident in the increasingly complex environmental problems that cannot be solved with a singular philosophical approach. The world is facing a tipping point where ecosystem integrity is increasingly compromised, leaving vulnerable those very ecosystem services upon which we depend.
E+D utilizes design as an organizing principle to continue to bring together ecologists, designers, and allied professionals to address ecological issues across a broad scale, from site to region. We expect the results of our work to be of importance to landscape architects, ecologists, planners, developers, architects, land managers, engineers, public health professionals, conservationists, and anyone else that seeks to both understand and modify the landscapes where we live.
In addition, the work of E+D is of importance to our community at-large because properly functioning ecosystem services can mitigate the extremes of climate change, hazards, and disasters, while providing a healthier everyday quality of life.
Publications
E+D Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- Cui, Z., J. Dillard, J. Pinto, A. High, J. J. De La Cruz, S. Mainzer, C. A. Cole. A. Media Contributions to a Chesapeake Bay Watershed Collective Identity: A Tale of Three Cities. Environmental Management. [Accepted September 2022].
- Flohr, T., M. Heris, and E. Derycke. 2022. An ENVI-met simulation data pipeline for evaluating urban tree patterns impacts on urban micro-climate. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture 7-2022.
- Traub, J. (Graduate Student), and S. Mainzer. Holistic Wellness in Elementary Schoolyard Environments: An Analysis of Performance Factors in Post-2000s Literature. Children, Youth and Environments. [Submitted May 3, 2022].
- DuRussel, L., and D. Meehan. 2021. The Tools of Engagement: A Hybrid Community Conversation Strategy to Build Public Trust. CELA Conference Proceedings (in press).
- Horton, M., S. Zolfaghari, E. Bernabé, B. Leroux, L. Andrews, J. A. Alarcón, M. Echevarria, J. Zunt, and A. L, Seminario. 2021. An assessment of pediatric dental care and family quality of life in an informal Amazonian community. Annals of Global Health 87, no. 1: 10. DOI: 10.5334/aogh.3331
- Stempel, P., and A. Becker. 2021. Is it Scientific? Viewer perceptions of storm surge visualizations.
Cartographica, The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, 56(2),48. 10.3138/cart-2020-0004 - Stempel, P., A. Becker, P. Rubinoff, and S. Fultineer. 2021. Beyond the Blue Blob, Visualizing Impacts Instead of Inundation for Public Engagement in Coastal Resilience. Digital Landscape Architecture, 6.
- Wu, H., Y. Yang, and J. Hu. 2021. Nurturing nature in a mega-city: a decadal assessment of the Beijing Olympic Forest Park. Socio Ecol. Pract. Res 3:91–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-021-00076-5
- Bera, A., and H. Wu. 2020. Changing Waterscapes: The Dichotomy of Development and Water Management Surrounding the Wetlands of Calcutta Since the British-Colonial Era. 2020 International Ph.D. Symposium: Divergence in Architectural Research. Atlanta, GA: Georgia Tech College of Design.
- Cole, C. A. 2020. Created ecosystems and the concept of succession. Landscape Journal 38 (1-2):75-85.
- DuRussel, L., and D. T. Meehan. 2020. Under The Eye: Using an Ecosystem of Digital Tools to Analyze and Solve Land Use Planning Issues. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture, 5-2020.
- Flohr, T. L., H. Wu, and N. Tebyanian. 2020. A Web App for Urban Pollinator Site Assessment. Landscape Research Record No. 9, 16.
- Rothman, S. E., C. A. Cole, M. A. Bruns, and M. Hall. 2021. The influence of soil amendments on a native wildflower seed mix in surface mine restoration. Restoration Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13440
- Mainzer, S. P., C. A. Cole, and T. Flohr. 2019. Deep decarbonization and renewable energy in the Appalachian Mountains (DDREAM): a socio-ecological systems approach to evaluating ecological governance. Socio-Ecological Practice Research. 1, 3-4. 249-263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00030-6
- Weaver, T., and C. A. Cole. 2019. Barriers and incentives to stream conservation: The influence of culture on buffer design and implementation. Journal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science. 93(1):63-81.
- Alarcón, J. O., J. A. Alarcón, and L. Andrews. 2018. Epidemiología, arquitectura paisajista, “Una Salud” e innovación: Experiencia en una comunidad amazónica, (English) Epidemiology, Landscape Architecture, “One Health” and Innovation: Experiences in an Amazonian Community, La Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Pública. 35(4):667-74.
- Korn, A., S. Bolton, B. Spencer, J. A. Alarcón, L. Andrews and J. Voss. 2018. Physical and Mental Health Impacts of Household Gardens in an Urban Slum in Lima, Peru. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 15(8): 1751-1762.
- Andrews, L. and N. Rottle. 2017. Deploying Living Walls as Kinetic Facades. Journal of Living Architecture. 4(2): 17-31.
- Mainzer, S., and A.E. Luloff. 2017. Informing environmental problems through field analysis: toward a community landscape theory of pro-environmental behavior. Community Development. 48(4):1-16.
Book Chapters
- Andrews, L., R. Bachman, and S. P. Fernandez. 2022. Living on Water: Amphibious communities in the Amazon Rainforest. In Handbook of Sustainable Cities and Landscapes in the Pacific Rim, Y. Ko and A. Taufen, eds., Chapter Editor K.Yocom. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis / Routledge, ISBN/ISSN: 9780367471149
- Andrews, L., et al. 2022. Fog-Water Farm Park and Gardens Project. In Diseño Ecológico: estrategias para la ciudad informal y el cambio climático (Ecological Design: strategies for the informal city and climate change), J. Sordi and S. Patiño, eds. Buenos Aires: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (Inter-American Development Bank, Housing and Urban Development).
People
Faculty, staff, students, external researchers, and industry professionals work within E+D to propose innovative solutions to ecological crises.
Core Faculty Researchers
Charles Andrew “Andy” Cole
Professor of Landscape Architecture and Ecology +
Director of E+D | Profile
Leann Andrews
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture | Profile
Travis Flohr
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture | Profile
Lisa Iulo
Associate Professor of Architecture +
Director of the Hamer Center for Community Design | Profile
Stephen Mainzer
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture | Profile
Hong Wu
Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture +
Director of the Stormwater Living Lab | Profile
Affiliate Researchers
Pep Avilés
Associate Professor of Architecture | Profile
Mallika Bose
Professor of Landscape Architecture +
Associate Dean for Research, Creative Activity, and Graduate Studies | Profile
Laia Celma
Assistant Teaching Professor of Architecture | Profile
Mehrdad Hadighi
Professor of Architecture | Profile
Marc Miller
Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture | Profile
Peter Stempel
Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture | Profile
Partners
Douglas Bird
Professor of Anthropology | Profile
Rachel Brennan
Professor of Civil and Evironmental Engineering | Profile
Mary Ann Victoria Bruns
Professor of Soil Microbiology and Biogeochemistry | Profile
Kenneth Davis
Professor of Atmospheric and Climate Science | Profile
James Dillard
Distinguished Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences | Profile
Jonathan Duncan
Associate Professor of Hydrology | Profile
C. Paola Ferreri
Associate Professor of Fisheries Management | Profile
Leland Glenna
Professor of Rural Sociology and Science, Technology, and Society | Profile
Alan Graefe
Professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management | Profile
Andrew High
Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences | Profile
Megan Hoskins
Institute of Energy and the Environment | Profile
Jason Kaye
Distinguished Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry | Profile
Natasha Miles
Research Professor of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science | Profile
Odette Mina
Institute of Energy and the Environment | Profile
Lauren McPhillips
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering | Profile
Eric Plutzer
Professor of Political Science | Profile
Scott Richardson
Research Professor of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science | Profile
Erica Smithwick
Distinguished Professor of Geography and Ecology | Profile
Andrew Warner
Institute of Energy and the Environment | Profile
Advisory Committee
- Leann Andrews, Department of Landscape Architecture
- Rebecca Bliege Bird, Department of Anthropology
- Andy Cole, Department of Landscape Architecture
- Lisa DuRussel, University of Michigan
- Travis Flohr, Department of Landscape Architecture
- Margaret Hoffman, Department of Plant Science
- Lisa Iulo, Department of Architecture
- Kendall Mainzer, Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education
- Stephen Mainzer, Department of Landscape Architecture
- Christopher Scott, Department of Ecosystem Science and Management
- Peter Stempel, Department of Landscape Architecture
- Hong Wu, Department of Landscape Architecture
Graduate Student Researchers
- Mahsa Adib
- Abhinandan Bera
- Lara Garcia
External Partners
- Stephen Apfelbaum – Applied Ecological Services
- Chris Barnes – SCAPE
- Kyle Beilder – Cranberry Township, PA
- Keith Bowers – Biohabitats
- William Braham – University of Pennsylvania
- Meghan Hazer Álvarez – Baltimore City Department of Public Works
- Kristina Hill – University of California, Berkeley
- Prakash Mistry – Baltimore City Department of Public Works
- William Mitsch – Florida Gulf Coat University
- David Orr – Oberlin College
- Dan Santoro – Cranberry Township, PA
- Doug Wilcox – SUNY Brockport
- Bo Yang – University of Arizona
Learn more about E+D
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