"Design for a Vulnerable Planet"

Frederick R. Steiner is the dean of the School of Architecture and Henry M. Rockwell Chair in Architecture, both at The University of Texas at Austin. He has worked with local, state, and federal agencies on diverse environmental plans and designs. Steiner is the current president of the Hill Country Conservancy (a land trust) and past chair and current secretary of Envision Central Texas (a non-governmental regional planning organization).

As a Fulbright-Hays scholar in 1980, he conducted research on ecological planning at the Wageningen University, The Netherlands. In 1998, he was a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. A Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Dean Steiner was a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China (2005-2007). He received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in city and regional planning and a Master of Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a Master of Community Planning and a B.S. in Design from the University of Cincinnati. Steiner received an honorary Master of Philosophy in Human Ecology from the College of the Atlantic.

Steiner has published numerous articles and books. His most recent books include Urban Ecological Design (with Danilo Palazzo, 2011), Design for a Vulnerable Planet (2011), Planning and Urban Design Standards (Student Edition with Kent Butler, 2007), The Essential Ian McHarg: Writings on Design and Nature (2006), and Human Ecology: Following Nature’s Lead (2002).

About Design for a Vulnerable Planet

We inhabit a vulnerable planet. The devastation caused by natural disasters such as the southern Asian tsunami, Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, and the earthquakes in China’s Sichuan province, Haiti, and Chile—as well as the ongoing depletion and degradation of the world’s natural resources caused by a burgeoning human population, have made it clear that “business as usual" is no longer sustainable. We need to find ways to improve how we live on this planet while minimizing our impact on it.

Design for a Vulnerable Planet sounds a call for designers and planners to go beyond traditional concepts of sustainability toward innovative new design that fosters regeneration and resilience.

Drawing on his own and others’ experiences across three continents, Steiner advocates design practice grounded in ecology and democracy and informed by critical regionalism and reflection. He begins by establishing the foundation for a more ecological approach to planning and design, adopting a broad view of ecology as encompassing human and natural, urban and wild environments.

Steiner explores precedents for human ecological design provided by architect Paul Cret, landscape architect Ian McHarg, and developer George Mitchell while discussing their planning for The University of Texas at Austin campus, the Lake Austin watershed, and The Woodlands.

Steiner then focuses on emerging Texas urbanism and extends his discussion to broader considerations beyond the Lone Star State, including regionalism, urbanism, and landscape in China and Italy. He examines the lessons to be learned from human and natural disasters such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the BP oil spill. Finally, Steiner offers a blueprint for designing with nature to help heal the planet’s vulnerabilities.

Steiner will present a lecture titled “Design for a Vulnerable Planet" at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 10 at Hembree Auditorium (Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences Building, Room 107E) on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture lecture series.