Senior Loeb Scholar Lecture: Walter Hood, “When Memory Is Not Enough”

Headshot of Walter Hood, who wears a black jacket and a brown scarf and smiles widely.

The GSD’s Spring 2021 Public Programs are all virtual and require registration.

Scroll down to find complete registration instructions and additional information about accessing the GSD’s programs.

Event Description

The Senior Loeb Scholars program invites prominent individuals whose expertise is outside the typical disciplines of the GSD or whose practice displays a unique focus. Scholars are welcomed for a short term residency at the School, during which they present a public lecture, workshops, and other engagements. Since its inception, the program has offered the GSD community opportunities to learn from and engage with visionary designers, scholars, and thought leaders.

Walter Hood is the Spring 2021 Senior Loeb Scholar. Hood joins a cohort of previous Senior Loeb Scholars, which include Bruno Latour (2018-2019); Kenneth Frampton and Silvia Kolbowski (2017-2018); Richard and Ruth Rogers (2016-2017); and David Harvey (2015-2016).

Screenshot of a virtual event. Walter Hood, who wears a black shirt and silver headphones, appears in a small square on the right. A larger rectangle shows his PowerPoint presentation, which shows a photo of an outdoor art project. Walter Hood and the PowerPoint are surrounded by a green background.

Screenshot from a virtual event. Sarah Whiting and Walter Hood appear in separate rectangles side-by-side. They are surrounded by a green background.

Speaker

Headshot of Walter Hood, who wears a black jacket and a brown scarf and smiles widely.Walter Hood is the Creative Director and Founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. Hood Design Studio is a cultural practice, working across art, fabrication, design, landscape, research and urbanism. He is also the David K. Woo Chair and the Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He lectures on and exhibits professional and theoretical projects nationally and internationally. He was recently the Spring 2020 Diana Balmori Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture.

Walter creates urban spaces that resonate with and enrich the lives of current residents while also honoring communal histories. Hood melds architectural and fine arts expertise with a commitment to designing ecologically sustainable public spaces that empower marginalized communities. Over his career, he has transformed traffic islands, vacant lots, and freeway underpasses into spaces that challenge the legacy of neglect of urban neighborhoods. Through engagement with community members, he teases out the natural and social histories as well as current residents’ shared patterns and practices of use and aspirations for a place.

The Studio’s award-winning work has been featured in publications including Dwell, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Architectural Digest, Places Journal, and Landscape Architecture Magazine. Walter Hood is also a recipient of the 2017 Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, 2019 Knight Foundation Public Spaces Fellowship, 2019 MacArthur Fellowship and 2019 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.

How to Join

Register to attend the lecture here. Once you have registered, you will be provided with a link to join the lecture via Zoom. This link will also be emailed to you.

The event will also be live streamed to the GSD’s YouTube page. Only viewers who are attending the lecture via Zoom will be able to submit questions for the Q+A. If you would like to submit questions for the speakers in advance of the event, please click here.

Live captioning will be provided during this event. A transcript will be available roughly two weeks after the event, upon request.

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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