‘Sustaining Places We Value’ at
KINGSTON, R.I. – April 1, 2008 – Acclaimed preservation landscape architect Patricia O’Donnell, principal of Heritage Landscapes, is the final speaker in the 2007-08 URI Landscape Architecture Lecture Series. Her presentation, “Sustaining Places We Value in the 21st Century,” will take place April 10 at 7 p.m.
The event will be held in Weaver Auditorium in the Coastal Institute building on URI’s Kingston campus. It is free and open to the public.
O’Donnell will speak on the intersection of preservation and sustainability issues in cultural landscapes using a number of projects as examples.
She is widely recognized as a leader and expert in the field of historic landscape preservation. She spearheaded the expansion of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Historic Preservation Committee; lobbied Congress for funding of national cultural landscape studies; encouraged the formation of the National Park Service’s historic landscape initiative; and chaired the landscape preservation session for the Congressional study of preservation technology transfer. She was also an invited expert at the UNESCO World Heritage summit on “Cultural Landscapes of Universal Value.” She founded Heritage Landscapes, a preservation landscape architecture and planning firm, in 1987.
With offices in Charlotte, Vt. and Norwalk, Conn., Heritage Landscapes is a landscape architecture firm with experience in nearly 400 preservation projects for campuses, institutions, museums, historic sites, cemeteries, parks and estates. Projects of note include the first Camp David, George Washington’s headquarters at Valley Forge, Washington Irving’s Sunnyside, Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, the Virginia Capitol, Oldfields at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Shelburne Farms, and numerous historic parks and parkways. From 1987 to 2007 the firm garnered 32 professional awards.
O’Donnell received masters degrees in landscape architecture and in urban planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds landscape architectural licenses in multiple states, is a certified planner, and was inducted as a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects for executed works in 1995.
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 and the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association. For more information about the series, contact the URI Department of Landscape Architecture at 874-2983 or Professor Will Green at wagre@uri.edu.