landscape architecture & urban planning

Nestled amid the Costa Rican rain forest, Texas A&M's Soltis Center for Research and Education provides a perfect venue for landscape architecture studies, according to members of the Landscape Architecture Professional Advisory Board who visited there last January for continuing education coursework.

For cordially providing superlative service to students and faculty in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Trisha Gottschalk, assistant to the department head, will receive a President’s Meritorious Service Award in a special honors ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 21 in Rudder Theatre.

This fall master of urban planning student Nick Oyler is traveling to Germany on a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship to study how Europe’s political, economic and cultural environment impact planning and sustainability.

Texas A&M land development graduate Jonathan Brinsden '92 helped his firm, Midway Companies, earn a 2012 Development of Distinction Award from the Urban Land Institute for its CityCentre project.

Professional landscape architects shared their knowledge with students Feb. 10-11 at the Langford Architecture Center in a series of presentations, discussion panels and charrettes at the 2012 Aggie Workshop, which this year took a holistic approach to design.

After two decades focused on improving the quality of life for residents of the impoverished, relatively undeveloped villages, or “colonias,” clumped near population centers on the U.S. side of the Texas-Mexico border, the Texas A&M University Colonias Program is celebrating its achievements.

Historic preservation efforts undertaken after natural and manmade disasters were the focus of “Disaster,” the 13th Annual Historic Preservation Symposium at the Langford Architecture Center.

Philip Berke ‘81, an outstanding alumnus of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture and one of the nation’s top land use planning scholars, presented “Sustainable Cities: Demographic Trends, Impacts and Future Plans” on Jan. 20 in the Wright Gallery.

Brenda Takahashi, an experienced leader in public housing administration, will discuss sustainable community and economic development 7 p.m. Jan. 19 in the Wright Gallery, kicking off Texas A&M’s Real Estate Development Association’s Spring 2012 Speaker Series.

Xuemei Zhu, assistant professor of architecture, co-authored a paper summarizing the research behind active living — a new, comprehensive way of tackling obesity involving the built environment — in the new edition of a journal published by the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development.

Two former Texas A&M landscape architecture students, Elizabeth Chapman ’10 and Trace Unruh ’11, helped develop the city of Austin’s new invasive species management plan while working as interns at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center .

Nominations for the 2012 College of Architecture Outstanding Alumni Awards, which annually recognize former students of exceptional accomplishment, are being accepted through Feb. 10. Since its inception in 1997, less than one percent of the college’s former students have received the award, the college’s highest honor.

Shelley Potter ’78, a Texas A&M’s College of Architecture Outstanding Alumna, received the 2011 Women’s Legacy Award from the Texas A&M Women Former Students’ Network at a Nov. 4 luncheon. A past chairwoman of The Association of Former Students, she is president of POTTER, a Dallas design firm.

Bachelor and master’s degree programs in landscape architecture and the Master of Architecture program at Texas A&M were recently ranked among the nation’s best by the Design Futures Council.

Graduate engineering students at Texas A&M advised by Ken Joh, assistant professor of urban planning, earned first place and $10,000 in scholarship money in a sustainable transportation planning contest sponsored by the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.