Join the School of the Art Institute of Chicago live for a virtual lecture by landscape architect and artist Walter Hood followed by an audience Q&A.  Walter Hood (MFA 2013) is the creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California — a cultural practice that works across art, fabrication, design, landscape, research, and urbanism. He is also professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley. He lectures on and exhibits professional and theoretical projects nationally and internationally.

Hood creates urban spaces that resonate with and enrich the lives of current residents while also honouring communal histories. He 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 neighbourhoods. 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.