This memorial lecture was created by friends and family members of our department’s alumna, Mary Kim McKeown. She received her bachelor of landscape architecture from the University of Oregon in 1982 and was working in Mill Valley, California in the offices of Royston, Hanamoto, Alley and Abey (now RHAA). McKeown was considered one of the bright ones, and an up-and-coming leader for the firm. She lost her life when a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area on October 17, 1989.
To honor her memory, McKeown’s family and her associates at RHAA dedicated themselves to establishing this memorial lecture fund. An endowment fund at the UO Foundation was created, and in 1992 the department hosted Robert Royston of RHAA as the inaugural speaker in this lecture series.
2021: Diana Fernandez
"Heterogeneous Futures: Design Thinking Alternatives for Anthropologically and Ecologically Diverse Landscapes"
2018: Joyce van den Berg
Head landscape architect for the city of Amsterdam’s Department of Urban Planning and Sustainability
"Landscape As Strategy"
2017: Silvia Benedito
Assistant Professor at Harvard GSD
"Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation"
2016: Sonja Dümpelmann
Landscape historian and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
"Street Tree Stories: On the Politics of Nature in the City"
2015: Bas Smets
Principal of Bureau Bas Smets, an internationally-recognized landscape architecture and design firm based in Brussels, Belgium
"The Invention of Landscape"
2015: Carl Steinitz
Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning Emeritus at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
"Which Way of Designing?"
2014: Ken Smith, FASLA
Principal of Ken Smith Workshop, an award-winning landscape architectural firm that explores the relationship between art, contemporary culture, and landscape
"Larger Landscapes"
2012: Roger Trancik, FASLA
Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Cornell University
"25 Years of Finding Lost Space"
2011: Kathryn L. Gleason
Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at Cornell University
"Digging up Design: Discovering the Origins of Landscape Architecture"
2009: Anne Whiston Spirn, FASLA
Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at MIT
"Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange’s Photographs and Reports from the Field"
2008: E. Marc Treib
Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley
"Poetics and Pragmatics: Thoughts on Quality, Design, and Sustainability"
2007: Joan Iverson Nassauer, FASLA
Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Michigan
"Design Leverage: How water quality can lead to quality of life"
2006: Daniel Solomon, FAIA
Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley, and a partner at Mithun | Solomon, San Francisco
"Rich Admire Richard Meier: Whatever Happened to Modernity?"
2005: Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, FASLA
Landscape Architecture Practice Leader with AECOM’s Virginia office
"Design InTension"
2004: Cheryl Barton, FASLA, FAAR
Managing principal of The Office of Cheryl Barton, based in San Francisco
"Landscape Stratigraphy"
2002: Julie Bargmann, FAAR
Principal of D.I.R.T. Studio, and Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia
"Toxic Beauty"
2001: Mary Margaret Jones, FASLA, FAAR
Senior Principal at Hargreaves Associates in San Francisco
"Meaning, Making, and Medium"
2000: Carolyn L. Franklin, FASLA
Partner (Emeritus) at Andropogon Associates, Ltd., in Philadelphia
"Making the Pot from the Shards: Actions for the New Millennium"
1999: Grant Jones, FASLA
Jones is Principal (Emeritus) of Jones & Jones Architects, Landscape Architects, Planners in Seattle
"Endemic Regionalism: Going Native and Making a Marriage with Land"
1998: Walter Hood
Professor of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley, and Principal of Hood Design in Oakland
"Urban Landscape Typologies"
1997: Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, FASLA
"Using an Ecological Approach to Design: Good Design is Ecological"
1996: Ian McHarg
"Green, Heal, and Restore the Earth"
1995: Anne Whiston Spirn
Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at MIT
"Landscape and Community: Vacant Land as a Resource for Reshaping Urban Neighborhoods"
1992: Robert N. Royston
"One Firm: Over Forty Years of Landscape Architecture"