Thursday, March 14th from 3:00 PM- 4:30 PM
Location: Upstairs Conference Room of the Udall Building, 725 Camino Lejo
Cost: $5 Member/$10 Not-yet-Member
Surroundings is a multidisciplinary design studio focused on transforming the built environment through innovative landscape architecture, urban design, and planning. Creating engaging, sustainable, and operationally smart designs for projects throughout New Mexico, Texas, and North America, Surroundings and chief principal, Kenneth Francis, maintain a heavy focus on energy and water conservation. In this concluding lecture, Kenneth will lead us through how Surroundings develops project ideas, their design process, and their ethical standards that produce landscapes that are both meaningful and inspiring. Kenneth will lead us through a variety of landscapes and recognizable Santa Fe projects, from the more regimented, formal landscapes to the intentionally wild, seemingly natural, and complex ones.
About the Lecturer: Kenneth Francis is a founding partner and Principal of Surroundings, a New Mexico based multidisciplinary design studio. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the Cooper Union in New York City and a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. While studying at Harvard, he was awarded a travel grant to research the historic and cultural landscape of the acequias in Northern New Mexico. As a direct result of this study, Kenneth’s work has been focused on innovative and sustainable water practices in every scale of project that comes into the studio. Kenneth has 20 years combined architecture and landscape experience and has presented on the topic of green infrastructure at multiple conferences, including the 2014 ASLA National Convention. He has been interviewed on PBS Austin and was also profiled in Smithsonian Magazine for the stormwater design features of El Parque del Rio, a newly completed example of green infrastructure along the Santa Fe River.