Jeff Grob, who graduated in 1985 with a degree in landscape architecture from Rutgers. Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Grob.

Jeff Grob graduated with a degree in landscape architecture from then Rutgers Cook College in 1985. Today, he’s a senior associate at Stantec, an international company that provides professional consulting services in planning, engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and more for infrastructure and facilities projects. After more than 40 years of experience as a registered landscape architect, he is still excited to go to work every day.

More than just a career that has brought him great personal and career satisfaction, the work of landscape architects matters deeply to Grob.

“Landscape architects create outdoor spaces for the enjoyment of society and the non-detriment of the planet. Hopefully we can improve the health of both.”

Grob has done much of his work in the five boroughs of New York but one of his favorite projects is in New Brunswick, where landscape architects were responsible for the reimagining of Route 18 between Route 1 and the Amtrak bridge.

“The look and aesthetics of the road, how it fits its New Brunswick context and how Boyd Park now relates to the community is something I’m particularly proud of.”

Cover of the first Looking Glass album from 1972 that had “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl).” Clockwise from top left: Elliot Lurie, guitar, Jeff Grob, drums, Pieter Sweval, bass, Larry Gonsky, keyboards. Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Grob.

Outside of the impactful projects he’s enjoyed working on, Grob is very committed to mentoring students and giving back to the community. It’s these traits of kindness and service that have left a lasting impression on Richard Alomar, associate professor and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. Alomar has known Grob for decades, first within professional landscape architecture circles and later as a work colleague.

“I first knew of Jeff when he and a few other landscape architects would jam at New York American Society of Landscape Architects events. Later, when I started working at Stantec, he was the well-dressed, intelligent, funny, wise mentor who outlined the work at hand, recounted past experiences and had the relaxed demeanor to put me at ease. Jeff has many outstanding qualities and accomplishments as a professional landscape architect, but my respect and admiration come from his kindness, resilience, positive attitude and generosity. I am always glad to see him because he reminds me that life is good, always.”

One can say Grob was destined to be a landscape architect, although in an earlier life, the allure of a musical career was paramount. In the 1970s, he was a rock star with a Number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 charts around the world. He toured with popular bands like Kiss, Aerosmith, and ZZ Top. Grob still plays the drums today as a member of two bands, Looking Glass and Starz.

A self-described “Jersey guy,” Grob shared his interesting journey to fulfillment as a musician and landscape architect, and how his years at Rutgers helped to shape a rewarding career and life. He loves performing to this day, and as recently as June 27 played to a packed house at the Carteret Performing Arts Center.  

Jeff Grob, at left, and his STARZ guitar player at the end of their set at the Carteret Performing Arts Center on June 27, 2025. Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Grob.

Was Landscape Architecture always your intended major and did you already have it in mind as an eventual career?
When I came to Rutgers in the fall of 1982, I had very specific intentions about why I was there and what I was going to study. I had already done two years of college from 1969 to 1971 before I left to be a full-time recording and touring musician for all of the 1970s. When that had run its course and having no other identifiable skills than making records and entertaining millions, I found work as a construction worker for a couple of years. But after a while, I realized I needed an outlet for my creative talents. I took a career aptitude test to see what else I might be good at, and it revealed that if you combined all my previous experiences, skills and interests, I would be best suited to be a landscape architect. I started the landscape architecture program as a first-semester sophomore with the intention of being a complete knowledge sponge, wanting to soak up as much as I possibly could about the profession and practice of landscape architecture. I had already done all the other stuff typical of college life; it was time to get serious.

What drew you to Rutgers and Cook College, in particular?
Two things: I was very familiar with the various Rutgers’ campuses already from having played on all of them, from Records Hall, to The Ledge, to the Barn, outdoors at Willie the Silent and the lawn in front of the Eagleton Institute, Gay Lib and SDS dance fundraisers, to every frat house and dorm lounge on College Avenue with my band “Looking Glass” back in the early 1970s (all the other members of the band are Rutgers graduates a few years ahead of me) and, I’m a Jersey guy. Learn local. New Brunswick back at the start of the 1970s supported us very much. We, in turn, dedicated our first album to the people of New Brunswick.

Were there any experiences as an undergraduate that stand out as impactful in your life?
I had the opportunity to serve two years as the president of the student Landscape Architecture Club. It taught me organizational and leadership skills that were very important later as a professional practitioner.

Looking back at your Rutgers journey, what stands out to you as the most challenging?
Showing up for every class, getting projects in on time, paying the rent and making sure I never lost sight of having some fun along the way. 

Alternately, what did you find most rewarding?
I think the most rewarding thing I have found from my time at Rutgers is that I have found a profession that encompasses and satisfies all the things that I’m interested in – plants, people, Earth systems, transportation, building stuff, and play. It wraps all these things into one career where you never do the same thing twice, they pay you money to do it and I still like going to work every day 40 years later. Who else gets to do that?

Since graduating from Cook College in 1985, have you been back at Rutgers?
Many times. Ag Field Day events, landscape architecture juries, conferences, projects, guest lectures and a football game or two.

 

Anette Freytag is an award-winning scholar, educator and critic and a professor of the History and Theory of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Photo credit: Urska Skerl.

The International Landscape Architecture platform, LANDEZINE, featured Rutgers faculty Anette Freytag in May. Here is the interview, reproduced with permission.

Professor Anette Freytag is a relentless researcher, moving between academia, activism, and public engagement. She taught at ETH Zurich, the University of Basel, and the Technical University of Innsbruck before joining Rutgers University, where she is the Professor of the History and Theory of Landscape Architecture at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Freytag is the author of award-winning books. For The Landscapes of Dieter Kienast, she received J. B. Jackson Book Prize in 2022. The Gardens of La Gara received the European Garden Book Award in 2019.

French School of Bern by Stöckli, Kienast & Koeppel © gta Archiv/ETH Zürich, Dieter Kienast© gta Archiv/ETH Zürich, Dieter Kienast.

Freytag’s research focuses on designed landscapes from the 19th century to the contemporary practice with a particular focus on topology, phenomenology, and walking. In 2019, she co-founded the Arts Integration Research Collaborative (AIR), which prioritizes creative placemaking to foster spatial justice through projects that seek safe access to nature for all. 

In the interview, we touch on the topics of traversing different cultural backgrounds, landscape ideas, working with students, wellbeing and care. Her approach and a broad background in work and studies make her an invaluable source, which is why it is even more significant, she has lately turned her attention to small-scale actions, community work and activism.

Currently, you are teaching the History and Theory of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University. Prior, you were teaching at the ETH Zurich, the University of Basel, and at the Technical University and the University of Innsbruck, but your professional work encompasses much more. You are also a researcher, activist, author, and critic, engaging in numerous international projects. Perhaps explain the background that allows you to crisscross continents and penetrate the profession from a different angle than taught from a landscape architecture design and practice perspective.

Thank you for this generous perception of my work! I think there are various moments in my earlier education that led the way to this development. I was trained as a journalist at the age of 15 and worked first for the youth radio of the Austrian National Broadcasting Company (ORF), later for their culture and society department. I stopped at age 35, when I entered academia by starting a doctoral thesis at ETH Zurich. I loved working for the radio; it gave me access to many interesting people and locations. I was allowed to ask any questions I had in mind, and I then translated my experience through audio features to a broader audience. I learned to listen – not only to people but also to landscapes and cities, to their stories and their sounds. This has certainly laid the groundwork for my interest in phenomenology and my investigative curiosity.

My academic studies were another determining factor. I was always a political person and loved architecture and art. When I moved to Vienna, I studied, on the one hand, macroeconomics, on the other hand, a wild mix of art history, philosophy, and music. With the first cohort of Austrian Erasmus students, I went to study in Berlin just three years after “die Wende,” when Potsdamer Platz still looked like in the 1987 Wim Wenders Film Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire). I researched and wrote my master’s thesis on twentieth-century urban parks in Paris, again with a stipend, and this is when I came into landscape architecture and never left.

Courtyard of Swiss Re (Now Bank Vontobel) in Zurich by Kienast Vogt Partner © Georg Aerni.

My scholarly methods and processes are fed by the following sources: the very descriptive, analytic, deductive methods of the Vienna School of Art History; the contact with psychoanalysis and constructive realism in Vienna as well as studying deconstructivism and postmodernism with Peter Engelmann, who published the German translations of Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard in his Passagen Verlag. The fact that I entered the realm of landscape architecture and landscape thinking through the French language and French culture while living in Paris and already knowing a bit of the German scholarly literature on garden art and discovering the Anglo-Saxon scholarship made me forever aware how different the approaches to landscape thinking and its scholarly outputs are due to cultural differences. To this day, I think that a project like Duisburg Nord could only have emerged in Germany as much as the Parc de La Villette could only have been built in France. One country openly showing the wounds and contamination inflicted by the industrial age, the other erasing them; one concept emerging in a country that was all about acknowledging and facing its past, the other in a society equipped with self-confidence and certitude drawn from nothing less than the French Revolution. My scholarly work, be it on Vienna around 1900, German WWI cemeteries, my cultural heritage preservation work, or my research on postmodern and contemporary landscape architecture, has been coined by this education.

The North American culture is yet another beast that I have been studying for eight years now: a strange mix of unwavering optimism and the belief in the blank slate, framed by incredible violence that is literally baked into this society. In this context, the wonderful diversity of Rutgers University and the State of New Jersey has clearly awakened my activist self and driven me to found the Arts Integration Research (AIR) Collaborative in 2019 that promotes safe access to nature for all through strategies of arts integration and creative placemaking.

Perhaps what you can observe from a distance or in simultaneity of work in both European and the U.S. systems and histories has enabled you to form a critical view of design, what it encodes, or shuts out.

March to Rutgers Gardens, September 2021, with 500 participants and GirlTrek. Photo: John Evans.

That is a good question, but a very difficult one to answer. When I was living and working in Europe, I used to say that it makes no sense to consider garden history as a moral history. I was fascinated by analyses like Derrida’s Memoirs for Paul de Man, where he asks the question: “What shall be done with the findings of an esteemed author once he is found guilty of collaboration with the Vichy regime?” What is still valid from his texts, from his scholarly work, and how must we think differently about it, now that we know? I always felt compelled to discuss the pain and exploitation that have led to grandiose European monuments of garden art. But in the beginnings of my research and teaching there was not even consistent scholarly research on how the exorbitant profits of the Transatlantic Slave Trade or the atrocious exploitation of the Belgian Congo, to name just two examples, have led to gardens like André le Nôtre’s Vaux-le-Vicomte, Capability Brown’s design for the park of the Castle of Laeken in Brussels and its expansive glass houses, as well as all of the public parks and promenades of Brussels that the city residents love to this day. It is a different but also not so much different story with figures like Frederick Law Olmsted and Ian McHarg. Yes, their work is very problematic and fantastic and groundbreaking at the same time.

My years in the U.S. have been very revelatory and educational, and truly changed me. Some of my European colleagues deplore that they now must deal with “woke shit,” even though “Europeans have unlike the US no plantations in their back yards.” Clearly, the Europeans did not have plantations in their backyards because they preferred the dirty business to be handled outside of Europe, which was exactly the point, but the profits were taken and used. My personal way to deal with this dilemma is to contextualize honestly and fearlessly, and teach the painful history that led and that leads to this day, to great works of landscape architecture for the sake of educating a new generation of designers. I am especially interested in showcasing works of designers who go down different paths. This is the reason why I approached Landezine to publish on the work of the landscape architects Sara Zewde and Elizabeth J Kennedy, who both have firms in New York City. Both studied a lot of painful history. New approaches, forms, and processes came out of it. Apart from my “slow burner” work on books, I am currently going back to my journalistic beginnings, and I have a great appetite to write and publish smaller pieces on designers whose work brings something different to the field, something utterly relevant.

One of the core assumptions behind Topology, which you developed in collaboration with Christophe Girot and your former colleagues at ETH, many of whom you continue to work with—is that form is essential to both our physical and mental wellbeing. It suggests that form, function, and meaning are inseparable in shaping our environment. Alongside biophilia, which describes our innate affinity for life and interspecies connection, topophilia reflects our deep-rooted attachment to place.

In light of ongoing global transformations and large-scale landscape restructurings beyond food production, how is your understanding of topology evolving? Why, in your view, is form so critical—and at what scale? Is a meaningful, legible landscape opposed to the idea of a non-place, or is everything part of a continuous “point-cloud”?

As a professor at ETH with access to extraordinary resources, Christophe Girot had a unique instinct for assembling teams to advance landscape architecture research and education, often through cutting-edge technologies. While his primary interest was in large-scale planning, he knew how to connect it to small-scale thinking. He structured his chair into several Labs—Theory, Media, Design, and later, the Landscape Visualization and Modelling Lab—with three to five members in each. Around ten years into his tenure, and after I had been working with him for some time, I suggested we showcase the work these Labs were producing. Topology was always a collective endeavor, and in 2011, we formalized it with a name and began a series of books and conferences to communicate our shared research.

Authors: Anette Freytag, Christophe Girot, Albert Kirchengast, Suzanne Krizenecky and Dunja Richter.

The focus on form giving, the creation of relationships, and the combination of a set of tools to designing and representing landscape projects at all scales (including sand boxes, CNC milling, point-cloud models, video and film, as well as the acoustic dimension of landscape architecture) had three main goals:

First, reconnecting urban design to the terrain and to nature for the sake of the wellbeing of all living species that, together, form an environment. This included enhancing orientation, legibility and the feeling of presence and feeling alive in a landscape. This was achieved through form giving (especially topography and spatial organization), the choice of materials and plants. Second, to enhance interdisciplinary work but under the guidance of landscape thinking; the competencies of landscape architects (like understanding plants, constant change, creating works that appeal to all senses and fostering mental and physical health) should be the leading principles for all other disciplines. Third, through these (here only very briefly) sketched out approaches, designers/planners/users shall develop an understanding of nature that is larger than functional, such as its qualification as ecosystem services, and thus develop a relationship of care. It shall bring a turn in approaching climate change effects like flooding, the overheating of cities, to name only two, and react through innovative approaches; designs for floodings, renaturations, massively bringing plants back into cities, unsealing surfaces, understanding gardening as a transformative practice, and much more.

The focus on form is not about aesthetics in terms of beauty, but in the sense of the knowledge creation and transformation that aesthetics may bring for survival. Nothing less than survival is at stake when following the maxims of this theory. At past occasions, the Topology project was misunderstood as fetishizing technology like point-cloud models without a specific reason or content. But all the named tools like walking, drawing, using audio and video, sandboxes, CNC milled models, UAV generated imagery, and point-cloud models for the design of landscapes at all scales has one primary goal: to reconnect the designers to the terrain and foster the understanding of the characteristics and conditions of the specific place and region they are designing for. For example, to foster a topological approach to the design of landscapes that are dominated by infrastructure, one first needs to understand their complexity. The virtual point cloud model provides a new way of getting a physical understanding of such landscapes because this model is different from others. One can move within the terrain by moving through the virtual model. It is possible to make sections wherever you want. For a landscape intervention, sections provide the most important information to understand a landscape and model it. With these instruments, designers can grasp the physis of a landscape with unprecedented precision. Once you have been trained to use the laser scanner and the software, you are able to produce such models within three days. For me, these instruments create an understanding of the physicality of a landscape and a possibility of physical localization, which makes them quite different from typical urban planning models with a view from above. To unlearn this “eye of god” view that has been with us since the Renaissance is one of the central challenges and one reason why I am so obsessed with walking.

Spatial justice is a wider problematic you approach with different doings – one is by critically comparing the past and current planning approaches, and the other by activist actions.

You co-founded Arts Integration Research (AIR) Collaborative, which focuses on bringing spatial justice to the forefront by engaging with communities in outdoor actions, specifically walking, accompanied by artistic interventions. You aim to promote accessibility to nature and connectivity. You are developing strategies for how academic research can trickle down to the public. How to build love towards topology and biosphere, resulting in topo- and biophilia? Through sharing knowledge, can academia do that?

Universal Access Garden Pilot designed and built by students of Construction II. Instructors: Vincent Javet and Han Yan. Photo: Anette Freytag.

Yes, academia can do this, I am fully convinced. And it must be done. Since 2021, when we came back on campus in person, about twelve courses and over 300 students have been exposed to AIR collaborative style of experiential learning. What the arts and humanities produce serves as a conduit for knowledge in our daily lives, beyond the traditional academic sense of knowledge absorption: Our students learn about their communities by walking them, talking with their neighbors, and interacting with the layers of space, sound, and people beneath their daily routes. We are always building our courses on local histories and landscapes, and we aim to create opportunities for people to engage with the spaces around them.

In one set of projects and courses, students have been learning about the needs of people with disabilities who want to garden. In consequence, they have been designing and building pilot gardens for people of all abilities. On other occasions, students learned how local communities in the neighborhood of Rutgers University have little to no access to fresh produce and green space. I have taught and co-taught the power of walking and listening, and how a daily walk can change your life. Science students have been encouraged to hone their creativity to communicate scientific data and research through Zines, storytelling, short videos, drawings, or TikTok dances to address and appeal to audiences outside the university. It has been a lot of fun, and we have been working hard to break through the digital world of these students and make them feel more alive and engaged and wanting to be of service to their respective communities. In course evaluations, students gave feedback that they had no idea one could touch on so many topics and fields of research and action through walking and that they felt they had learned how to observe and experience their surroundings and thus “live again”. We are all operating in such a complex and depressing world that we desperately try to navigate. These mostly small interventions that we seek to make with AIR collaborative projects to enhance access to nature for all give the students and us hope. No work has ever been as hard as my community-engaged work, and no work has ever been as rewarding.

Lastly, let’s mention your authorship in numerous award-winning books – Topology: Topical Thoughts on the Contemporary Landscape, you co-edited with Christophe Girot, Dunja Richter and Albert Kirchengast, you edited and co-authored The Gardens of La Gara in three language editions, and you have written The Landscapes of Dieter Kienast, which is a heavy-volume study into the work of one of the most influential landscape architects whose 80th birthday would be this year. What can we expect further? 

The Gardens of La Gara by Anette Freytag (Ed.)

I was very lucky to have been approached by Christophe Girot to do a dissertation about the incredibly rich work and life of Dieter Kienast, and by Rémy and Verena Best, to publish a book on their magnificent 18th century manor La Gara. I have spent about ten years on the research and writing of each book, and luckily, the publishers brought them out in several language editions. When you dedicate to a research and publication project, it is crucial that you do it with the best material and topic possible. I have learned so much and I have enjoyed every moment of it. It is hard to believe that Dieter Kienast would only have turned 80 this October. He passed so young and nevertheless left such an incredible œuvre of gardens, courtyards, parks, and cemeteries, but also many essays that are still highly relevant for the field and fun to read. He truly changed landscape architecture forever. To show how meaningful his work still is – be it his love for spontaneous urban vegetation, the inspiration he drew from children’s play and contemporary authors and playwrights, his close collaboration with architects and artists, or his way of developing a vocabulary for the landscape, in both design and representation – I am planning to host a tribute to him at either Rutgers or Princeton University on his 80th birthday on Thursday, October 30, 2025. I am also giving two free guided tours on his works, one in Bern on June 25 and one in Zurich on July 11.

Since the foundation of AIR Collaborative in 2019, I got the taste of collaborative work, and the benefit of persistent exchange with colleagues. The various projects advance slowly but surely. Currently, I am working on a manual on Agglowandern (Walking in Suburbia) with my Swiss research partners, the spatial planner Anne Brandl and the architect Caspar Schärer. For five years, the three of us promoted the benefits of hikes in urban sprawl. The manual we work on now is dedicated to policy makers and planners and explores why and how to change administrative and planning practices through hiking in Swiss Agglomerations. Our working title is Hike now! Why planning and climate protection need more knowledge gained from practice and experience (to be published in German, Verlag Hochparterre, 2026). At the end of June, we are going to present our intermediate findings in Kassel at a convention dedicated to Lucius Burckhardt, a Swiss Macroeconomist and renowned critic of urban design, who would have turned 100 years, and who founded the science of walking – Promenadolology.

Together with architect Philipp Urech and sound artist Nadine Schütz, both former ETH colleagues, we’re planning a Landscape Topology Reader—a collection of essays from those advancing this theory in practice. Two other projects are just launching: one explores walking and the chemo-sensorial experience of landscape, in collaboration with Rutgers taste-and-smell expert Paul Breslin; the other supports the effort to list Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House as a National Historic Landmark. And, of course, If I could clone myself, there would be even more to come.

 

Rutgers senior, Josh Kover (SEBS’25) crouches in a patch of daffodils outside Blake Hall in New Brunswick, N.J. Photo: Jeff Arban/Rutgers University.

Tired of being cooped up during the pandemic, Josh Kover started his own company, which has evolved as the Rutgers senior has progressed in his studies 

At Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Josh Kover finds himself adapting – much like how plants can adapt to their environment. 

Kover’s evolution took a dramatic turn four years ago. Shiftless during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Maplewood, N.J., resident recognized a need in his community for a quiet and sustainable landscaping service while everyone was working from home. He launched his own business, New Gen Garden, in September 2020 while taking high school courses remotely.

“I think it was the perfect recipe of being stuck at home during COVID, wanting to be outside, wanting to move, wanting to build something, construct something,” said Kover, now a senior who in May will complete his bachelor of science degree through the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.  

Rutgers student Josh Kover volunteered his time in 2023 for a project at Baker Square, a community gathering space in Maplewood, N.J. Photo: Maplewood Village Alliance.

“I developed a love for landscaping by redoing my backyard,” he said. “I needed a job, so I started working for people and helping them out, starting with my mom’s friends and expanding into the broader community.” 

While Kover plans to walk across the stage during commencement, his higher education journey isn’t quite over: Taking advantage of the department’s four-plus-one program, the 21-year-old will spend one more year at the university to earn a master degree in landscape architecture. 

Frank Gallagher, an assistant professor of practice and the director of the environmental planning and design program within the Department of Landscape Architecture, is Kover’s adviser on the student’s George H. Cook Scholars Program honors thesis. 

“Josh’s innate curiosity and strong land ethic leads him in a thousand directions, all at the same time,” said Gallagher. “However, once harnessed, his energy and commitment are unparalleled, and he produces incredibly strong deliverables.” 

Whether it is dealing with COVID-19 or contending with dyslexia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Kover tends to clear hurdles.

While he is afforded accommodations through the Office of Disability Services, “I’ve outgrown the need for them as I’ve learned skills to adapt,” said Kover, adding, “But I mean, it’s nice to know that I have them.”

He said it helps being in a “very drawing-heavy major.” 

“I don’t spend much time reading for most of my classes,” said Kover, adding that faculty members within the landscape architecture program have been “fantastic” as they are accommodating and spend time explaining and elaborating on concepts. “So, when I have a class that I do, it’s not that challenging to find the time or to find the energy. But it takes me a long time. It’s really frustrating. It can be. I’ve sort of just accepted to some extent that it’s just harder for me, and I’m a little bit invigorated by that, actually.” 

Kover said Jersey pride brought him to Rutgers-New Brunswick.

“Beyond that, I knew I was experimenting with a lot of different passions and interests, trying to figure out what I wanted to do,” he said. “I was like, I’m either going to do film or landscape architecture, and RU had both.”

Ultimately choosing the latter, Kover said, “Landscape architecture can be incredibly impactful. It’s so broad.” 

Kover, who is pursuing a minor in urban forestry, added, “I’ve always enjoyed science, but I don’t really have any interest in being a researcher and doing field work and whatnot. What I’d much rather do is application of science.”

He applies science to his business, which serves Maplewood and the village of South Orange, N.J. The company began as a provider of all-electric lawn care services.

“Throughout my entire short career in landscaping, I’ve never used a gas-powered equipment,” said Kover, who noted his branding was “Quiet for the community.” 
 

Josh Kover, a senior majoring in landscape architecture, stands behind his truck in New Brunswick, N.J. Photo: Jeff Arban/Rutgers University

Over time, as Kover progressed in his studies, New Gen Garden has evolved, shifting from lawn maintenance to planting design and installation focused on ecological best practices. 

“It’s developed significantly because of what I’ve learned in school the past few years,” he said.

Kover stays busy on campus, too. He is an administrator for the Rutgers University Forestry Club, a member of the Rutgers Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and a landscape architect intern for Rutgers Institutional Planning and Operations, a part-time position he started in June.

He’s motivated, he’s driven, he thrives on inquiry. He wants to know how things work, and he wants to know why,” said Brian Clemson, Rutgers University’s landscape architect.

As an intern, Kover works within the planning, development and design department under Brian Clemson, the university’s landscape architect. 

“We work collaboratively on a broad range of projects throughout New Jersey,” said Kover, adding that they work at all three Rutgers campuses – Newark, Camden and “mostly” New Brunswick. 

“He’s motivated, he’s driven, he thrives on inquiry,” said Clemson, adding that Kover strives to collaborate with others. “He wants to know how things work, and he wants to know why … so he challenges me all the time, which is fantastic. He doesn’t question my knowledge or my experience. He’ll just ask, ‘Why are we doing it this way? Could we do it another way, or did we consider this?’ And that’s a good, good trait to have.” 

During a dendrology class in October, Kover served as a guest lecturer out in the field. He brought students to the site of a stormwater management project on Livingston campus, an area along an abandoned roadway that serves as both a living laboratory and an outdoor classroom. He taught students the basics of afforestation – reestablishing a forest where there hasn’t been one for a long time – and the Miyawaki method of reforestation (focused on planting native species) as well as planting and forest design. 
 
“I ran them through what was ultimately a design exercise,” said Kover, recalling he discussed “the process of balancing out different objectives and the methodology of planting that reflects that balance. I ran them through all the thought processes.” 
 
“I can talk about that project forever because it’s also in my George H. Cook honors thesis,” added Kover, who recently received a merit award from the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. 
 
“I have not known many students whose G.H. Cook honors project have made a difference on the land,” Gallagher said. “Josh’s project will. His exploration of the Miyawaki method of afforestation is producing an experimental woodlot that can be used for both research and teaching on campus.”

This article first appeared in Rutgers Today.

 

Virginia Zrebiec doing hands-on work at Rutgers Gardens as part of her “Landscape Management Maintenance Practices” course. Photo credit: Maxine Marvosa.

Virginia Zrebiec is as enthusiastic about learning as when she was an undergraduate at Rutgers several decades ago. A plant science major, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1976 from Cook College she is once again an engaged member of the student body on the George H. Cook campus.

Virginia, who returns to Rutgers as a senior auditor of courses in the Landscape Architecture major, knows that she stands out from the typical student in her landscape architecture courses at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

“We learn from each other. I bring work experience – a different background. The students, with their focus being different, they challenge me,” says Virginia. She notes that the students “are generous with their time, including helping with computer-related things.”

Virginia came to Rutgers in 1972, fresh out of high school and during a time of monumental change on the New Brunswick campus. Although enrolled at Cook, she lived on the Rutgers College campus, the year in which that college went co-ed. For her sophomore year, Virginia moved to the Newell Apartments, which were still under construction on the Cook campus. Even more importantly, the College of Agriculture and Environmental Science had just been renamed Cook College, enrolling its first students in fall 1973.

She recalls that her advisor, the late Prof. Dominic Durkin, was a source of encouragement to spread her wings and try new things. She did just that, traveling across the country to do an internship at the Ecke Poinsettia Ranch in Encinitas, CA – a production facility that bred and supplied poinsettia plant material to greenhouse growers around the world. This was a formative experience for Virginia between her senior year at Rutgers and going off to The Ohio State University to complete a master’s degree in floriculture.

Virginia admits to being “very impressed with Rutgers resources, opening up so many possibilities for students. Prof Durkin was very supportive. I found him very encouraging, as I find Prof. Nelson. They help to guide you to so many opportunities to pursue new things,” she adds. Holly Grace Nelson, associate professor of practice, is the director of the Landscape Architecture program at Rutgers.

After earning her master’s degree, Virginia held several jobs within the floral industry, her longest serving being a director in floral management for several supermarket chains. “I was blessed to have so many jobs that I’ve enjoyed and that taught me so much.”

Virginia officially retired in 2016 but she’s continues to be enthusiastic about learning new things. This curiosity led to her auditing a landscape architecture class in Fall 2022, the first-year requirement, “Environmental Design Analysis,” that was being taught over Zoom by Nelson, and two plant ID courses. She followed that with the course, “Planting Design,” in Spring 2023.

“Virginia was a star student in “Planting Design,” excelling in analysis of site and user conditions, plant selection and overall design,” says Nelson. “She was a leader in the installation, too—a memorial garden. Virginia was very comfortable in the learning environment and lifted the intellectual bar! I can’t wait till she takes a design studio.”

This fall, Virginia is auditing two courses, “History of Landscape Architecture” and “Landscape Management Maintenance Practices.” Part of the latter course involves restoring the rain garden at Rutgers Gardens, and she’s been able to gain valuable hands-on experience from Maxine Marvosa, assistant director of Rutgers Gardens. “Virgina is wonderful to have in class, she provides a vibrant energy that keeps all the students motivated. Her passion for plants is contagious and desire to learn shows in her work. Even on the cold mornings she is the first to class and is always smiling.”

Virginia plans to continue auditing courses, calling it “an extremely enriching experience. I enjoy telling my family and friends about my experiences at Rutgers.”

 

Andrea Cochran.

Andrea Cochran (CC ’76) received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Design Futures Council, recognizing lifelong design leaders for the contributions of their life and work to their profession for more than 40 years.

The council, which was founded to connect leaders within the built environment industry and share ideas about technology, sustainability, and the business of design, gathered at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta on November 6-7 for the 2023 Design Futures Council Leadership Summit on the Business of Design.

Cochran, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, is founder and principal of Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, an internationally recognized firm frequently featured in design publications as well as the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Her work has garnered numerous design awards, most notably the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Landscape Architecture and the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Design Medal in 2014. A monograph of her firm’s work was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2009.

Andrea Cochran.

How Andie, as she calls herself, went from growing up in northwestern New Jersey to attending Rutgers Cook College, and worldwide acclaim in her field is a fascinating story.

“I wanted to go to art school but my parents told me that when I graduated from college I had to support myself,” she recalls. “They didn’t think I could do this as an artist so I decided to pursue a career as a veterinarian. I chose Rutgers for their program in Animal Science.

“When I arrived on the first day of school, I thought I would be able to sign up for my Animal Science classes, but I found out that you were supposed to pre-register during the summer. By this time, all of the freshman chemistry labs were full. I went to the dean’s office in tears with my parents, and I thought my life was over. The dean recommended that I take my Animal Science class the following year and take a one-credit survey class called Perspectives on Agriculture and the Environment. This class, he explained, featured guest lecturers from various disciplines.

“I followed his advice, and one of the speakers that year was the late Roy DeBoer, then head of the Landscape Architecture program. He introduced me to landscape architecture as the study of natural sciences and art. The following semester I took Environmental Design Analysis 101, and I enjoyed this class so much that I never took an Animal Science course and changed my major to Landscape Architecture.”

After graduating from Rutgers, she attended graduate school in Landscape Architecture at Harvard University, then went to work for a firm in Cambridge, Mass., that did landscape projects in the Middle East. She lived briefly in Athens, Greece, working for a firm that belonged to a Saudi Arabian architect. Wanting to return to the U.S. in 1981, she took a chance and relocated to California where she joined a firm in San Francisco, The Planning Collaborative (now located in Berkeley). Her employer was another Rutgers graduate, Jeffery Grote (RC ‘66).

In 1998, she founded Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture in San Francisco. Her projects include corporate headquarters, hotels, urban redevelopment, wineries, public spaces and parks, and high-end residential designs.

She summarizes her journey from simply wanting to study art to the present this way: “Landscape architecture has been a pathway for me to be an ‘artist of the land.’” It has been a way for me to combine my interests and craft a career in the arts and the environmental sciences.”

 

(l to r) Lauren Errickson, director of Rutgers Gardens and Campus Stewardship; Anita Bakshi, assistant professor of teaching; and Karelle Hall, a member of the Nanticoke Indian Tribe of Delaware and a Ph.D. student at Rutgers, during the native plant walk. Photo: Marques Ruiz/Rutgers University.

Project at Rutgers Gardens celebrates the continued presence of Indigenous communities in New Jersey

For generations, Native Americans’ relationships with their land have been systematically targeted through removal policies. Negative portrayals of Native American communities resulted in numerous environmental and cultural injustices, including the targeting of Native American land for waste disposal sites.

But a project at Rutgers Gardens seeks to bring attention to this wrongdoing and rectify some mistakes of the past. Rutgers faculty and the director of Rutgers Gardens are collaborating with Indigenous communities in New Jersey to explore how they might install more native plants of cultural significance.

Born out of a landscape architecture course taught by assistant professor of teaching Anita Bakshi, the Our Land, Our Stories project brings together the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Ramapough Lunaape Nation to focus on environmental justice advocacy and curriculum development for Native American history and contemporary Indigenous land relations. 

In Spring 2022 their team received an IDEA Innovation Grant from Rutgers to explore ideas and possibilities for creating a garden on campus that will acknowledge Native American history and celebrate the continued presence of Indigenous communities in our state, including through the incorporation of plants significant to Native American communities for medicinal, ceremonial and agricultural uses.

The collaboration includes Holly Nelson, associate professor of professional practice in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; Jameson Sweet, an assistant professor of American studies in the School of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Lakota/Dakota nations; and Lauren Errickson, director of Rutgers Gardens and Campus Stewardship.

“In the era of climate change, Indigenous people have vital knowledge of North America’s ecosystems gleaned from many thousands of years living with and shaping the world around them. The garden project provides a starting point for Indigenous communities to share this much needed knowledge, but it is also a starting point for the Native American communities in New Jersey and the region to heal from centuries of violence, land theft and the attempted destruction of their cultures and ways of life by settlers. A return to Indigenous land stewardship can help combat climate change and rectify the dispossession of lands belonging to the sovereign tribal nations within the state,” said Sweet.

Community members were invited to a recent event at the gardens to learn about some of the indigenous plants already on the grounds and how the gardens seek to expand their offerings. Led by Errickson and Karelle Hall, a member of the Nanticoke Indian Tribe of Delaware and a Ph.D. student at Rutgers, visitors were taught native names from the Lenape Unami dialect and uses of plants, as well as ways to tell the differences between them.

“We’d like to not only acknowledge, but really better connect with, the Indigenous communities who have a deep relationship with this land and the native plants that grow here.  We hope that we can help foster meaningful collaborations between the university and Indigenous communities through projects like this at Rutgers Gardens,” said Errickson.

Click here to read the rest of the article on Rutgers Today, which lists some of the native plants currently at Rutgers Gardens.

 

Celebrating the Katz Prize at the NJCH Gala are, seated, L-R, Honnie Webster, Nikole Pecore, Leonard Welch, Ramapough Lunaape Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann, and Clan Mother Michaeline Picaro (far right). Standing are Anita Bakshi and Kevin Collery.

The New Jersey Council for the Humanities (NJCH) awarded the top prize in the inaugural Stanley N. Katz Prize for Excellence in Public Humanities to a multimedia project headed by Anita Bakshi, assistant teaching professor in the Rutgers Department of Landscape Architecture, and co-created with the Ramapough Lunaape Nation Turtle Clan.

The award-winning project, “The Ramapough and the Ringwood Mines Superfund Site – History, Culture, Education, and Environmental Justice,” was recognized at NJCH’s 50th Anniversary Gala on September 29. The Katz Prize is named in honor of Stanley N. Katz, a longtime faculty member at Princeton University and former chairman of NJCH. The prize carries with it a cash award of $5,000.

“The panel as a whole was impressed by how the winning project captured the voices of the indigenous community in ways that struck that community as authentic and accurate. We are delighted to honor work that so vibrantly connects so many communities,” said NJCH executive director Carin Berkowitz.

Co-created with the Ramapough Lunaape Nation Turtle Clan, the multimedia project demonstrates how environmental pollution disrupts relationships to land. It serves to promote environmental justice advocacy and curriculum development on Native American history and contemporary Indigenous land relations.

“We are honored and grateful to the NJCH and the Katz Prize Committee for granting us this award. We want to acknowledge that awarding this project does involve taking a risk – because of the many controversies that we explore – around the pollution of Ramapough lands by Ford Motor Company, the role of the EPA in remediation and the contestation around Ramapough ancestry and identity,” said Bakshi.

Infographic lists environmental regulations and protections that have been loosened or abandoned over the last few years. It illustrates that the Turtle Clan’s experience in Ringwood, NJ. is part of a larger environmental justice story.

The multimedia project was the culmination of a five-year effort by Bakshi, Turtle Clan members, Department of Landscape Architecture researchers along with other partners. The project began with a design studio teaching collaboration in 2018 and continued with funding from the NJCH through three separate grants. The focus of the research was the Ringwood Mines Superfund site, located in a former iron mining district in the borough of Ringwood in Passaic County, New Jersey. This location has been continually inhabited by members of the Native American community for generations despite its toxic history as a former mining site and Ford Motor Company toxic sludge dumping ground.

Wide-ranging historical and cultural research was conducted on the site to explain how negative portrayals of Native American communities have contributed to the targeting of their lands as dumpsites, while leaving them marginalized in the remediation process. It illustrates how Indigenous communities are responding with programs for cultural restoration and food sovereignty.

Cover of 2nd edition of the book.

The research led to the publication of the book, Our Land, Our Stories: Excavating Subterranean Histories of the Ringwood Mines and the Ramapough Lunaape Nation, which was edited by Bakshi in 2019. It is organized into five chapters illustrating the many layers of this environmental justice story: History, Community, Contamination, Flora & Fauna, and Water. The book, which contains several interactive sections that invite readers to write about their own survival stories, imagine their own environmental movements and explore their own family histories, has been distributed to the Ramapough community and to cultural and educational institutions around New Jersey.

The multi-media materials also include The Meaning of the Seed documentary film, traveling exhibits, short video projects on YouTube, social media platforms and a digital exhibit for Rutgers University Libraries.

An online Watch Party Packet has been used by teachers and community groups to organize smaller screenings for venues such as Smush Gallery in Jersey City and the MLArch book club at Temple University.  A new version of documentary, funded by a Rutgers Research Council Social and Racial Justice Grant, was screened at Rutgers Gardens this November as part of Middlesex County Arts & Culture’s Celebration of Native American Heritage Month.

A second edition of Our Land, Our Stories has just been published, and is being sold as a fundraiser to support the Ramapough’ food sovereignty project at the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm. Visit http://designforpublichistory.org to purchase a copy.

 

Children who walk or bike to school at a young age are more likely to continue the healthy habit as they age, according to a study co-authored by a Rutgers researcher.

“The walk to school is a wonderful moment in the day that provides children a glimpse of living an active lifestyle,” said David Tulloch, a professor of landscape architecture at Rutgers–New Brunswick and co-author of the study, which was published in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports. “When people start walking early, it can have a lasting impact on their health.”

In the United States, about 11 percent of children walked or biked to or from school, according to data from the National Household Travel Survey, and that rate hasn’t changed in a decade.

The research team found that if children are taught early to actively commute – traveling by physical means – they are far more likely to keep doing so later in their educational career.

To measure whether active commuting persists over time, the researchers surveyed parents and caregivers about the school travel habits of their children on two separate occasions two to four years apart (baseline and follow-up) between 2009 and 2017 in four predominantly low-income New Jersey cities: Camden, New Brunswick, Newark and Trenton.

Data from 587 households was collected as part of the New Jersey Child Heath Study, which tracked children 3-15 years of age. The distance to school and other spatial factors were calculated by Tulloch and colleagues at the Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis at Rutgers.

The researchers found that more than three quarters of children who engaged in active commuting at baseline continued to do so two to four years later, while few newly took it up by the time of follow-up if they hadn’t done so before.  In fact, children who actively commuted to school at baseline were seven times more likely to actively commute two to four years later compared with children who didn’t actively commute at baseline.

“Most kids don’t achieve the 60 minutes per day of physical activity that they’re recommended to get,” said Robin DeWeese, an assistant research professor in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State and the study’s lead author. “Active commuting to school is one way to get more of that activity.”

To promote active commuting, DeWeese suggests “schools and communities encourage active commuting during early grades as that may yield benefits even for students in higher grades.”

Active commuting varied by demographic characteristics and perceptions of the neighborhood. Children with a parent born outside the U.S. had lower odds of active commuting compared with those whose parents were born in the U.S., while children of parents who perceived their neighborhood safe from crime were more than 2.5 times as likely to engage in active commuting.

The greatest and most persistent barrier was the distance between home and school, Tulloch said. Distance to school often increases as children age because middle and high schools are larger and less prominent than elementary schools. As a result, active commuting likelihood tends to decrease once children reach high school.

Smarter urban design can help reverse this trend, said Tulloch. Remote drop-offs and “walking school buses” – that is, groups of students chaperoned by volunteer parents – can encourage children to actively commute at a young age. Infrastructure improvements, such as sidewalks and tree-lined streets, can make walking more pleasant, he added.

“One of the most visited tourist sites in New York City is the High Line, a green walkable space with no cars,” said Tulloch. “We should be doing this type of planning everywhere – especially in school zones.”

This article first appeared in Rutgers Today.

 

American Society of Landscape Architects 2022 Class of Fellows. Photo: ASLA.

Associate professor Richard Alomar, who serves as chair and graduate program director in the Department of Landscape Architecture, has been elected by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) as one of its 2022 ASLA Fellows. Alomar, who directs the Rutgers Office of Urban Extension and Engagement, is also a core faculty member on the Rutgers Global Health Institute.

Richard Alomar.

ASLA Fellows are recognized for their exceptional contributions to the landscape architecture profession and society at large. Election to the ASLA Council of Fellows is among the highest honors the ASLA bestows on members and is based on their works, leadership/management, knowledge and service.

“Every landscape architect helps shape their community for the better, and ASLA Fellows represent the most accomplished and respected professionals in their field,” said ASLA President Eugenia Martin. “Their exceptional contributions from coast to coast and internationally have helped advance equity, environmental sustainability and excellence in design and planning. Congratulations to the 2022 class of ASLA Fellows!”

“ASLA works tirelessly to support its members and amplify the good they do in the world, so naming a new class of fellows is a joyful reminder of everything that landscape architects accomplish,” said ASLA CEO Torey Carter-Conneen (@toreycarter). “We extend our warmest thanks to the new class of ASLA Fellows for exemplifying the best in the field.”

Throughout his nearly three decades of practice, teaching, community engagement, and service, Alomar successfully advocated for sketching as a space to view, engage, and build awareness of the beauty and complexity of the landscape. He helped transform Urban Sketchers from a group of a few hundred participants to over 300 international chapters with more than 200,000 followers, with a robust executive and advisory board, a digital magazine, sustainably funded grant programs and sponsored partnerships with art suppliers and art institutions.

In the last decade Alomar has led over 100 sketch walks with more than 2,000 participants—including those at ASLA conferences—and has published or contributed to over twenty articles and books on sketching landscapes. His methods are followed by many ASLA chapters, landscape architecture programs and sketch groups around the world. Working with designers, students, and community groups, sketching has been the glue connecting education, advocacy, art, and engagement. His work in the public sector, engagement with communities, and contributions to the ASLA-NY chapter, National ASLA and New York State Education Board of the Professions have been long and consistent.

Alomar and his 2022 peers will be elevated during a special investiture ceremony at the 2022 Conference on Landscape Architecture, which will be held in San Francisco from Nov. 11-14. Learn more about the ASLA Council of Fellows and Fellow biographies.

 

July 21, 2022

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Laura Lawson as permanent Executive Dean of the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) and permanent Executive Director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES).

As our campus community well knows, Dr. Lawson is not new to these positions. She has served with great distinction as Interim Executive Dean of SEBS and Interim Executive Director of NJAES since July 2020.

Dr. Lawson’s many accomplishments as interim leader include strengthening our institutional relationships with the agriculture and food industries in New Jersey; the completion of a Chancellor-Provost-requested operational assessment of SEBS/NJAES and ongoing work to adopt its recommendations; completion of the SEBS/NJAES Diversity Action Plan and work to fulfill its many requirements; hiring of a new director for Rutgers Gardens and reprioritization of its outreach and education efforts to align with President Holloway’s priorities; and the successful transition to remote learning during the pandemic, among others.

Prior to serving in her interim roles, Dr. Lawson was Dean of Academic Programs at SEBS, during which she made significant contributions including the development of campus living labs, improving the student experience, enhancing out-of-state and international undergraduate recruitment, and contributing to the school’s strategic planning process. She also serves as Professor of Landscape Architecture, having joined Rutgers in 2010 as chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and later holding roles as Faculty Director of Rutgers Gardens and Dean of Agriculture and Urban Programs.

Dr. Lawson is an established author and co-author and is well-regarded for her scholarship on urban agriculture, community gardens, neighborhood open space, and participatory design. As an active teacher, she has taught a range of community-based design studios and courses related to social and cultural aspects of design.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Lawson. I look forward to her continuing excellent leadership of SEBS and NJAES, which together include 12 departments, approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 420 graduate students, approximately 325 faculty and 485 staff, and a combined budget of approximately $207 million, and which uses its broad portfolio of teaching, research, and service to understand how human and environmental health can intersect to support a healthy and sustainable future.

Read more at Rutgers Today.