MAS Context Lecture: Designing Urban Biodiversity: Landscape Strategies for Multispecies Design

On Tuesday, September 13 Conor O’Shea delivered the first lecture of the MAS Context Fall Talks 2022.

“In this lecture Conor O’Shea discussed recent projects by his landscape architecture practice, Hinterlands, that exemplify the firm’s commitment to radically rethinking the contemporary urban realm through the medium of landscape.

Against the backdrop of climate change and biodiversity loss–what many now refer to as the sixth great mass extinction–Conor revealed how Hinterlands is designing novel landscape strategies that reimagine our urban areas to be teeming with plants, insects, and other non-human species, from cicadas to monarch caterpillars to bison.

Conor discussed projects at a range of scales, including award-winning competition entries such as the Springdale Veterans Memorial and Cicada Code, and small-scale built work like the Storefront Pollinator Planters, made from diverse native plant mixes that support insect life on city streets.

Through a behind-the-scenes look at the Hinterlands methodology, Conor detailed how the evolving Hinterlands design process, which relies heavily on design experimentation, iteration, and emerging representational techniques, plays a critical role in the firm’s design work.”

Lecture Recording: https://mascontext.com/events/conor-oshea-designing-urban-biodiversity