Kimberly Garza, internationally renowned landscape architect and urban designer, presents the College of Architecture’s next Hyde lecture. Garza, founder and principal of ATLAS Lab Inc., a landscape architecture, urban design and public art studio based in Sacramento, CA, will be presenting a lecture entitled “Design [NOW!]” at 4 p.m., Friday, March 1, in Richards Hall, room 15, UNL city campus.

For this lecture, Garza explores how tactical urbanism and urban prototyping can be used as a tool to engage communities, create authentic experiences and empower designers to improve the built environment using low-cost, small-scale strategies.

Garza enlists designers to no longer wait for traditional design opportunities to occur, but rather, initiate and take quick action to create positive change in the world. Traditional landscape architectural projects often have lengthy timelines and lack meaningful community engagement opportunities, whereas tactical urbanism and urban prototyping have emerged to directly engage communities and influence how public spaces should be used and defined. In this lecture, attendees will learn how to design and engage communities [NOW!] using tactical design methods from pop up parks to public art installations.

Garza’s work has been internationally recognized, published and exhibited, including a juried selection for the Market Street Prototyping Festival, International Garden Festival in Quebec, Canada, and a winning proposal for the Sacramento Capitol Mall design competition. She was named 40 Under 40 Urban Innovator by NextCity.org. and 40 Under 40 Honoree by the Sacramento Business Journal. Garza’s artistic works balance whimsy with architectural rigor, testing materials, technology and scale through the use of semi-permanent installations. In addition to her practice, she teaches advanced landscape architecture courses at the University of California, Davis and is president of the ASLA CA Sierra Chapter.

The College’s Hyde Lecture Series is a long-standing, endowed, public program. Each year the college hosts compelling speakers in the fields of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and planning that enrich the ongoing dialog around agendas which are paramount to the design disciplines and College of Architecture graduates.