About Prof. McGuire, PLA
Biography
About
I am a landscape architect, researcher, and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I currently serve as Dean’s Fellow for Research in the College of Fine & Applied Arts, where I oversee implementation of the Public Engagement Research Option for faculty across the college. I also hold affiliate faculty appointments in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment.
My work focuses on transforming post-industrial urban landscapes, particularly where aging infrastructure and extensive pavement limit ecological function, climate resilience, and community well-being. In 2022, I founded Depave Chicago, a community-based initiative that helps neighborhoods reclaim paved land and transform it into healthy, regenerative landscapes.
A licensed landscape architect, I previously practiced with Peter Walker and Partners in the San Francisco Bay Area and Conservation Design Forum in Chicago.
Research, Teaching, and Engagement
My research and teaching explore the material, ecological, infrastructural, and social ground of cities. Through mapping, urban soils investigations, design research, and community partnerships, I examine how urbanized landscapes can better support climate adaptation, environmental health, and social resilience.
Much of this work has focused on the Chicago-Calumet region, where I have led investigations into flooding, green infrastructure, urban forestry, and retrofitting urban land, on the Water Lab website. This design research led to the founding of Depave Chicago. Our DC work aims to identify ways to modify and regenerate landscapes dominated by pavement so that communities adapt and thrive in a changing climate.
Questions about design intervention also shape my teaching. Urban landscape topics and design transformation methods form the basis of my design studios and seminars so that students learn to see new unexpected opportunities for design in their educational work and later in practice as they serve communities as landscape architects.
My work is highly collaborative, bringing together communities, public agencies, schools, nonprofit organizations, scientists, engineers, and designers to advance landscape-based solutions to environmental challenges.
Collectively, these partnerships have helped catalyze more than $10 million in green infrastructure investments in the Calumet region, support urban forestry and air-quality initiatives in communities impacted by industry and transportation infrastructure, develop statewide guidance for green stormwater infrastructure through Illinois Groundwork, and launch Depave Chicago’s first community-scale demonstration project.
Support
Our work has been funded, supported, and made possible by the Walder Foundation, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (NOAA), the U.S. Forest Service, EPA Region 5, The Nature Conservancy, the Chicago Region Trees Initiative, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, Illinois Extension Collaboration Grant, the Illinois Campus Research Board, the Wright-Ingraham Institute, and the University of Illinois Department of Landscape Architecture.
Education
- MLA, Master of Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia, 2003
- BA, International Relations/Political Theory, William & Mary, 1994
- Certificate, Leadership in Sustainability Management, University of Chicago, 2015
- Certificate, Woody Plants, George Washington University, 2000
Landscape Architecture Licenses: Virginia #0406001207 (Since 2006), Illinois #157001458 (Since 2010), California #5239 (2006-2012)
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Current Research
- Depaving: Interventions and Innovations to Scale a Critical Climate Practice, with Ted Labbe (Depave, Portland) A national study of depaving practices and projects, discovering model partnerships and implementation pathways. Sponsored by the LAF Deb Mitchell Research Grant. Starting up Fall 2026.
- Depave Chicago’s pilot design project, with The Montessori School of Englewood (Englewood, Chicago) and Depave (Portland). We’re implementing the first of this depaving/greening project type in Chicago, developing a How-to-Depave Chicago manual, and providing design and technical resources to communities. Ongoing.
- Tree buffers for elementary schools with US-EPA, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Morton Arboretum, Chicago Department of Public Health, and Chicago Public Schools. We’re collaborating to implement a pilot project in Chicago, at Jensen Elementary School. Ongoing.
- Surface Design in Landscape Architecture – a book of 20 landscape architecture case studies across five categories of surface design operations. Graduate research assistants have contributed drawings and diagrams to the project. Ongoing.
- Climate change and landscape architecture education – what adaptations are we making in pedagogy to meet present and future practice? With key collaborating educators, researchers, and thinkers, we hope to capture the themes and practices emerging in LA pedagogy that are propelling our field’s education on climate adaptation in a capitalist context. Ongoing.
Selected publications
McGuire, Mary Pat and Vidhan Goel. “Depaving for Sequestration, a scalable story of one site,” in Decarbonize Design, special issue, Matt Willams, Karen May, Eds. Landscape Paysage, William, Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. Fall 2024 LINK
Newman, Galen, Mary Pat McGuire, Rui Zhu, Zhihan Tao. “Towards Increasing Faculty Licensure in Landscape Architecture Education,” in Landscape Journal. 2024. Vol. 43:2, pp 71-86. LINK
Criss, Shannon, Kevin Hamilton, Mary Pat McGuire, Guest Eds. “Creating Knowledge in Common,” Special Collection for Grounds Works (A2RU) on university-community partnerships for engaged arts- and design-based collaborative research. Fall 2024. LINK
McGuire, Mary Pat. “Grounding the Site: Uncovering Concepts in the Landscape Architecture Design Process” in Conceptual Landscapes: new perspectives in the earliest stages of design, Bussiere, Simon, Ed. Abingdon: Routledge, 2023. LINK
McGuire, Mary Pat, Andrew Phillips, David Grimley, Ashlynn Stillwell, Reshmina William, Jinyu Shen, Margaret Schneemann. “Retrofitting urban land through integrative, subsoils-based planning of green stormwater infrastructure: A research framework.” Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability, 1 (2021) LINK
McGuire, Mary Pat. “Is Landscape Surface?,” Journal of Landscape Architecture. Issue 1-2020. pp.32-45. LINK
McGuire, Mary Pat. “Surface Design Operations in Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Journal. Issue 38:1-2, 2020. pp. 43-60. LINK
McGuire, Mary Pat and Jessica M. Henson, Eds. Fresh Water: Design Research for Inland Water Territories. Novato, CA: Applied Research & Design, 2019. LINK
McGuire, Mary Pat. 2018. “Cities as Hydro-Geologic Terrain: Design Research to Transform Urban Surfaces,” The Plan Journal, Issue 1, Volume 3 (2018), pp. 165-190. LINK
McGuire, Mary Pat. “While We’re Considering Tearing Down Highways, Let’s Not Overlook Pavement,” in Next City, July 7, 2021. LINK
Sherriff, Lucy. “A cooler future means a world with less pavement,” in The Nation, August 31, 2023. LINK
Talking Headways podcast with Jeff Wood, Streetsblog USA. “What We Can Do To Depave Cities,” aired September 30, 2021. LINK
Miles, Irene. “Digging into soil data helps inform green infrastructure design,” lllinois-Indiana Sea Grant, March 10, 2022. LINK
Teaching and advising
Classes taught
- LA433 Foundation Studio I - Defining & Designing Sites (graduate)
- LA434 Foundation Studio II - Landscape Change & Process (graduate)
- LA587/387 Designing with Climate: Adapting Our Selves and Our Practices for a Changing Planet (open seminar)
- LA336/438 Design Workshop I and II - topics in surface design, water urbanism, and green infrastructure (undergraduate and graduate)
- LA599 - Thesis Research (MLA graduate)
- LA590 - Directed Research
- LA437 - Regional Design Studio (undergraduate level)
- LA346 - Professional Practice (undergraduate and graduate)
- LA250 - Site Analysis (undergraduate)
Through McGuire’s studios, students have directly participated in and contributed to community projects in the Chicago-Calumet Region through urban and community forestry design and green stormwater infrastructure design, including winning an American Society of Landscape Architects Student Collaboration Award in 2019.
Students advised
- Vidhan Goel, 2024 “Climate Adaptation of Majuli Island: Learning from Indigenous Practices,” MLA Thesis
- Jarin Subah Tumpa, 2023-2024 “Third Landscapes for Flood-Resilience: Rethinking Scales of Green Infrastructure in Neighborhoods in Khulna, Bangladesh,” MLA Thesis
- Daniel Kletzing, 2020-2022 “Soil Conservation as Desertification Mitigation in the Navajo Nation,” MLA/MUPP dual-degree thesis
- Myers, Kayla, 2019-2020 “Wild Farm: Regenerative Agriculture,” MLA Thesis
- Gross, Jane C. 2022-2023 “Limits of Justice in Environmental Governance: Coal Ash and Ethylene Oxide in Waukegan, IL,” Master Thesis in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
- Dinh, Huong, 2020 “Toward Animal Solidarity in Landscapes,” Directed Research **Honorable Mention in LA+Creature competition
- Dinh, Huong, 2020 “Landscape Ecology: Frameworks, Excursions, & Design Models,” Directed Research (graduate)
- Zhang, Qiran, 2016 “Parametric Modeling : Chicago Test-plots,” Directed Research (graduate)
- Cong, Zheng, 2016 “Hydrogeologic Design: Chicago,” Directed Research (undergraduate)
- Douglas, Scott, 2016 “UIUC Campus Stormwater: An Assessment and Evaluation of Strategies for High-Performance Landscape Design and Management,” Directed Research (graduate)
- Gajjar, Heena, 2016 “Material Design Research: Transform Asphalt,” Directed Research (graduate) Published in Ground Up, Issue 06
- Sui, Xinyue, 2014-2015 “Urban Archipelago for Climate Change Adaptation: The Next Phase of Landmaking in Boston” MLA Thesis