About Prof. Sears
Biography
Stephen Sears maintains a creative practice that 1) explores relationships and conditions in the built environment, focused on public space, marginal urban territories, and environmental justice actions; 2) correlates issues and impacts of climate change, including food systems, weather patterns, and technologies; 3) conducts geo-humanist studies of midwestern vernacular practices and working landscapes. He teaches studios ranging from foundation site design to advanced-level urban design, techniques in digital representation, and seminars about theory, practice, culture, and media.
Most recently, he has been developing Township, a long-form visual story about midwestern circumstances, and designing a traveling studio in which students will investigate the immediate effects of extreme climate on wild places. His design work, paintings, and photographs have been included in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Sears is a Prince’s Charitable Trust Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.
RECENT COURSES
- LA233 Foundation Design Studio
- LA501 Landscape Architecture Theory and Practice Seminar
- LA427 American Vernacular Cultural Landscape Seminar
- LA336-438-534-539 Design Workshop Studio:
Lowland Stories – Design for a Riparian Corridor at the Exploited Margins
Square One – Rethinking the American Subdivision
Shelter in Place, San Juan – Domestic Prototypes for Living at the Extreme
Rupture/>Flow, Nicosia – Leveraging Difference in a Contested City
Present Tense – Design Response to Conflict in the Public Realm
SELECT INVITED PRESENTATIONS
Keynote: “When, Not Where: Illinois and the Conceit of Predictability,” Construction History Society of America Conference, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL.
Plenary: “Value Added: The University of Illinois and Landscape Architecture in North America,” Symposium for Exchange and Dissemination of Landscape Design, National Design University, Rosario, Argentina.
Plenary: “Psalm for a Subtle Landscape,” LABash, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
Lecture Series: “Points of Departure,” Rutgers University, Department of Landscape Architecture, New Brunswick, NJ.
Keynote: “Figures of Practice” The American College Dance Festival Association Conference, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL.
Lecture Series: “Diagrams—Information and Insight,” Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Career Discovery, Cambridge, MA.
Lecture Series: “Ephemeral Observations and the Prepositional Landscape,” American Landscape Academy in France lecture series, Issoire, France.
Lecture Series: “The Italian Agrarian Landscape, Recent Works,” Olinger Endowment, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
Lecture Series: “The Worth of the Working Landscape,” American Society of Landscape Architects, SW Texas Chapter, San Antonio, TX.