Brian LaHaie

Campus Planning & Design and Education & Practice at the Annual Meeting

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Tulane University image: Paula Burch-Celentano / Tulane University
Tulane University
image: Paula Burch-Celentano / Tulane University

Welcome to our meeting preview for the 2016 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in New Orleans from October 21 to 24. This year two of ASLA’s Professional Practice Networks (PPNs) are trying something new: Campus Planning & Design and Education & Practice are partnering for a joint PPN meeting featuring several short presentations and discussion on the topic of: How has technology changed the nature of the university campus?

This will take place on PPN Live’s City Park Stage on the EXPO floor, and will be open to all attendees, giving greater exposure to some of the innovative work being done in the campus landscape. It will also provide an opportunity to network with landscape architect educators and practitioners that use our campus landscapes as a living learning classroom. For those of you that are not able to make it to New Orleans, we will be posting these presentations on the PPN webpage after the meeting.

Check out this list of events at the Annual Meeting that may be of interest to you:

PPN Events

Campus Planning & Design PPN / Education & Practice PPN Joint Meeting
Saturday, October 22, 1:30 – 2:15 PM
City Park Stage, PPN Live area of the EXPO floor

PPN Meeting Agenda:

  • Kick off introductions
  • Presentation 1: The High Efficiency Campus
    Lauren Williams, ASLA
  • Presentation 2: Technology and the 21st Century High-Performance Campus Landscape
    Gregory Tuzzolo, ASLA, and Milee Pradhan, ASLA
  • Presentation 3: Visualizing Campus Activities from 5, 10, and 1000 Feet
    Todd Robinson, ASLA
  • Presentation 4: Campus Constants, Digital Flux
    Katharyn Hurd, Associate ASLA, and Andrew Sullivan, ASLA
  • Q+A

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Making a Case for Divergent Thinking

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image: Brian LaHaie
image: Brian LaHaie

Creative thinking is the foundation of our profession. Of all the skill sets that a landscape architect must possess, the ability to imagine, create and evaluate unique solutions to complex social and environmental challenges is our most valuable asset.

Creative thinkers possess the ability to identify multiple possibilities when confronted with challenging problems. This type of thinking is found among people with personality traits such as non-conformity, curiosity, risk taking, and persistence. It is also found naturally in children. This ability to generate multiple solutions and to think outside a set of linear constraints is called “divergent thinking” or “lateral thinking.”

The term divergent thinking was first introduced by psychologist J.P. Guilford in 1967 (nearly 50 years ago). Together with convergent thinking, these terms represent opposing thinking styles.

Convergent thinkers quickly seek a solution by reducing options and limiting choices to arrive at an appropriate answer. Convergent thinking is what you use to answer a multiple choice question or calculate a simple mathematical equation. You are seeking “the one right answer.” The process is systematic and linear.

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