Accentuating Ecologies, Structuring Urbanism The lecture will present the work of RUA (founded 2009), where design research through extensive archival and fieldwork underscores the importance of local geographies and geologies as a means to develop strategies that are context-embedded. It will primarily focus on projects in Vietnam where climate change challenges rival those of urban growth and the development of infrastructure. Design investigations exchange planning for flooding and planting and attempt to generate varied and rich environments for everyday life. Kelly Shannon is Professor of Architecture and Spatial Sciences and Director of the Graduate Program of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism at the University of Southern California. She received her architecture degree at Carnegie-Mellon, a post-graduate degree at the Berlage Institute, and a PhD at the University of Leuven, where she focused on landscape to guide urbanization in Vietnam. Her research is at the intersection of analysis, mapping and new cartographies and design. Most of her work focuses on the evolving relation of landscape, infrastructure and urbanization in Asia. A particular interested focuses development of landscape urbanism strategies that work with water and topography. Together with Bruno De Meulder, she is book series editor of UFO: Explorations of Urbanism (Zurich, Park Books, 2008-) and co-founder of RUA.