UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- “The relationship between human beings and the landscape is so intimate, and is so fraught with challenges, that it is easy for us to ruin the values that we really seek in the environment,” according to Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture Brian Orland. Whether in Marcellus gas fields in the U.S. or in the poorest nations of Africa, he says, “we’re trying to show communities that they can have both economic development and beautiful environments. What is needed is an added ingredient in the thought processes behind that development—some design forethought.”
Orland discusses his work in a video interview, one of a series of interviews produced by the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture with its Evan Pugh Professors and Distinguished Professors as part of the college's 50th anniversary celebration in 2013.
Orland came to Penn State in 2000 as head of the Department of Landscape Architecture. He later served as the first director of the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. A registered architect since 1977, he has worked in private practice in the United Kingdom, East Africa and Central America. Practicing in landscape architecture and planning since 1981, his work has included urban redevelopment in economically devastated East St. Louis, Ill., and tourism development planning in the rich cultural contexts of Northern India.