Gabriel Diaz Montemayor to Present 'Landscape Architecture Now!' Lecture on Feb. 4

Delfoz

Vistas del Cerro Grande Linear Park is a public mile designed with and for the community in Chihuahua, Mexico.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Gabriel Diaz Montemayor will present a lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 4, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design lecture series.

Diaz Montemayor, ASLA, is an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. He co-founded LABOR Studio, an architecture, urban design and landscape architecture practice in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2002. He is also the 2019 Verna C. Garvan Distinguished Visiting Professor in Landscape Architecture in the Fay Jones School.

In his lecture, "Landscape Architecture Now! Case Studies in Mexico and Latin America," he will describe a historic trajectory to project and propose an imperative future for the discipline and profession of landscape architecture by analyzing a double context: The larger context of the Latin American continent and Mexico as a specific context.

The discipline and profession of landscape architecture is not the same in Latin America as it is in the United States, and it should not be the same. Diaz Montemayor will trace a brief historic chronology to explain the different origins and meaning of public space in this continent while addressing the need to identify the unique national and regional differences — while avoiding common generalizations. He will synthesize recent project case studies to portray the current condition of the discipline in the Latin American context.

The contemporary condition of public space in Mexico will be explained as one of the unique conditions assembling the Latin American mosaic. The country has recently gone through dramatic changes in public life, society, culture and politics. A set of case studies in landscape architecture and public space, in which Diaz Montemayor has been involved in different capacities, will be used to explain the challenges and opportunities for landscape architecture in Mexico.

The Mexican projects include applied academic studios trying to fill the void between the planning and the implementation of public infrastructure projects needing landscape architectural methods and matter. These will also include professional public space commissions based on community reconstruction, engagement and participation. Both applied studios and professional projects operate in a third context, northern Mexico. This will lead to a final proposition reflecting on a potential future for the border region between the United States and Mexico, one where societies are reconciled with their common ground.

Diaz Montemayor studied at the Superior Institute of Architecture and Design (ISAD) in Chihuahua, Mexico, where he graduated in 1998. He holds an architect degree from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Mexico, and he received his Master of Landscape Architecture from Auburn University in 2007.

Diaz Montemayor is an emerging expert in Latin American Landscapes. Through his academic studios, he engages in collaborations with local planning institutes of Northern Mexico and the American Southwest to develop projects and studies dealing with landscape architectural and urban design methods and matter, with a particular emphasis on public space and the regeneration of urban structures based on natural systems.

His applied academic studio projects and professional practice focus on public spaces of disenfranchised communities often located on the urban fringes, therefore also addressing the rapidly changing urbanization processes of the region. Joint collaborative studios in the region include the cities of Phoenix, Arizona; Redwood City, California; Nogales, Sonora; Chihuahua, Chihuahua; Hermosillo, Sonora; Los Cabos, Baja California Sur; and Saltillo, Coahuila. The work developed for the latter was awarded a National ASLA Student Honor Award and an Honorable Mention at the Third Latin American Landscape Architecture Biennale, both in 2018.

Additionally, LABOR Studio has received several awards for projects, including the Urban Edges Design Guidelines for the city of Chihuahua, which won the Award of Excellence from the Arizona Chapter of the ASLA in 2010; the Tabalaopa Master Plan, a low-income, mixed-use development in Chihuahua, Mexico, which won the Honor Award from the Arizona Chapter of the ASLA in 2009; and the Vistas del Cerro Grande Linear Park, also in Chihuahua, which won the Honorable Mention at the Third Latin American Landscape Architecture Biennale in 2018. More recently, in 2017-18, Diaz Montemayor served as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development, leading a pilot project for public space recovery in northern Mexican cities.

Diaz Montemayor taught architecture at Superior Institute of Architecture and Design from 1998 to 2006. He has been a visiting instructor of architecture at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, and of landscape architecture at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in Monterrey, Mexico; the University of Monterrey also in Monterrey; the School of Architecture of Guadalajara; the Monterrey Tech at Hermosillo, Sonora; and the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito, in Ecuador. He has presented guest lectures at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the New Mexico Chapter of the AIA in Albuquerque, the Oregon Chapter of the ASLA in Portland, the University of Oregon at Eugene, the Isthmus School of Architecture and Design in Panama City, Panama, the Architects Society of Colombia and the Universidad Piloto of Bogota in Colombia, and the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador, among others.

Diaz Montemayor's professional and academic work has been published at Arquine Magazine, Progressive Planning, Domus Mexico and Landscape Architecture Magazine, among others.

This lecture qualifies for American Society of Landscape Architects continuing education credits. Similar credits will be pursued through the American Institute of Architects.

The public is invited to attend. Admission is free, with limited seating.

For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or fayjones.uark.edu.