This spring, Brad Collett, a Fulbright Scholar on the UT faculty, began a semester-long experience in Slovenia, a small country in south central Europe.
Collett, an assistant professor in UT’s College of Architecture and Design and College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, has been teaching and lecturing at the University of Ljubljana since February on contemporary landscape planning and practices as a means to protect watersheds, mitigate stormwater management challenges, and cultivate healthy communities.
“The health of shared water resources is equally as valuable to Knoxville and Tennessee as it is to Ljubljana and Slovenia in economic, social, and environmental terms,” said Collett. “Outdated stormwater infrastructure in existing communities will be strained by anticipated climate dynamics, continued consumption of landscapes, and proliferation of impervious surfaces through low-density single-use development.”
He recently presented this topic at a lecture for landscape architects, civil engineers, architects, spatial planners, public utility agencies, and representatives from various ministries in Slovenia’s government.
Collett’s lecture, “Operative Landscapes: Stormwater Management in Contemporary Urbanism,” was held in the Library of Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.
Through the lecture, Collett draws parallels between the hydrologic impact of infrastructure and development patterns in the United States and Slovenia. He discusses how landscape architecture professionals are working as part of collaborative multidisciplinary teams to avoid and minimize water resource impacts through contemporary planning and design strategies.
Collett returns from his Fulbright experience in July and will use this experience in his UT classroom and his work with UT’s Governor’s Chair for High Performance Energy Practices in Urban Environments, a unique five-year collaboration of the College of Architecture and Design, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which seeks and develops innovative strategies to find balance between energy and urbanism.
The Fulbright Program is a prestigious international exchange initiative that awards about 1,100 grants to American scholars each year. Funded by the US government, Fulbright Scholars are chosen based on their leadership and academic merits and their abilities to teach, conduct research, and contribute to solutions for shared international concerns.
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CONTACT:
Amanda F. Johnson (865-974-6401, amandajohnson@utk.edu)
Tyra Haag (865-974-5460, tyra.haag@tennessee.edu)