Material Landscapes: Authenticity, Innovation and Collaboration

Surfacedesign, Inc. is an award-winning landscape architecture and urban design firm based in San Francisco, California. Recipient of the 2017 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Architecture, Surfacedesign creates dynamic parks, campuses, plazas, waterfronts, civic landscapes, and private gardens. Integral to the ideology of the practice, Surfacedesign focuses on cultivating a sense of connection to the built and natural world, pushing people to engage with the landscape in new ways. The studio’s design process is rooted in asking novel questions and listening to a site and its users—a process that has led to engaging and inspiring landscapes that are rugged, contemporary and crafted.

James A. Lord and Roderick Wyllie, founding partners at Surfacedesign, will present a selection of landscape projects that represent their design philosophy and challenge conventional approaches to landscape. The selected works showcase the firm’s affinity for horticultural exuberance, material authenticity, and layering the unique cultural and ecological narratives that emerge from each site. In many Surfacedesign landscapes logs, minerals, and metallic elements function as benches, water features, and fire pits. These custom pieces are designed to be an extension of the particulars of the site, their materiality articulating the character of the landscape they inhabit. In this lecture James and Roderick will share the design process of several of their custom site furnishings, including their new Palm Springs project on Monte Vista in the historic Tennis Club district, from sketches and models to mockups and installation. Surfacedesign.

$15

Things to Know
Ages 12 and older.
Modernism Week Theater at CAMP is located at the south end of the hotel’s central atrium.
Ample free public parking is available.
Enter underground parking at Hyatt on Palm Canyon Drive or in the multi-level public garage across from the Palm Springs Art Museum.
Handicap parking is available.
This event is wheelchair accessible.
The organizer of this event is Modernism Week.

Event Check-in Location
Modernism Week Theater At CAMP
Hyatt Palm Springs
285 N. Palm Canyon Dr.
Palm Springs, CA 92262
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Photo Credits: Marion Brenner