Jennifer Bousselot, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Colorado State University
Roofscapes Reimagined: Food, Flowers, and Power for Resilient Cities
Green roofs do far more than beautify our urban landscapes. They are quiet powerhouses shaping the ecological, agricultural, and energetic future of our cities. Drawing on more than 20 years of research in green roofs, local foods, native plant systems, pollinator ecology, and rooftop agrivoltaics, this keynote will reveal how these resilient systems enhance urban life in ways we are only beginning to fully understand. We will explore how food crops, native plants, and rooftop solar can contribute to urban food resiliency, biodiversity, and renewable energy generation. Discover how native flora thrives on green roofs in semi-arid climates, support pollinator populations through accelerated phenology and enhance nectar resources and create new ecological niches when paired with solar panel arrays. Learn how rooftop agrivoltaics and emerging 'ecovoltaic' systems are transforming unused urban spaces into multifunctional landscapes that grow food, generate clean energy, and nurture pollinators, all within the same footprint.
Rutger Huiberts,
Director and Architect, MVRDV
Director and Architect Rutger Huiberts oversees MVRDV’s projects and acquisitions in North America, leading the firm’s New York Office. Huiberts brings a passion and curiosity for everything that architecture has to offer, in particular for computational and data-driven design, sustainability, and urban placemaking. Alongside the MVRDV team, he brings a fresh perspective to the North American urban context, grounded in an appreciation of local practices and ways of working while looking at them through a different lens. He plays a key role in several ongoing projects, including the winning proposal to redevelop Gansevoort Square in Manhattan with an apartment building that includes 55 percent affordable units, and the masterplan for Cleveland’s North Coast.
Anthony Fieldman, AIA, LEED® AP
Partner, Architect, DIALOG
Centennial Upheaval: The Coming Age of Abundance
We live in a moment of historic upheaval comprised of unprecedented inequality and illness, destabilized institutions and climate, and obsolete models of education and work. Drawing on his book Everything Is Broken, Fieldman traces our simultaneous systems failures to a single source: entities built for a world of scarcity, still running at full speed in a world increasingly capable of abundance. The path to that abundance, he argues, is already being forged, across every system, by individuals, institutions, and nations that have chosen long-term collective thriving over short- term extraction.
Daniel Sundlin
Partner, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
Daniel Sundlin studied Architecture at the Royal Institute of technology in Stockholm and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. In 2008 he joined BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group’s Copenhagen office. After moving to New York City to help open BIG’s US office in 2010, Daniel was named partner in 2014. Daniel has worked on many of BIG’s most prominent projects and winning competitions, such as the Wildflower Film Studios that is currently in construction, the Heights Public School in Arlington, the VIA West57 Residential building in Manhattan, and the new Google Campus in Mountain View.
Bill Browning, Hon AIA, LEED AP
Founding Partner, Managing Partner, Terrapin Bright Green
Rewilding Our Buildings
Green roofs can be beautiful and biophilic tools for addressing stormwater issues. However, this may be too limited a view of these technologies. This keynote will explore looking at the planting of our buildings as tools for engagement and for increasing native biodiversity. I'll explore some worldclass examples that have shifted people's perception and engagement. Let's look at projects that intentionally increase biodiversity, focusing on locally specific species - in effect Re-Wilding our Buildings.