Andrea Johnson

Critic
Image
a photo portrait of RISD faculty member Andrea Johnson
BA, University of Michigan
MLA, The City College of New York

Andrea Johnson is researcher, designer and educator whose work explores the intersection of urban landscape infrastructure, socio-environmental flux and climate uncertainty. As the former research director at Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research, she coordinated numerous publications including the forthcoming book Home Grown, a speculative proposal for NYC’s food systems, with strategies ranging from adaptive agricultural practices to local waste processing.

Johnson’s ongoing research explores the role of design in distributive energy systems as a catalyst for social and environmental justice. As a 2020–21 Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellow, she developed design and planning methodologies to phase out NYC’s peaker power plants. In August 2021, Johnson was named the Regional Plan Association Kaplan Chair for Urban Design. During the fellowship year, Johnson will work with Renewable Rikers, a coalition of criminal and environmental justice advocates, to develop design visions for the island, free of jail use and dedicated to renewable energy infrastructure and other remedial uses.   

Before joining RISD’s faculty, Johnson taught at The City College of New York’s Spitzer School of Architecture, where she is also an alumna.

Courses

Fall 2024 Courses

/ - HISTORY AND THEORY II
Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

/

HISTORY AND THEORY II

Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: F | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PM Instructor(s): Andrea Johnson, Corey Watanabe Location(s): Weybosset St Studios, Room 105B; Weybosset St Studios, Room 105A Enrolled / Capacity: 12 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

This course provides a cultural history of landscape and landscape architecture through various voices, lenses, and built examples. Following a loose chronology, this seminar will trace the shifting trajectory of landscapes at multiple scales, including lawns, gardens, and suburbs; roads and sanitary infrastructure; agricultural and energy landscapes; rivers and waterfronts, among others. As the second history-theory course in the sequence, we will continue to build upon key concepts explored in History-Theory 1, such as the relationship between Nature and culture, land ethics, systems thinking and ecology, and how landscape architecture has operated as a site for unequal, racialized distributions of power. To that end, we will study, define, critique, and attempt to make sense of the multiplicity of actors that shape environments, including the role of the Designer and the inextricably intertwined forces of colonization and capitalism, federal policies, non-humans, shifting attitudes about Nature, etc. 
 
To provoke critical thinking about the development of landscape form and ideas, readings will be drawn from various perspectives, including landscape architecture, social and environmental history, anthropology, science and technology studies, queer and feminist studies, and geography. These fields will help us understand history as a foundation for thinking about the landscape’s relationship between past and present and center and margin. By critically probing landscape architecture’s canon and its counter-narratives, we will consider how we can be better poised to understand and articulate our own contributions to the field as future practitioners.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

/ - HISTORY AND THEORY II
Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

/

HISTORY AND THEORY II

Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: F | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PM Instructor(s): Andrea Johnson Enrolled / Capacity: 12 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

This course provides a cultural history of landscape and landscape architecture through various voices, lenses, and built examples. Following a loose chronology, this seminar will trace the shifting trajectory of landscapes at multiple scales, including lawns, gardens, and suburbs; roads and sanitary infrastructure; agricultural and energy landscapes; rivers and waterfronts, among others. As the second history-theory course in the sequence, we will continue to build upon key concepts explored in History-Theory 1, such as the relationship between Nature and culture, land ethics, systems thinking and ecology, and how landscape architecture has operated as a site for unequal, racialized distributions of power. To that end, we will study, define, critique, and attempt to make sense of the multiplicity of actors that shape environments, including the role of the Designer and the inextricably intertwined forces of colonization and capitalism, federal policies, non-humans, shifting attitudes about Nature, etc. 
 
To provoke critical thinking about the development of landscape form and ideas, readings will be drawn from various perspectives, including landscape architecture, social and environmental history, anthropology, science and technology studies, queer and feminist studies, and geography. These fields will help us understand history as a foundation for thinking about the landscape’s relationship between past and present and center and margin. By critically probing landscape architecture’s canon and its counter-narratives, we will consider how we can be better poised to understand and articulate our own contributions to the field as future practitioners.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

/ - HISTORY AND THEORY II
Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

/

HISTORY AND THEORY II

Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: F | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PM Instructor(s): Andrea Johnson, Corey Watanabe Location(s): Weybosset St Studios, Room 105B; Weybosset St Studios, Room 105A Enrolled / Capacity: 12 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

This course provides a cultural history of landscape and landscape architecture through various voices, lenses, and built examples. Following a loose chronology, this seminar will trace the shifting trajectory of landscapes at multiple scales, including lawns, gardens, and suburbs; roads and sanitary infrastructure; agricultural and energy landscapes; rivers and waterfronts, among others. As the second history-theory course in the sequence, we will continue to build upon key concepts explored in History-Theory 1, such as the relationship between Nature and culture, land ethics, systems thinking and ecology, and how landscape architecture has operated as a site for unequal, racialized distributions of power. To that end, we will study, define, critique, and attempt to make sense of the multiplicity of actors that shape environments, including the role of the Designer and the inextricably intertwined forces of colonization and capitalism, federal policies, non-humans, shifting attitudes about Nature, etc. 
 
To provoke critical thinking about the development of landscape form and ideas, readings will be drawn from various perspectives, including landscape architecture, social and environmental history, anthropology, science and technology studies, queer and feminist studies, and geography. These fields will help us understand history as a foundation for thinking about the landscape’s relationship between past and present and center and margin. By critically probing landscape architecture’s canon and its counter-narratives, we will consider how we can be better poised to understand and articulate our own contributions to the field as future practitioners.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

/ - HISTORY AND THEORY II
Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

/

HISTORY AND THEORY II

Level Graduate
Unit Landscape Architecture
Subject Landscape Architecture Liberal Arts Elective
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: F | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PM Instructor(s): Andrea Johnson Enrolled / Capacity: 12 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

This course provides a cultural history of landscape and landscape architecture through various voices, lenses, and built examples. Following a loose chronology, this seminar will trace the shifting trajectory of landscapes at multiple scales, including lawns, gardens, and suburbs; roads and sanitary infrastructure; agricultural and energy landscapes; rivers and waterfronts, among others. As the second history-theory course in the sequence, we will continue to build upon key concepts explored in History-Theory 1, such as the relationship between Nature and culture, land ethics, systems thinking and ecology, and how landscape architecture has operated as a site for unequal, racialized distributions of power. To that end, we will study, define, critique, and attempt to make sense of the multiplicity of actors that shape environments, including the role of the Designer and the inextricably intertwined forces of colonization and capitalism, federal policies, non-humans, shifting attitudes about Nature, etc. 
 
To provoke critical thinking about the development of landscape form and ideas, readings will be drawn from various perspectives, including landscape architecture, social and environmental history, anthropology, science and technology studies, queer and feminist studies, and geography. These fields will help us understand history as a foundation for thinking about the landscape’s relationship between past and present and center and margin. By critically probing landscape architecture’s canon and its counter-narratives, we will consider how we can be better poised to understand and articulate our own contributions to the field as future practitioners.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

Image
a photo portrait of RISD faculty member Andrea Johnson
BA, University of Michigan
MLA, The City College of New York