Pliny Fisk, associate professor of architecture and landscape architecture at Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture, was featured in the Q&A section of the April issue of Urban Land magazine, a publication of the Urban Land Institute.
The institute is a nonprofit research and education organization with a mission to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide.
In the magazine, Fisk explains the Eco-BalancePlanning and Design approach he developed and is teaching at Texas A&M.
“Eco-BalancePlanning and Design balances the life cycle within each step of the development process,” he told Urban Land magazine. “It literally balances resource use within an ecological context.”
Fisk went on to say that now is the time to embrace sustainable development practices.
“We cannot wait for a crisis to happen,” he said. “We need to undo our educational and financial systems that are divorced from nature. We need to both learn from and respond to the diverse bioregions and the people who understand them.”
On April 4, 2008 Fisk discussed Eco-BalancePlanning and New Urbanism at the annual Congress for New Urbanism in Austin. Among the presentation’s attendees, was Andres Duany, one of the Congress for New Urbanism’s founders.
On May 14, Fisk, with three other participants, will present “Breakthrough Community Design Planning: Four Perspectives” at the American Institute of Architects 2008 National Convention and Design Exposition in Boston.
“This session,” says the AIA website, “brings together four prominent thinkers whose methods have been applied to some of the most diverse cultural and environmental contexts in the United States and abroad, enabling communities at various stages of development to design a future both socially relevant and ecologically responsive.”
Fisk will be speaking along with Bob Berkebile, FAIA, Daniel E. Williams, FAIA, and Greg Searle.
