The Geophysical City: Exploring the Intersection of Environmental Change, Geology, and Urbanity

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About the event: Doors Open Denver 2025 celebrates the interrelated built and natural environments of our city and will be anchored by an original keynote lecture from Susannah Drake FAIA , FASLA, an award-winning architect, landscape architect, educator, and author. A reception and book signing will follow. Susannah’s most recent publication “Sponge Park: Gowanus Canal” will be available for purchase before or after the lecture in the Shops at the Denver Art Museum.

About the book: Our current era is often referred to as the Anthropocene, a period during which there has been significant human impact on Earth’s geomorphology and ecosystems. Geologic change is being experienced on a human time scale, yet the nature of geologic conditions occurring under our feet are not well understood.

Tensions are mounting among human settlement patterns and the intensified impact of man-made climate change on locations around the world. Cities are flooding, sinking, and falling in areas vulnerable to inundation, subsidence, and ground tremors. As architectural practice evolves, historic hydrology, larger geomorphologic patterns, and subgrade geology will become increasingly important factors for developing new design opportunities. In this talk, Susannah Drake will explore how planning, urban design, and architecture can evolve and adapt to help reduce losses, address geologic emergencies, and improve our relationship with the planet.

Susannah Drake will be introduced by Darrin Alfred, Curator of Architecture and Design at the Denver Art Museum.

About the speaker: Susannah Churchill Drake FAIA, FASLA. Susannah C. Drake is a Principal at Sasaki. Prior to merging the firms Susannah founded DLANDstudio Architecture + Landscape Architecture pllc. Her work has received city, state, and national AIA and ASLA awards. Susannah was awarded the AIA Young Architects Award, Fellowship in the AIA, Fellowship in the ASLA, and was recognized as an Architectural League Emerging Voice. Susannah specializes in complex projects that require a synthesized, analytical, and research-based approach. Her large-scale planning work engages diverse systems to create ecologically and socially progressive projects that are rigorously researched, strategically planned, and beautifully designed.

Susannah’s creative vision is consistently at the forefront of innovation in urban ecological infrastructure. Her campus landscape design and large-scale urban infrastructure work received grant funding from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Graham Foundation, James Marston Fitch Foundation, New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts among others. She lectures globally about resilient urban infrastructure, and has taught at the Cooper Union, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Syracuse University, Washington University, CCNY, and the Escola da Cidade in Sao Paolo Brazil. Susannah was the Cejas Scholar at Florida International University, and 2016 Morgenstern Visiting Chair at the Illinois Institute of Technology. From 2019-2021 she was Associate Professor of architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Colorado Boulder Program in Environmental Design. In 2021 she became Visiting Associate Professor at the Cooper Union.

Her works and writings on climate adaptation and infrastructure are published in “A Blueprint for Coastal Urbanism” (Island Press 2021), “Public Space Reader” (Routledge 2021), “Four Corridors” (Hatje Cantz 2019), “Design with Nature Now” (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy 2019), “Nature and Cities” (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy & UT Austin 2016), and “Rising Currents” (MoMA 2011). Her book “Sponge Park: Gowanus Canal” was published by the University of Chicago press and distributed by Park Books in 2024.

Susannah’s design work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. In 2020 her Gowanus Canal Sponge Park project won the inaugural Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award for Climate Action. Most recently she unveiled a bold plan titled “History Secured” for how to protect and preserve cultural and ecological assets of the National Mall in Washington DC.

Susannah served on the boards of the Van Alen Institute, ASLA, and Regional Plan Association among others. She is currently the President of the board of the Clyfford Still Museum. Susannah received a BA from Dartmouth College and MArch and MLA degrees from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She splits her time between offices in Brooklyn, New York and Denver, Colorado.

Accessibility: Please review accessibility information at the Denver Art Museum here.

Agenda: 2:30pm Doors open
3:00-4:00pm Program
4:00-5:00pm Reception and book signing

Student Tickets: Student tickets must be purchased using an active student/school email address.

Refund policy: The Denver Architecture Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization. Ticket sales support the Foundation in continuing to provide quality events to the public. We are unable to provide refunds or credits for any reason less than 14 days prior to the event.

Please note that DAF tours take place rain, snow or shine. If your tour includes an outdoor portion, please dress for the weather. DAF staff will contact all attendees directly should a tour be cancelled for any reason.

Photos provided courtesy of Park Books, Susannah Churchill Drake FAIA, FASLA, DLANDstudio , and Sasaki