Niall Gordon Kirkwood
Niall Kirkwood is a landscape architect, technologist and the Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), where he has taught full time since 1991. In addition, for the last five years he has served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the GSD.
Over the last forty-five years in design practice and in academic institutions he has carried out built projects, research, and authored key publications that focused on core issues in the design and implementation of designed landscapes in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and SE. Asia. These engage a range of topics related to landscape architecture and contemporary design, the built environment, climate change, and the sustainable reuse of land including urban regeneration, landfill and post-mining site reclamation, environmental site technologies, site implementation and site development in the global post-industrial landscape. In addition, Kirkwood is a leading expert in the reuse and remaking of global brownfields and their integration of environmental remediation, site engineering, landscape design and cultural and social programs. His English language publications include Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape (Taylor Francis/Routledge). Principles of Brownfield Regeneration (Island Press), PHYTO: Principles and Resources for Site Remediation and Landscape Design (Taylor Francis/Routledge), Weathering and Durability in Landscape Architecture (John Wiley) and The Art of Landscape Detail (John Wiley).
Kirkwood's work is international in scope and implementation. His publications have been translated into many other languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Korean. His keynote presentations have included lectures in China, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia and Thailand, as well as lectures and seminars in design programs throughout North America, Europe, Middle East and South-East Asia. He has carried out teaching, consulting and research with Samsung EC, Lotte Inc, GS Development Company, The City of Ulsan, The City of Suwon, Gyeonggi Province- all Republic of Korea and The Wadia Group, Mumbai, India.
Prior to joining the Harvard GSD faculty, he was a registered and licensed architect and landscape architect with 16 years of experience in the private sector carrying out land reclamation and urban development projects in Scotland, European Mainland, Middle East, and the United States. He holds two architecture degrees from the University of Manchester (UK), an MLA degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland in 2009 for his international contribution to brownfield regeneration practice and education.