Richard Weller


Richard Weller is an Australian landscape architect and academic. He is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, having succeeded James Corner in 2013. Weller also holds the Martin and Margy Meyerson Chair of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, is on the Board of Directors of the Landscape Architecture Foundation, Washington D.C., and is Creative Director of the award-winning LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture. He was formerly a Winthrop Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Western Australia, and director of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre. He has received a number of awards for teaching excellence including a 2012 national citation "for sustained commitment to inspiring and enabling students to engage creatively and critically with complex design problems". In 2017, and again in 2018, Weller was named by DesignIntelligence as one of the "25 most-admired educators" based on a comprehensive survey across the US design industry. “Weller demonstrates an intense engagement and commitment to students’ academic and professional careers,” according to the report. “He is advancing the profession through a critical look at past and current issues in ecology and design... shows humility and humanity in a challenging profession, and has the ability to always call us back to the biggest ideas that design needs to address." In 2020, Weller was inducted into the Academy of Fellows of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.

Works

Weller is a landscape architect and former co-director of Australian landscape architecture firm Room 4.1.3. whose built projects include the "Garden of Australian Dreams" at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, ACT. The built garden attracted controversy for its radical design. He is also identified as a major proponent for the Elizabeth Quay project in Perth, Western Australia, and this can be found in the contents of Boomtown where he uses quotes from various supporters and detractors of the project.
Weller's design work has been exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney as a finalist in the Seppelt Australian Art Awards. His work has also been exhibited in the Venice Biennale, the MAXXI Gallery in Rome, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Canadian Design Museum in Toronto, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of the "Countryside, The Future" exhibition curated by Rem Koolhaas. Weller is an invited participant in the 2020 Venice Biennale di Architettura curated by Hashim Sarkis.
In 2002 Weller's design was selected as a finalist in the Pentagon Memorial competition in Washington, D.C. and in 2005 he was a finalist in the Tsunami Memorial competition in Thailand. His early work as consultant to Berlin landscape architecture firm Muller, Knippschild Wehberg was heavily awarded in European design competitions.

Research and Publications

Weller gave the Frederick Law Olmsted Memorial Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2011, and many invited lectures and addresses including at Milano Architecture Week, the first World Forum on Urban Forests, and to the UN Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. He is a regular commentator on planning and design issues. He is author of seven books and over 100 single-authored papers. His publications include: