Tag Archives: By K. Boone

Interview: On Belonging and Becoming

Julian Agyeman works toward sustainability that embodies justice: “I’m the one who asks the awkward questions.”

By Kofi Boone, ASLA

Julian Agyeman, a professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University, is a pioneer in the overlapping terrain of social equity, environmental justice, design, and planning. His decades of scholarship, including the groundbreaking book Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World (The MIT Press, 2003), have shaped global dialogue on the links connecting improved environmental quality and social equity. In a recent conversation, Agyeman shared his thinking on aligning issues of social equity and environmental justice with teaching and practicing of built environmental change. Continue reading Interview: On Belonging and Becoming

The Water You Can’t See

A civic hydrology park emerges on Duke University’s campus

By Kofi Boone, ASLA

Image courtesy Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.

Having lived in Durham, North Carolina, for more than a decade, I’ve come to realize that it’s almost impossible to discuss Durham without referencing Duke University, and vice versa. Duke is a private university, and its West Campus, although in the city, stands apart and within Duke Forest, a vast patch of woods created through a component of a century-old Olmsted Brothers master plan. Continue reading The Water You Can’t See

Many Stories Matter

Cultural Landscape Heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa

Reviewed by Kofi Boone, ASLA

The Great Mosque in Djenné is among the largest mud structures in the world. Photo by Charlotte Joy.

With more than 15 million views, the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie’s groundbreaking TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story” is likely the most viewed treatise on the consequences of making one story the story of the African continent. Continue reading Many Stories Matter