Sean Burkholder is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design, where, in addition to teaching, he co-directs the McHarg Center’s Environmental Modeling Lab. Sean is a member of the Dredge Research Collaborative and a founder of Proof Projects, a small research and design practice that works primarily on coastal landscapes that merge infrastructural and cultural agendas.
Karen Lutsky recently joined the landscape architecture department at Cornell University. For the past nine years, she was at the University of Minnesota, where she was an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of Undergraduate Studies. She also founded and directs the Great Lakes Design Labs, a collaborative effort that has developed exhibitions, public workshops, built projects, and design competitions. Karen’s work and research focus on how landscape architects and designers might better design with changing landscapes.
Sean Burkholder & Karen Lutsky are the 2025-2026 Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano | Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize Fellows in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome. They co-authored the University of Pittsburgh Press book Five Bay Landscapes: Curious Explorations of the Great Lakes Basin.
How has your time in Rome shaped or shifted the direction of your project so far?
Landscapes, like our experiences of them, are complex and, at times, confounding. It is not uncommon for people to treat them as complicated problems to be solved, constantly “fixing” the challenges the natural world presents. While this attitude might seem helpful or productive, it often overlooks the joy and humility that working curiously amid uncertainty can offer. As thinkers of and with landscapes, we are drawn to the relationships between temporality and context as they play out in our experienced world. We are interested in questioning how we come to know landscapes in the first place, and how that ever-changing knowledge shapes how we live and work with them.
During our five months at the American Academy in Rome, we have primarily explored these questions through the landscapes of Lago di Bracciano. Through video, drawing, photography, painting, and speculative narratives, our work spans media to examine the landscape from many angles, often attending to things easily missed: the branching of a tree, the flight of a bird, the texture of soil. From the studio space and proximity to incredible sites to our daily engagements with the other fellows and members of the Academy, we were continuously provided with ample inspiration and opportunities. This fellowship has given us the time and freedom, both intellectually and physically, to work at new scales and to carefully explore a new range of media.
Have any encounters—with people, places, new information—opened up new paths in your research or practice in the past months?
Our time at the Academy and in Rome has undeniably reshaped and transformed our project. As we explored the region, immersed ourselves in the American Academy library, and engaged in countless invaluable conversations with those in the Academy community, our work began to extend beyond Bracciano. Our project's focus on narrative and storytelling was especially enriched by the range of critical perspectives our colleagues and their work embody. We see our work from the last five months at the Academy as a catalyst, opening new questions and methods that we will carry into our teaching and practice. We are returning to our positions energized, grateful for new relationships and potential collaborations that will shape our work going forward.