KATHY POOLE is a registered landscape architect and practitioner, principal of POOLE DESIGN, Landscape Architecture + Urban Design.

She completed her professional degree, Master of Landscape Architecture, at Harvard University. She has an undergraduate degree in architecture from Clemson, University.

Her work is devoted to returning landscape architecture to its place as an infrastructure--a basic and necessary component in making cities and communities. Works of landscape architecture are more than 'nice' or 'beautiful.' They are vital, comprise basic structural elements, and provide critical functions and roles in urban design:

• how infrastructure can structure growth, organize institutions, and catalyze city-making and reinvigoration.

• how ecologically positive infrastructure strategies and techniques can support healthier cities for all urban residents, human and otherwise.

• how infrastructural landscapes can contribute to cities rich in civic expression, particularly in ways that strengthen and clarify citizens’ relationships to the city and reinvigorate civic life.

• how infrastructural landscapes can be strategic mechanisms that enable economically, efficiently, and bureaucratically streamlined projects.

Practicing as an academic at the University of Oregon (1993-94) and at the University of Virginia (1994-2000), she developed her research into what she calls Civic Hydrology, the potential to use water infrastructure to build better cities and communities. Her Civic Hydrology research blends theoretical, technical, and historical studies and includes many disciplines—ecology, engineering, urban design, cultural history, landscape architecture, and architecture. Her Civic Hydrology studies span historical and contemporary works and have been recipients of numerous grants and fellowships. Her intention is to offer a set of tools for all of the partners that it takes to build better communities and cities—designers, administrators, engineers, planners, and most importantly citizens.

She has worked on projects throughout the United States, in Haiti, and in England. She has practices in a range of strong firms:

• Odell Associates (1985-87), Charlotte, NC
• Derek Lovejoy Associates (1987), London, England
• Morgan Wheelock Associates (1990), Boston, MA
• Kentland Charrette with Duany/Plater-Zyberk (1990), Gaithersburg, MD
• Office of James Burnett (1991-92), Houston, TX
• The SWA Group, Inc. (1992-93), Houston, TX

She is a sought after speaker, lecturing at universities and conferences across the country. Her latest speaking engagement is as a keynote speaker in Melbourne, Australia at the conference "Infrastructure As Landscape."

Her scholarly research and design work has been published nationally and been the recipient of prestigious awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, Harvard University, and Landscape Forum.

She has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Landscape Architecture Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and the Sacharuna Foundation.

She continues her research of Civic Hydrology as a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities on the project Evolutionary Infrastructure: Model of Cultural and Ecological Dynamics. It is an in depth study of an exemplary landscape architecture project, Boston's Back Bay Fens, demonstrated the rich, complex, and powerful roles that a landsapes can play in making cities.