Alison B. Hirsch

Alison B. Hirsch is director of landscape architecture and urbanism at the School of Architecture at University of Southern California.

Her current book project, “The Performative Landscape,” emphasizes sociocultural dynamics as catalysts of physical design, challenging common conceptions that participatory or socially-oriented design processes must sacrifice the spatial, material and formal qualities of the landscape architectural project. Her 2014 book, City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America, explored the creative process landscape architect Lawrence Halprin developed with his wife, dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin, and how this process has the potential to enrich contemporary approaches to structuring the city.

Prior to joining the faculty at USC, Alison taught landscape architecture theory and design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and the University of Toronto. Alison was a 2017–2018 Prince Charitable Trusts/Rolland Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.