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Logo for the Green New Deal Superstudio
Grid of 24 images of Superstudio project submissions showing a variety of work including maps, photos, sketches, and visualizations
A rendering of a pile burn that serves as a recreational opportunity
Logo for the Green New Deal Superstudio

The Green New Deal Superstudio was a national call and conversation about how the framework of the Green New Deal can be translated into design and planning projects, where they should take place, what will they look like, and who will they serve.

The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) in association with the Weitzman School of Design McHarg Center, the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) invited designers to be part of a historic, national initiative to translate the core goals of the Green New Deal—decarbonization, justice, and jobs—into design and planning projects for their respective regions.

The Superstudio was an open call for designs that spatially manifest the principles and policy ideas of the Green New Deal with regional and local specificity. A national climate plan like the Green New Deal will be understood by most people through the landscapes, buildings, infrastructures, and public works agenda that it inspires. The Superstudio was a concerted effort to give form and visual clarity to the scale, scope, and pace of transformation that the Green New Deal implies.

In this short video, the organizers reflect on the Superstudio initiative and its ongoing value.

The Superstudio ran from August 1, 2020 until June 30, 2021. Participation was open to all design schools, professional practices, individuals, and other design and planning related organizations. Some 670 projects were submitted through the year-long open call, which attracted the participation of over 90 universities in 39 states and 10 countries, as well as hundreds of practitioners from across the design disciplines. These thought-provoking projects range from adaptive reuse of degraded sites to regional-scale frameworks to visualizations of speculative futures.

The full set of submissions are catalogued as part of the Green New Deal Superstudio archive in the JSTOR digital library, where they are freely accessible. A curated set of 55 projects can be viewed on the Superstudio website. These projects were selected through an extensive review process to illustrate the wide variety of issues, innovation, scales, and geographic regions represented in the submissions and to catalyze conversation.

The Superstudio also informed a national conversation on design, policy and advocacy at the April 2022 Grounding the Green New Deal Summit at the National Building Museum.

The Green New Deal Superstudio is a joint initiative of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) in association with the partners listed below. Together, we are administering the Superstudio with each of the partners providing in-kind support.

Partners