Brian Orland, Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and former head of the landscape architecture department at Penn State University, is the Rado Family Foundation/UGA Foundation Professor in Geo Design at the College of Environment and Design.
Orland holds degrees in architecture (Manchester, United Kingdom), and in landscape architecture (Arizona). He comes to UGA from Penn State where he has been teaching and conducting research since 2000. Before that, he was at the University of Illinois for 18 years. His teaching and research focus on environmental perception, the modeling and representation of environmental impacts, and the design of information systems for community-based design and planning.His current work includes the use of serious games, visualization and mobile devices for data collection and information dissemination in the context of landscape design and planning.
Most of his professional work relates to land-use change, water resources and energy development in Pennsylvania and the northeastern U.S., but he also co-leads a study-abroad program that is centered on community design for biodiversity conservation in Tanzania.
Geo-design uses technology to plan the built and natural environments using integrated processes. Incorporating technology, designers can work on a variety of integrated and related issues including project conceptualization, analysis, design specifications, stakeholder participation and collaboration, design creation, simulation and evaluation.
The Rado Professorship is in partnership with the University of Georgia Foundation. Bruce Rado, who received a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from UGA in 1971 is the retired founder and vice president of Earth Resource Data Analysis Systems Inc., a trailblazer in the creation of tools for geo-design.