News

2024

Karen M'Closkey lectures at Ludwig-Maximilians University's Rachel Caron Center for Environment and Society in Munich.
Karen M'Closkey invited to participate in the GSD’s 2024 Doctor of Design Conference.
Karen M'Closkey invited to teach a graduate option studio at the University of Toronto.
Karen M'Closkey invited to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
As part of the EMLab, PEG's work showcased in "Repositioning Drone Sensing in Landscape Urbanism and Planning" by P. Cureton & Ole B. Jensen (Springer 2023).

2023

Keith VanDerSys (w/ EMLab Co-PI Sean Burkholder) is part of a team led by The Wetlands Institute (TWI) and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) that recently received a $630,000 National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NWFW) Coastal Resiliency Grant.
Keith VanDerSys invited as ACADIA 2023 "Habitat of the Anthropocene" technical paper reviewer.
Karen M’Closkey has been appointed as Editor in Chief for LA+ journal.
Karen M’Closkey will be guest editing the upcoming issue of LA+ Sense. The publication will be out in Fall 2025.

2022

The work of the EMLab (https://emlabupenn.com) and its members showcased in November issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.
Karen M'Closkey invited to lecture at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), School of Architecture, Ecuador.
Our Behind-the-Scenes: Multispectral Imagery and Land Cover Classification article is in the latest issue of JOLA (2022-1).
PEG invited to participate in the Experimental Landings exhibition hosted by Pratt Institute on July 7-8.
In collaboration with the USACE’s Engineer and Research and Development Center (ERDC), the EMLAB was part of a team recently awarded a $750,000 Engineering with Nature research grant. The EMLab will provide remote sensing and field collection support for their ongoing collaboration with the USACE in Maurice River, NJ. The research team is led by ERDC’s Dr. Brian Harris.
Karen M’Closkey will be guest editing the upcoming issue of LA+ Botanic. The publication will be out in Spring 2024.
Karen M'Closkey invited as a plenary speaker in the Pedagogies session of the 2022 Digital Landscape Architecture conference hosted by the GSD.
Keith VanDerSys invited to participate on the 2022 WLA Student Awards jury panel.
As part of the newly formed Ian McHarg Center’s Environmental Modeling Lab (EMLab), we’re hosting the Instruments of Change (www.emlabupenn.com/events) symposium.
Karen M'Closkey and Keith VanDerSys recently co-founded (w/ Sean Burkholder and Bobby Pietrusko) the Environmental Modeling Lab (EMLab) as part of the Weitzman School of Design's Ian McHarg Center.

2021

Karen M'Closkey recently participated in the "Building with Nature" symposium hosted at the Weitzman School of Design.
Karen M'Closkey invited to lecture at Rutgers University in March 2022.
PEG recently presented its ongoing dredge placement monitoring and high marsh mapping work as part of the Seven Mile Island Innovation Lab (SMIIL). SMIIL is a collaboration between The Wetlands Institute/ USACE to study and advance innovative dredge and marsh restoration techniques.
Our essay “For Whom Do We Account in Climate Adaptation?” in A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy (Island Press, 2021) is out now!
Out of 400+ entries and 8 shortlisted projects, PEG's "Fantasy Island: The Galapagos Archipelago" received an Honorable Mention in the WLA Concept- Analysis and Planning category
PEG's “Fantasy Island: The Galapagos Archipelago” shortlisted for a WLA Concept- Analysis and Planning Award
PEG/ EMLab's remote sensing research showcased in RI Vista "Landscape Representation Skills" (Vol 19, No 2)
PEG invited to lecture at the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design
PEG's ‘Not Gardens’ featured in Mary Patricia McGuire’s Surface Design Book (forthcoming 2021)

2020

PEG's latest guest-edited issue of LA+ GEO is out now!
PEG's remotely measuring and monitoring the Sturgeon Island (NJ) wetland sediment supplement test by The Wetlands Institute and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Karen M'Closkey's "Seeds of Change" published in a special issue of Expedition magazine on Philadelphia's garden history.
PEG recently won a National ASLA Analysis and Planning Honor Award for “Fantasy Island: The Galapagos Archipelago”
PEG’s Galapagos Shoreline Mapping project highlighted on ASLA's The Dirt blog.
PEG’s Galapagos Shoreline Mapping project highlighted in the March issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine (LAM).
PEG’s "pattern" work cited in Larry D. Busbea's The Responsive Environment: Design, Aesthetics, and the Human in the 1970s (University of Minnesota Press, 2020)
Keith VanDerSys presented work from his fall research seminar on sensing coastal wetland changes at the The Wetlands Institute.
PEG’s Galapagos Shoreline Mapping project highlighted on the World Landscape Architecture (WLA) blog.

2019

Galapagos Shoreline Mapping data delivered to INOCAR (The Oceanographic Institute of the Navy in Ecuador, similar to the USA’s NOAA). INOCAR will use this information for modeling past and future storm surge, sea-level rise, and tsunami scenarios as it relates to urban growth and coastal resiliency.
Karen M’Closkey’s co-edited book, Design with Nature Now, made ASLA The Dirt's "Best Books of 2019"
Karen M’Closkey’s co-edited book, Design with Nature Now (Lincoln Institute Press), is out now!
As part of the Bionic Team, PEG recently won a National ASLA Award of Excellence: Communications Award for “The FloMo: A Mobile Messenger for Sea Level Rise”
Karen M’Closkey invited to lecture at Temple University in October
Karen M’Closkey & Keith VanDerSys invited for a lecture workshop at Kent State University in October
Karen M’Closkey invited to speak at the Designing a Green New Deal symposium on September 13
Karen M’Closkey slated to speak at the University of Pennsylvania's Design with Nature Now conference on June 21-22

2018

Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys are guest editing the upcoming LA+ Geo issue. The publication will be out in Fall 2020
Karen M’Closkey & Keith VanDerSys invited to speak at Penn's "Adaptation Blueprint" symposium on Sept 28th. The event is sponsored by the MIT Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism, the Wharton Risk Management Center, and Penn's Ian McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
Karen M’Closkey & Keith VanDerSys (Co-PI's w/ Michael Weisberg) receive a $30,000 Penn Global Engagement Grant for Galapagos shoreline mapping
Dynamic Patterns: Visualizing Landscapes in a Digital Age reviewed in the May issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine
Karen M’Closkey (Co-PI) receives a $86,000 Making a Difference in Diverse Communities Grant for continuing work in the Galapagos Islands
Karen M’Closkey lectures at the Lawrence Technological University
Karen M’Closkey (Co-Pi) receives a $6,000 Penn Program in Environmental Humanities Grant for further work in Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Keith VanDerSys invited to lecture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Architecture in March
Karen M’Closkey lectures at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Architecture

2017

As part of the Bionic collective, PEG has been selected to participate in The Rockefeller Foundation's Bay Area: Resilient By Design competition: http://www.resilientbayarea.org/teams
Our Dynamic Patterns: Visualizing Landscapes in a Digital Age is now out and available!
PEG invited to participate in the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission's (DVRPC) "Waterfront Development in a Changing Climate" workshop
Karen M’Closkey (Co-PI) receives a $100,000 Making a Difference in Diverse Communities Grant for "Community-Based Ecology in the Galapagos Archipelago"
Keith VanDerSys invited as a jury member for the Samcheok International Architecture Competition in South Korea
LA+ SIMULATION featured in the February issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine
Paul Edwards' "Control Earth" essay from LA+ SIMULATION featured in Places Journal
PEG a short list finalist (w/ Erdy McHery) for the Philadelphia City Hall Courtyard competition
Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys will be the Paul L. Cejas Eminent Scholars this spring at Florida International University

2016

Karen M’Closkey invited to lecture at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the spring
Keith VanDerSys leads a digital media workshop on parametric topographic design & analysis at Kansas State University
Karen M’Closkey invited to participant in the Ecological Design Center's HOPES [23] Conference this April at the University of Oregon
LA+ SIMULATION, guest edited by Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys, is now available
Karen M’Closkey invited to participate in Harvard Graduate School of Design's pedagogy colloquium
PEG’s Dynamic Patterns exhibit opens on July 25th at University of Melbourne as part of our Dean's Lecture visit
Karen M’Closkey invited to participant in The New Landscape Declaration: A Summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future symposium hosted at the University of Pennsylvania on June 10-11
Keith VanDerSys invited to participate on the 2016 ASLA Annual Meeting panel The Rhino in the Room: 3-D Digital Design to Construction in October
Karen M’Closkey lectures at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)
Karen M’Closkey invited to participant in This is a Test: Landscape as Site Research symposium hosted at OSU's Knowlton School
Keith VanDerSys invited as a jury member for the Suncheon International Architecture Competition in South Korea

2015

Dew Point included in Susan Herrington's forthcoming book entitled "Landscape Theory in Design."
PEG interview and work included in the forthcoming publication entitled "Innovations in Landscape."
PEG included in the forthcoming issue of Kerb 23: Digital Landscapes.
Synopsis of our Simulating Natures symposium posted on The Dirt: https://lnkd.in/eWMkbGh
Karen M’Closkey juries the 2015 AIA/DC Unbuilt Awards
Karen M’Closkey lectures at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)
Videos of our Simulating Natures symposium at the University of Pennsylvania are now available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/album/3328898
Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys are guest editing the upcoming LA+ Simulation issue. The publication will be out in Fall 2016.
PEG interview and work included in Jillian Walliss & Heike Rahmann's forthcoming publication entitled "Landscape Architecture and Digital Techniques."
Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys are organizing the Simulating Natures symposium at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

2014

PEG included in Phaidon's 30:30 Contemporary Landscape Architecture. This forthcoming publication will include "30 of today's most forward-thinking landscape architects and 30 of the world's most celebrated landscape architects."
Karen M’Closkey lectures at Pennsylvania State University
Karen M’Closkey lectures at Maryland University
PEG invited to lecture and lead a workshop on "recursive landscapes" at Kent State University.
Two PEG projects featured in an international collection of practices entitled Streets and Plazas by Artpower Publishing
Karen M’Closkey’s Unearthed: the Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) is the recipient of a John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize, awarded by The Foundation for Landscape Studies "for recently published books that have made significant contributions to the study and understanding of garden history and landscape studies."
PEG invited to contribute 4 projects to Total Landscape (Actar, forthcoming), "a digest of the most important landscape projects of the first decade of the 21st century."
Karen M’Closkey’s Unearthed: the Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) reviewed in the January issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine by Jane Amidon.
PEG invited to lecture and lead a workshop on "recursive landscapes" at the Datascapes: Design for Changing Cities and Shifting Lands symposium hosted by LSU School of Landscape Architecture and organized by Andrea Hansen.

2013

Karen M’Closkey has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure, in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Landscape Architecture.
PEG has been named one of Metropolis Magazine's "The Select Ten," which identifies the next generation of thought leaders in the field of design.
Karen M’Closkey invited to contribute a chapter on contemporary modes of visualization for Composite Landscape: Photomontage and Landscape Architecture, eds. Charles Waldheim and Andrea Hansen.
Karen M’Closkey lectures at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Karen M’Closkey lectures at Roma Tre University
PEG has been awarded a 2013 Pew Fellowship in the Arts. The Pew Center of Arts & Heritage annually awards up to 12 fellowships of $60,000. PEG is the first landscape architecture office to be awarded the fellowship since its inception in 1991.
Karen M’Closkey’s Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates was recently published by the University of Pennsylvania Press
Karen M’Closkey lectures at La Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Karen M’Closkey lectures at National School of Landscape Versailles (ENSP)
Karen M’Closkey lectures at University of Reggio Calabria, Italy
Karen M’Closkey lectures at University of Florence, Italy
PEG recently received an advanced contract from Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Press to publish their upcoming book "Dynamic Patterns: Visualizing Landscapes in a Digital Age"
PEG has recently been invited to teach a graduate option studio next spring at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)
Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys lecture at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

2012

PEG has recently been nominated for a 2013 Pew Fellowship in the Arts
PEG selected as one of two pre-invited firms to participate in the two-stage competition, Movement on Main (www.movementonmain.com). The competition is sponsored by Syracuse University's UPSTATE: Center for Design
PEG featured in the Spring 2013 issue of Harvard Design Magazine entitled "Landscape Cores."
Karen M’Closkey invited to present at the Surface Conversations symposium hosted by the University of Cincinnati (October 25,26). Other symposium participants include Peter Eisenman, Thom Mayne, Andrea Leers, Jane Weinzapfel, and Michael Graves
PEG included in an international collection of innovative landscape architectural practices entitled Digital Landscape Architecture Now(Thames & Hudson Press) by Nadia Amoroso
PEG presents at Digital Landscapes Now Colloquium at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)
Essay and studio work by Karen M’Closkey in Representing Landscapes: A Visual Collection of Landscape Architectural Drawings
PEG invited to a group exhibit titled Diagramme(s), Selon du Dessin, Ecole Speciale d'Architecture, Paris. The exhibit included work by Zaha Hadid, Studio Gang, RUR, UN Studio, Toyo Ito, and Chora
Keith VanDerSys participates on the Emerging New York Architects' (ENYA), Harlem Edge: Cultivating Connections competition jury
Karen M’Closkey’s paper "Synthetic Patterns: Fabricating Landscapes in the Age of "Green," in the Journal of Landscape Architecture, forthcoming Spring 2013.

2011

Edaphic Effects featured on suckerPunch
Edaphic Effects featured on World Landscape Architecture
Bellwether featured in Landscape World: 49
PEG’s "Not Garden" featured in VIA: Dirt
Weather Vane featured in Landscape World: 46
Keith VanDerSys juries suckerPuch Center for Urban Farming competition
Ripple Effect exhibited as part of the HB:BX competition entries at University of New Mexico
PEG is one of six featured practices in Young Architects 12: ReSource by Princeton Architectural Press
Mies van der Rohe Plaza featured in AMC Le Moniteur Architecture: 205
Edaphic Effects included in The Terrain of Water exhibition. The exhibition includes work by Louis I. Kahn, Ian L. McHarg, Narendra Juneja, Lawrence Halprin, Anne Whiston Spirn, James Corner and Alex S. MacLean, Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, and Laurie D. Olin
PEG’s work featured in Architectural Diagrams by DOM publishers
PEG is one of ten innovate landscape practices exhibited in Material Landscapes at Sheldon Art Galleries in St. Louis

2010

Karen M’Closkey lectures at University of Texas @ Austin
Ripple Effect featured in HB:BX exhibition at the Center for Architecture in New York
Karen M’Closkey’s “Signs of Life” in Journal of Architectural Education (JAE), Volume 64, Issue 1
PEG is one of six practices featured in 2010 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers at Aronson Gallery, Parsons The New School for Design
Landscape World magazine publishing PEG as the featured firm in upcoming issue
Not Garden in a forthcoming issue of Landscape Architecture magazine
“Not Garden”, one of fifty projects in the Retooling Industrial Sites exhibit held at the Center for Architecture
Three PEG projects featured in Panel Layout by DAMDI Publishing

2009

Double Jeopardy featured in Advanced Interior Design by DAMDI Publishing
Two PEG projects featured in Fellowships in Architecture by Oro editions
Not Garden with associated 'ornament' essay to be published in forthcoming issue of VIA: Dirt-Volume 2 by University of Pennsylvania
Not Again prototype installed
Mies van der Rohe Plaza published in LUNCH: Volume 4- Margins by University of Virginia Press
Five PEG projects featured in Advance Public Design by DAMDI Publishing
Not Garden prototype installed. The research is funded by the University of Pennsylvania
Karen M’Closkey lectures at Temple University

2008

PEG’s Weather Vane project will be highlighted in Jane Amidon's essay in Design Ecologies, forthcoming by Princeton Architectural Press
Karen M’Closkey lectures at Ohio State University
Karen M’Closkey presents at Pecha Kucha: Madrid
Karen M’Closkey participates as international juror for 2008 Pan American Biennale in Quito, Ecuador
PEG was included in an international survey of innovative landscape architects in Korean Landscape Architecture (ELA) magazine article "14 Remarkable Landscape Architects"
Double Jeopardy published in 1000x Architecture of the Americas by Verlagshaus press
Karen M’Closkey’s essay “Without Ends: The Promise of Landscape Urbanism” published in Writing Urbanism by Routledge
Keith VanDerSys recently joined University of Pennsylvania Landscape and Architecture departments as a Lecturer.

2007

Karen M’Closkey recently joined University of Pennsylvania Landscape Architecture department as an Assistant Professor.
Mies van der Rohe plaza published in Urban Spaces: Plazas and Squares by Links International.
PEG was selected as an ArchRecord2 "Emerging Practice." Work featured in the February issue of Architectural Record.
Karen M’Closkey lectures on PEG at Bowling Green University.
Baywatch was exhibited in UCLA's Uncontested exhibit

2006

PEG received the 2007 ACSA Faculty Design Presentation Award for Double Jeopardy, University of Michigan Department of Architecture student lounges
PEG has received a Detroit AIA honor award for the TCAUP Student Lounges at the University of Michigan. Previously, PEG received an honor award from the Detroit AIA for OM Spa, and from the Michigan AIA for the Mies van der Rohe Plaza at Lafayette Park in Detroit, designed in collaboration with PLY Architecture of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Mies van der Rohe Plaza was recently featured in both Azure (august.2006), and A+T In Commons II
PEG was chosen for the Architectural League of New York's Architecture and the Mail competition.
PEG won first prizes for Double Jeopardy and Mies Van der Rohe Plaza in the 2006 Pan-American Biennial. The projects were exhibited as part of the biennial and will be in a forthcoming publication of the event.

2005

Thanks to MacIntosh Poris Architects, Peg was mentioned in "Hometown Heroes," Interior Design Magazine, July 2005 issue
PEG’s entry into Park for the 21st Century exhibited at Chicago Architecture Foundation
Mies van der Rohe Plaza was exhibited in UCLA's Drawn exhibit

Awards

2024

PEG (as EMLab) awarded a $630,000 NFWF America the Beautiful Grant (project leads, NJDEP/ TWI).

2021

“Fantasy Island: The Galapagos Archipelago" awarded an Honorable Mention for the WLA Professional Awards Concept- Analysis and Planning category

2020

PEG awarded a National ASLA Analysis and Planning Honor Award for “Fantasy Island: The Galapagos Archipelago"

2019

National ASLA Award of Excellence: Communications Award for “The FloMo: A Mobile Messenger for Sea Level Rise” (Resilient by Design: Bay Area Challenge, Bionic Team)
Karen M’Closkey & Keith VanDerSys (Co-PI's w/ Michael Weisberg, et al) receive a $30,000 Team Grant for Interdisciplinary Activities (TGIA)

2018

Karen M’Closkey & Keith VanDerSys (Co-PI's w/ Michael Weisberg) receive a $30,000 Penn Global Engagement Grant for Galapagos shoreline mapping
Karen M’Closkey (Co-PI) receives a $86,000 Making a Difference in Diverse Communities Grant for continued work in the Galapagos
Karen M’Closkey (Co-Pi) receives a $6,000 Penn Program in Environmental Humanities Grant for continued work in the Galapagos

2017

PEG selected for The Rockefeller Foundation's Bay Area: Resilient By Design competition
Karen M’Closkey (Co-PI) receives a $100,000 Making a Difference in Diverse Communities Grant for work in the Galapagos
PEG a short list finalist for the Philadelphia City Hall Courtyard competition

2015

Karen M’Closkey receives the 2015 G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching

2014

Karen M’Closkey receives a John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize for Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates

2013

PEG has been awarded a 2013 Pew Fellowship in the Arts

2012

PEG selected as one of two pre-invited finalists for the Movement on Main two-stage competition
Karen M’Closkey selected as 2012-13 American Academy in Rome Prize Fellow in Landscape Architecture
Karen M’Closkey receives a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Publication Grant for Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates
Karen M’Closkey receives a David R. Coffin Publication Grant, Foundation for Landscape Studies for Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates

2011

Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys receive a University Research Foundation grant for "Incremental Infrastructure" stormwater infiltration and geo-cell customization research
PEG wins a 2011 Boston Society of Architects Research Grant for exploration into customized geo-cell stormwater collection in urban vacant lots

2010

PEG wins The Architectural League of New York Prize for Young Architects + Designers sponsored by the Architectural League of New York
PEG wins first place in the HBBX: Building Cultural Infrastructure international competition sponsored by the Emerging New York Architects (ENYA),. The jury included Joshua David, Craig Dykers, Hillary Sample, Kazys Varnelis, and Antonia Sergio Bessa

2007

PEG named a 2007 I.D Magazine Design Award winner in the Environment category for the University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning student lounges
PEG has been named a 2007 Contract Magazine Interiors Award winner in the Education category for the University of Michigan, TCAUP student lounges.

2006

PEG has received a Detroit AIA Honor Award for the TCAUP Student Lounges at the University of Michigan.
PEG received the 2007 ACSA Faculty Design Presentation Award for Double Jeopardy, University of Michigan Department of Architecture student lounges
PEG won first prizes for Double Jeopardy and Mies Van der Rohe Plaza in the 2006 Pan-American Biennial
PEG was chosen for the Architectural League of New York's Architecture and the Mail competition

2005

PEG receives a Recommended Scheme for their entry into the Graham Foundation's Park for the 21st Century international design competition. Of 150 entries, 20 projects received accommodations
PEG received a Detroit AIA Honor Award for OM Spa in Dearborn, MI
PEG, in collaboration with PLY Architecture of Ann Arbor, Michigan, received an AIA Michigan Honor Award for the Mies van der Rohe Plaza at Lafayette Park in Detroit
PEG receives an Honorable Mention for their entry into the Buzzard's Bay Bridge: Park international design competition. Of 300 entries, 6 prizes were awarded. The jury consisted of Toshiko Mori, Vincent James, Gregg Pasquarelli, Mack Scogin, Walter Hood, and Ken Smith