Architecture and landscape architecture students in the “OregonBILDS 2” studio at the University of Oregon are designing prototypes for an annual series of classes that will design and build a residence every year, with profits from each unit’s sale poured into a fund to make the program self-perpetuating. A grant from the UO Meyer Fund for a Sustainable Environment helped launch the idea.

“Landscape Thinking,” a special symposium honoring University of Oregon landscape architecture Professor Emeritus Kenneth Helphand on his retirement from forty years of teaching, will be held Saturday, May 25, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the UO Ford Alumni Center, 1720 E. 13th Avenue, Eugene. The event will help fund an endowment for a lecture series named in honor of Helphand. The deadline to reserve tickets is May 15.

University of Oregon Professor Robert Ribe recently coauthored an article in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article focuses on how cultural and aesthetic experiences factor in when applying ecosystem services to policy- and decision-analysis. The global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment advocated this method of decision-making, which has been adopted by the European Union, Australia, the U.S.