Associate Professor
Landscape Architecture

Rob Kuper, PLA

Rob Kuper has co-directed design-build studio course projects that have received almost 40 awards. In urban open space design and landscape engineering courses, Rob emphasizes clear communication, rational justification, critical inquiry, practices and materials that embody low- or no-energy and carbon emissions.

Rob’s current research focuses on the climate crisis, and carbon emissions, in particular. In the past, Rob focused on how time affects the human perception of landscapes. He has proposed moving the Mountain-Central Standard Time Zone Boundary to coincide with the climatic boundary that defines the Great Plains; examined whether seasonally-induced visual changes to plants such as flowering, foliation and senescence affect how much people like a landscape, for whatever reason, and investigated whether the size of trees in a scene affects a landscape’s potential to restore one’s ability to pay attention or focus.

Rob has served on many departmental, school, university and organizational committees, anonymously reviewed manuscripts for numerous publications and conferences and participated in several design review juries. 

 Between practicing landscape architecture in Boston and Phoenix, Rob walked across Nebraska, his home state, from west to east. 

 

MLArch, Auburn University, 2001
BS, Environmental Design, Auburn University, 1999

 

Selected Work

Kuper, Rob. (2022). Policy brief: Alternatives to in-person American Society of Landscape Architects Conferences on Landscape Architecture. Landscape Journal 41 (1): 77–93.

Kuper, Rob. (2020). Effects of Flowering, Foliation, and Autumn Colors on Preference and Restorative Potential for Designed Digital Landscape Models. Environment & Behavior 52 (5): 544–576.

Kuper, Rob. (2020). Preference and restorative potential for landscape models that depict diverse arrangements of defoliated, foliated, and evergreen plants. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 48: Article 126570.

Kuper, Rob. (2019). Travel-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions from American Society of Landscape Architects’ Annual Meetings. Landscape Journal 38 (1–2):105–125.

Kuper, Rob. (2017). Restorative potential, fascination, and extent for digital landscape models. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 28: 118–130.

 

Image credit: Temple University Photography / Joseph V. Labolito