UVA urban planning expert to highlight community-oriented design

By Lauren Floyd

The co-founder of the University of Virginia’s Center for Community Partnerships will deliver the 2025 Morton B. Gulak Lecture in Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University on Tuesday, Nov. 18.

Barbara Brown Wilson, Ph.D., a specialist in ecologically and community-oriented design and development, is an associate professor of urban and environmental planning at the UVA School of Architecture. In her lecture at VCU – “Building Adaptive Community Capacity in Stressful Times” – she will touch on creative and successful co-design tactics for working with neighborhoods, towns and rural regions grappling with socio-environmental crises.

VCU’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs recently spoke with Brown Wilson about adaptive community capacity and the inclusion of community in planning.

Hosted by the Wilder School, the Gulak Lecture will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. at the University Student Commons theater, 907 Floyd Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

To RSVP or for more details, visit the event page.

About the Gulak Lecture

The Wilder School welcomes expert leaders in planning, architecture or urban design to VCU through the annual Morton B. Gulak Lecture in Urban and Regional Planning. Initiated in 2013, the lecture series honors the legacy of Gulak, Ph.D., who helped found the Master in Urban and Regional Planning program over 40 years ago. Gulak, who died in 2012, taught at VCU for 38 years, inspiring students and peers in areas such as urban design, urban revitalization and physical planning.