Samantha Solano
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
MLA, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2016
BLA, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2010
Professional Landscape Architect # 11873649-5301
Biography
Samantha Solano is an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She teaches graduate and undergraduate studios and advanced representation courses. She is the founding principal of JUXTOPOS, a co-founder of the Visualizing Equity in Landscape Architecture (VELA) project, and a co-collaborator of the International Landscape Collaborative (ILC). Samantha is a licensed landscape architect in the state of Utah.
Professor Solano's scholarship engages with revealing unrepresented narratives overlooked throughout landscape architecture discourse. Her work interrogates two main streams—arid territories and the social, political, and cultural values that have led to the mismanagement of desert lands, and the empowerment of design, environmental, and racial justice narratives in practice, the profession, and the academy. Her research and design methodologies are centered on using critical mapping as a means of revealing unrecognized, unformalized, and unrepresented relationships hidden throughout the landscape.
Solano's research has been published in Representing Landscape: Analogue, From the South: Global Perspectives on Landscape and Territory, and T-Squared: Theories and Tactics in Architecture and Design (forthcoming). Currently, she is a co-editor of the ILC’s 2nd research volume focusing on territorial landscape approaches deployed throughout Northern and Arctic territories.
Samantha Solano previously held faculty appointments at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She holds a Master's in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor's in Landscape Architecture from UNLV.
Courses
- LANDARCH 297B Special Topics: Studio II
- LANDARCH 501: Studio I