Perspectives in conjunction with Adriana Corral: AS LONG AS LIFE ENDURES:

Designing Climate Resilience in the Gulf Coast with Dalia Munenzon (Assistant Professor | Urban Design in Sustainable Communities and Infrastructure, Director of Gulf Urbanism and Landscape Futures Lab) and Mélanie Louterbach Rippe (Assistant Professor | Sustainable Urban Design, Member of Landscape Futures Lab) both from UH College of Architecture and Design.

Date:

Wednesday, November 18, 2026 | 12pm-1pm

Conversation followed by lunch, 1pm-130

Format:

Perspectives are gallery conversations led by scholars,experts, and artists in a wide range of fields. Speakers respond to the artwork on view, bringing their own expertise to the exhibition topic. Held at noon, museumgoers are encouraged to stay and continue the discussion over lunch (provided).

About Dr. Mélanie Louterbach:

Dr. Mélanie Louterbach is Assistant Professor of Sustainable Urban Design at the University of Houston. Trained as both a landscape architect and geologist, she bridges earth sciences and design to investigate sustainable geo-material cultures, energy landscapes, and earth-based practices for climate resilience. Her research focuses on oil landscapes along the Gulf Coast and in Alaska, with an emphasis on post-oil futures and climate justice narratives. Her MLA thesis, Insurgent Geology, received several awards, including the Harvard GSD Thesis Prize, and was recently published in the Journal of Architectural Education. She earned her Master in Landscape Architecture with distinction from Harvard, where she was named the 2024–2025 Irving Innovation Fellow in Material Investigations for The Feral Mineral Atlas of Boston. She also holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Toulouse. Her Carbon Frontiers post-oil design studio taught at UH received the Envision Resilience National Design Award in Spring 2026.