Together in conversation, designers Rebeca Mendez and Mathew Jull examine ideas of landscape, environmental justice, shelter and refuge. Mendez’s recent project, Biophilia Treehouse, is an initiative to create avian wildlife corridors throughout Los Angeles County, with resting, feeding and nesting sites for the dual purpose of serving an abundance of birds as well as humans, for whom the sites will offer respite for reconnecting with the natural world. Jull studies Arctic settlement and examines the potential role of architecture and landscape architecture in human lifeways, beyond engineering.

Rebeca Méndez is an artist, designer and professor at UCLA, Design Media Arts, where she is director of the CounterForce Lab, a research and fieldwork studio dedicated to using art and design to develop creative collaborations, research and projects social and ecological impacts of climate change.

Matthew Jull is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Virginia, a founding partner of the design practices KUTONOTUK and TempAgency, director of the Arctic Design Group (with Leena Cho) and an architect. With a PhD in geophysics from Cambridge and Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Jull’s research explores the intersection of architecture and urban design with the processes that shape the natural environment.

Learning from Nature; A Design Conversation with Rebeca Mendez and Matthew Jull