Virtual LA CES™ Education Sessions

Speakers:

Brett Weidl, ASLA, MKSK

Brett Weidl is a Principal Landscape Architect at MKSK in Chicago; she has two decades of experience shaping urban spaces and strengthening communities towards increased equity, accessibility, vibrancy, and beauty while continuously seeking opportunities to uplift communities by focusing on the people who reside there and the spaces they inhabit. Brett’s work has been recognized with national design and planning awards, and she is a regional and national speaker on public space design.

Jamie McArdle, ASLA, Victor Stanley

Jamie McArdle holds degrees from both Wayne State University (Social Work) and the University of Michigan (Landscape Architecture and Behavior Education and Communications). She has field experience in multiple regions of the country and is excited to apply her knowledge in community development, environmental behaviors and education, and advocacy as a representative for Victor Stanley.

Speakers:

Mario Schjetnan, FASLA

Founder of Grupo de Diseño Urbano

Mario Schjetnan, FASLA, winner in 2025 of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize and the founder of Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU), has an undergraduate degree in architecture from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) (1968), and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley (1970). He was awarded the Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (1984) to pursue advanced environmental studies. In 1995 the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León awarded him an Honorary PhD in Architecture, and in 2025 the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California also awarded him an Honorary PhD in Architecture. Schjetnan is part of a generation of landscape architects, architects, and urbanists who became aware of the environmental impact of urban development and its consequences on life, the planet, and its inhabitants. He created new theories and practices for the design of cities based on environmental knowledge, cultural memory, and consideration for the inhabitants’ quality of life, well-being, and a new ethical and aesthetic relationship with the environment. Schjetnan’s influences include Mexican Modernist architects such as Luis Barragán, Max Cetto, and Mario Pani. In terms of landscape architecture, he cites Luis Barragán, Roberto Burle Marx, and Lawrence Halprin (the latter was his impetus for studying at Berkeley), along with artists such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Juan O’Gorman, novelist Carlos Fuentes, poet Octavio Paz, and the country’s rich legacy of pre-Hispanic myths, architecture and culture, among others.

Víctor Legorreta

Partner, CEO and Design Director of LEGORRETA

Víctor Legorreta is an architect with studies at Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City Campus and professional experience at Leason Pomeroy in USA, Martorell-Bohigas-Mackay in Barcelona, and Fumihiko Maki in Japan. He joined LEGORRETA in 1991, where he is Partner, CEO and Design Director up to this day. He has lectured at universities and congresses globally and served on juries, including the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Design Awards. Victor is recognized as Fellow AIA Honorary Member and Emeritus Academic of the National Academy of Architecture, Valle de México Chapter. He also has served as President of the International Academy of Architecture (IAA) Interclub in Mexico. His landmark projects include Papalote Children's Museum, Zambrano Hellion Hospital, BBVA Tower (with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners), Four Seasons Tamarindo (with Mauricio Rocha and Mario Schjetnan), CBX Tijuana-San Diego Border Bridge, Stanford's Highland Halls Student Residences, and the MIYANA mixed-use complex, as well as private residences around the globe. With 60 years of global work—from master plans to industrial design— LEGORRETA embraces a timeless, human-centered vision. Geometry, light, courtyards, water, and color weave narratives honoring Mexican roots. Under architect Víctor Legorreta’s leadership, the team reimagines this legacy, creating environments that inspire happiness with a sense of belonging.

Claire Agre, Oberlander Prize Jury Chair

Partner and Cofounder of Unknown Studio Landscape Architecture & Urban Design

Claire Agre is a Partner and Cofounder of Unknown Studio Landscape Architecture & Urban Design, based in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. Prior to that she was a Principal in the New York City office of the Rotterdam, Netherlands-based West 8 urban design and landscape architecture firm. Broadening landscape practice with a background in painting and ecology, her work puts physical and social connectivity at the forefront. Agre has led design and implementation for a diverse portfolio of projects, including: Governors Island (New York, N.Y., U.S.), Druid Lake (Baltimore, MD, U.S.), North Meadow on the Rose Kennedy Greenway (Boston, MA, U.S.), the internationally-renowned Harborplace (Baltimore, MD, U.S.), Portland Museum of Art (Portland, Location), multiple plans for Longwood Gardens and its award-winning Main Fountain Garden Revitalization (Kennett Square, PA, U.S.), The Nasher Haemisegger Family Sculpture Garden at Duke University (Durham, N.C., U.S.), planning at The Land and Garden Preserve on Mount Desert Island, Maine; Naples Botanical Garden (Naples, FL, U.S.), Houston Botanic Garden (Houston, TX, U.S.), and at the largest scale, the winning entry for Changing Course—an interdisciplinary, international design competition seeking solutions for the disappearing Lower Mississippi Delta.