The Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning, and Design is pleased to announce its first-ever University Distinguished Lecture, to be presented by Jeremy Harris, the Mayor of Honolulu, Hawaii.  He will speak on

Building Sustainable Cities

at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 10, in Forum Hall of the K-State Student Union.  The presentation is open to the public without charge.

Mayor Jeremy Harris holds an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Hawaii and a master’s degree in population and environmental biology from the University of California at Irvine.  He has served as Council Chairman of the Kauai County Council, as Honolulu’s longest serving managing director, and for the last ten years as the city's Mayor where he has provided forward looking and dynamic leadership.  As part of that effort, he has helped to remake Honolulu's infrastructure, increasing the energy efficiency of the city's buildings and enhancing the quality of the city's open spaces.  Mayor Harris has also helped to reorganize the structure of the city government.

Under Mayor Harris' leadership, Honolulu has become cleaner, safer and more sustainable than at any other time in the four decades since Hawaii became a state.  Honolulu has been transformed into a vibrant city that supports a thriving sports tourism industry, features refurbished neighborhoods characterized by parks and tree-lined streets, and celebrates the city's rich history and ethnic diversity.  Honolulu has also has forged a reputation as a model of sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region. With the Mayor's direction, the city has overseen the protection of nature preserves and other fragile ecosystems on the island of Oahu and has established visionary environmental education programs for both visitors and local residents.  Mayor Harris has worked to strengthen the relationship between citizens and their government and to build public-private partnerships. As a result of these efforts, Honolulu has attracted new knowledge-based industries and now ranks as the most technologically advanced city in the nation. In recognition of these achievements, Mayor Harris has been honored with a number of prestigious national and local awards and appointments.

In his presentation, Mayor Harris will argue that, "There's a growing realization today that the environmental challenges we face are urban challenges, and that the design of urban infrastructure is vital to the sustainability of our cities.  How we plan and develop our cities, the energy we use, the transportation systems we develop, the land-use decisions we make--these are the issues that will determine the viability of our planet in the decades to come."

Mayor Harris will also contend that, "Sustainable cities are all about planning and design.  We need to design buildings that reduce or eliminate their negative impact on the environment.  We need to design communities that conserve water, recycle their waste, and utilize renewable energy systems.  In short, we need to design cities for people, not automobiles."

This lecture is funded by the K-State University Distinguished Lecture Committee, the K-State Student Fine Arts Fee, the K-State Department of Architecture, the K-State Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning, and the K-State Department of Political Science. 

Attendance at the lecture can be submitted as continuing education credit by design professionals by contacting Diane Potts.
 

For more information, contact:

David Sachs, 785/532-5953
Diane Potts, 785/532-1090