Adjunct Professor Lynden B. Miller wins CIVITAS Award

We are pleased to share the good news that Lynden B. Miller, Adjunct Professor in our Urban Design and Architecture Program, has been awarded The August Heckscher Award for Community Service by CIVITAS.  She will be honored at their annual benefit on March 14, 2012.

Lynden Miller is a public garden designer in New York City and director of The Conservatory Garden in Central Park.  Her work includes gardens for The Central Park Zoo, Bryant Park, and The New York Botanical Garden as well as numerous other projects of all sizes in all five boroughs.  She also has designed and enhanced campus landscapes at Princeton, Columbia, and Stony Brook universities.

Professor Miller is the author of Parks, Plants, and People: Beautifying the Urban Landscape (Norton, 2009), a 2010 winner of an American Horticultural Society award .  The New York Times called Parks, Plants, and People “[A] must for any design professional involved with urban projects…extremely accessible for the professional and amateur alike…valuable, groundbreaking work.”  As The Huffington Post put it, “More than any other New Yorker, [Lynden Miller] has largely reversed the ill effects of the city’s 1970s era of disinvestment.”

Professor Miller has taught at NYU since 2006.  Her courses, “The Role of Well Designed Public Open Space in the City”, “Creating Successful and Sustainable Public Space”,  and “Parks, Plants, and People” are always popular with Urban Design and Architecture Studies majors.

Founded in 1981, CIVITAS is a union of citizens dedicated to improving neighborhood quality of life in the Upper East Side and East Harlem.  As its website puts it, the organization “promotes urban planning, zoning and land use policies that are sensible and sensitive to residential life.” CIVITAS supports “environmentally sound development, vibrant retail activity at street level, uncluttered sidewalks and access to good public transit.” It is active on issues ranging from historic preservation, public access to parks, and water quality to traffic congestion and zoning variances.