Sean Burkholder & Karen Lutsky are the 2025-2026 Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano | Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize Fellows in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome. Sean Burkholder is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania's Weitzman School of Design, where, in addition to teaching, he co-directs the McHarg Center's Environmental Modeling Lab. Karen Lutsky recently joined the landscape architecture department at Cornell University. She was previously at the University of Minnesota, where she was an associate professor of Landscape Architecture and director of undergraduate studies. She and Sean Burkholder co-authored Five Bay Landscapes: Curious Explorations of the Great Lakes Basin (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022).
How has your time in Rome shaped or shifted the direction of your project so far?
Our story may not be so different from those of our fellow colleagues, but our time and experiences here have undeniably shaped and transformed our project. But that reality was never really a problem for us, in fact it feels fundamental to how we work with landscapes. We try to withhold preconceptions of a place until we can experience it firsthand, so allowing this residency to influence our work felt entirely natural and deeply productive. Like a landscape, our project benefited enormously from the time and space the academy provided. The space part was particularly important, both intellectually and physically, as it gave us the opportunity to work at a large scale in an unhurried way that is simply not possible in our day-to-day work back home.
What part of your daily routine or environment at the Academy has most influenced you and your work?
While Italy in general, and Rome in particular, is full of extraordinary places, it was ultimately the people and their knowledge that unlocked those experiences for us. We arrived with some plans, of course (we did have to write a proposal!), but conversations with colleagues at the academy introduced us to landscapes and projects that expanded our work well beyond the shores of Lake Bracciano. It was the community of scholars and artists here, through countless meals and conversations that are so central to life at the academy, that made that possible.
Have any encounters—with people, places, new information—opened up new paths in your research or practice in the past months?
Our project's focus on narrative and storytelling was especially enriched by the remarkable range of perspectives our colleagues embody. The critical stances many hold toward "history" as a traditional discipline were both refreshing and inspiring, particularly in a place as dense and layered as Rome. History is, at some level, an act of provocative storytelling, and being surrounded by people so deeply and critically engaged with its study, in all its forms, was profoundly formative for us. We are excited that many of the peers we've met here will undoubtedly become lifelong friends and future collaborators, and are deeply thankful to the Academy for this opportunity.