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Kelly Curl
Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture
Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
Education
University of Pennsylvania, Landscape Architecture, 2002, MLA
Villanova University, Comprehensive Science, 1999, BS
CV
Click here to view CV for Kelly CurlWebsite
Biography
Kelly Curl is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape at Colorado State University. Her creative scholarship is driven by a desire to record and interpret the essence of nature—its textures, forms, and vibrant ecosystems—while simultaneously exploring the intersection between human intervention and the environment.
She has exhibited at Colorado State University, BHA Design, and Morgan State University and currently donated work to The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) Eighteenth Annual Silent Auction to benefit TCLF’s education and advocacy initiatives. In Nadia Amoroso's book, Representing Landscapes- Hybrid, she published an essay titled Ideation of Landscape Representation. In 2021, Curl received a Special Mention for my design competition submission at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Her submission was exhibited at the Responsive Cities Symposium – Design with Nature in Barcelona, Spain. In 2022, Curl won two design competition submissions with her CSU landscape architecture students for Backyard Casitas, nature play structures designed and built at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens in Santa Barbara, California.
Curl is originally from central Pennsylvania and resides in Fort Collins, Colorado. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Comprehensive Science and Mathematics from Villanova University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied under James Corner, Laurie Olin, Peter Latz, and the late Anuradha Mathur. While at the PENN Graduate School of Design, she was an ASLA Merit Finalist and a recipient of the Van Alen Traveling Fellowship and the Pennsylvania Garden Club Scholarship.
After receiving my MLA, she apprenticed at Peter Walker and Partners, Inc. for seven years in Berkeley, California. While in the office, her projects included the Cleveland Clinic, The National September 11 Memorial in New York City, San Jose International Airport, Novartis Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, and the University of California – Merced, and many others.
Throughout her life, Curl fondly remembers always drawing. As her career developed, she discovered various mediums and representational techniques that supported design ideas. Today, she continues this exploration through her teaching and research by recording nature and its processes with photography, drawing, and painting.
She has exhibited at Colorado State University, BHA Design, and Morgan State University and currently donated work to The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) Eighteenth Annual Silent Auction to benefit TCLF’s education and advocacy initiatives. In Nadia Amoroso's book, Representing Landscapes- Hybrid, she published an essay titled Ideation of Landscape Representation. In 2021, Curl received a Special Mention for my design competition submission at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Her submission was exhibited at the Responsive Cities Symposium – Design with Nature in Barcelona, Spain. In 2022, Curl won two design competition submissions with her CSU landscape architecture students for Backyard Casitas, nature play structures designed and built at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens in Santa Barbara, California.
Curl is originally from central Pennsylvania and resides in Fort Collins, Colorado. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Comprehensive Science and Mathematics from Villanova University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied under James Corner, Laurie Olin, Peter Latz, and the late Anuradha Mathur. While at the PENN Graduate School of Design, she was an ASLA Merit Finalist and a recipient of the Van Alen Traveling Fellowship and the Pennsylvania Garden Club Scholarship.
After receiving my MLA, she apprenticed at Peter Walker and Partners, Inc. for seven years in Berkeley, California. While in the office, her projects included the Cleveland Clinic, The National September 11 Memorial in New York City, San Jose International Airport, Novartis Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, and the University of California – Merced, and many others.
Throughout her life, Curl fondly remembers always drawing. As her career developed, she discovered various mediums and representational techniques that supported design ideas. Today, she continues this exploration through her teaching and research by recording nature and its processes with photography, drawing, and painting.