Technische Universität München

Christian Werthmann received his Master of Landscape Architecture degree with a specialization in urban design at the University of Kassel in Germany. Before moving to the United States in 1997 he was a project designer in the landscape architecture office of Latz and Partners and taught as a Research Fellow at TUM. In the United States he worked as a landscape architect in several prominent offices such as Peter Walker and Partners and Hargreaves Associates. Christian Werthmann is currently an Associate Professor in the Landscape Architecture Department of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and serves as its Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture Degree Programs. Christian Werthmann is also the co-director of the recently established Anticipatory Spatial Practices focus in the postgraduate Master in Design (MDes) program.

Communication Excellence Award of the American Society of Landscape Architects Tactical Operations in the Non-formal City (2010)

Honorary Award of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Parking Structure #4, Office: Peter Walker and Partners, Stanford University, CA (2005)

First Prize, San Francisco Prize 2000, International Competition Harvey Milk Memorial USA (2000)

"Landscape and Infrastructure in Nonformal Cities" in Exhibition Catalog Critical Mass, Cooper Hewitt Museum, NY, 2011.

"Aspirations and realities of exemplary eco-cities" With Thomas Schroepfer, Limin He, DETAIL Green 2, 2010.

"Leapfrogging Slums", Ecological Urbanism, Actar for the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2010.

TransUrban. Charting Experiments for Cities of the Future. Case Study 03: Valdesparterra, Spain; Case Study 04: Sarriguren, Spain; Case Study 05: BO2, Malmö, Sweden. With Thomas Schroepfer and Limin He. Design & Technology Report Series, Graduate School of Design, 2010.

Tactical Operations in the Informal City, Editor. Studio Publication, São Paulo Housing Agency, Sao Paulo, 2009.
Green Roof- A Case Study. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates’ Design for the Headquarters of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2007.

Werthmann’s research concentrates on the potentials of landscape architecture and civic infrastructure in heavily urbanized and socially conflicted terrain, predominantly in the rapidly developing informal cities of the Global South. In his research work Werthmann overlays technical innovation with social and natural systems to foster new productive and aesthetically challenging public spaces that transcend traditional notions of landscape and building. Most recently, he is engaged in the development of an earthquake refugee community in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, (jointly with faculty from MIT) and anticipatory strategies for informal migrants into the hills of Medellin.