Professor Ray Green

Biography

Professor Ray Green started his career in the visual fine arts before switching to landscape architecture and receiving a Bachelor of Science (Cum Laude), a Master of Landscape Architecture and a Doctor of Philosophy. His doctoral research focused on adapting methods of enquiry from environmental psychology and perceptual geography to study community perceptions of landscape change in coastal settlements. His research since has been primarily focused on exploring environment-behaviour dimensions of coastal land development and conservation, climate change and the health benefits associated with human contact with nature (biophilic design). The new Royal Melbourne Children's Hospital was based on a biophilic design framework he developed for the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to joining the University of Melbourne in 1999 he was with the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI). After joining the University, and until 2006, he headed up the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning's Master of Landscape Architecture program, in which he currently teaches design studio (Studio 5: Sustainable Urbanism) and research methods (Environment Behaviour Methods for Design). He also regularly leads master level, multidisciplinary (landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning and design) traveling design studios with past studios to Chile (2009, 2011, 2018), Spain (2013) and Thailand (2000). Ray also supervises doctoral students undertaking research primarily into perceptions of landscapes, including of wetlands, botanical gardens, post natural disaster environments, urban parks, heritage environments, eco-tourism facilities, vernacular housing, natural environments as perceived by children in urban settings and other topic areas with the aim of informing landscape planning and design actions.

Ray is the author of Coastal Towns in Transition: Local Perceptions of Landscape Change (Springer and CSIRO, 2010) and co-author of Planning Housing and Infrastructure for Smart Villages (Routledge: 2019); Towards Low Carbon Cities in China: Urban Form and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Routledge: 2015); The Green City: Sustainable Homes, Sustainable Suburbs (University of New South Wales Press and Routledge: 2005) and Design for Change (Melbourne, 1985).

His work has also been presented at numerous international conferences and published in various landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning and environmental psychology journals. Ray has also been the recipient of several large research grants, including Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grants: Configuring low carbon cities: an exploration of the role of spatial parameters in monocentric and polycentric examples in China (Han, Green, Low, O'Connor and Wang) and Involving local communities in defining town character in Victorian coastal towns (Green) and a Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation project entitled Community exploration of changing landscape values (Bishop  and Green) in addition to a number of smaller grants. Ray and two of his colleagues recently (2017-2020) completed a 4-year, 1.9-million-dollar project funded by the Indian State Government of Assam, which explored development of a “smart village” model for application to rural development in India and other developing countries.

Prior to focusing on research, Ray spent over a decade in professional landscape architectural and planning practice and is credited with numerous projects in the United States, Mexico, various South East Asian countries and Australia. In 2012 he was made a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in recognition of his accomplishments in the field; an honour bestowed on him, in the words of the ASLA Council of Fellows Executive Committee, for his:

“...substantial landscape architecture research, teaching, and practice. His most noteworthy achievements have come from his generation of fresh insights and how he shares those widely though international publications, speaking engagements, and work across a range of professional communities. His research has revealed, for instance, how various communities react to rapid environmental transformation from tourism and population shifts, which is especially critical with fragile coastlines, wetlands, and mountains. He also studies the benefits of ecotourism as it increases contact with nature of an increasingly urban population.”

Further insights into Professor Green’s research can be found at:

• Coastal Towns in Transition: Local Perceptions of Landscape Change (Springer)
• Planning, Housing and Infrastructure for Smart Villages (Routledge)
• Towards Low Carbon Cities in China: Urban Form and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Routledge)
• The Green City: Sustainable Homes, Sustainable Suburbs (Routledge)
• “The Character of Home” video interview