Organised by The Cultural Landscape Foundation, the Oberlander Prize Forum: Design, Education, and Practice in the Global South with Mario Schjetnan & María Bellalta, the second edition of the forum, will take place virtually on May 19.

The Forum brings together Mexican landscape architect Mario Schjetnan and María Bellalta for a conversation on education, practice, and the expanding role of landscape architecture across Latin America and the Global South. Drawing on Schjetnan’s decades of work and his formation at UC Berkeley and the Harvard GSD Loeb Fellowship, the webinar will explore how culture, education, and institutional structures shape the discipline across the Americas, and what a renewed 21st-century paradigm for landscape architecture and environmental design might look like.

Mario Schjetnan, FASLA

Mario Schjetnan is the founder of Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU) and the 2025 winner of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. He holds a degree in architecture from UNAM, a Master of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley, and a Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard GSD. He has received honorary doctorates from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (1995) and the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (2025).

His work draws on environmental knowledge, cultural memory, and the quality of life of urban inhabitants. Key influences include Luis Barragán, Roberto Burle Marx, Lawrence Halprin, and Mexico’s pre-Hispanic architectural and cultural legacy.

María Bellalta, FASLA, IFLA

María Bellalta is professor and department head for Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at North Carolina State University, where she also directs global engagement in the College of Design. She teaches advanced studios in Colombia and Mexico City focused on urbanization and social and environmental equity in the Global South. She directs education and academic affairs for IFLA Americas Region and leads RAEAP, a network advancing landscape architecture education across Latin America and the Caribbean. She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from the Harvard GSD and is originally from Chile.