2011 Urban Edge Award Goes to German Water Artist Herbert Dreiseitl

German artist and landscape architect Herbert Dreiseitl, who specializes in incorporating themes of water into his designs, is the recipient of the 2011 Urban Edge Award given by the School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).

This $50,000 award recognizes excellence in urban design and the ability of individuals to create major, positive change in the public realm. It honors an internationally recognized design professional who brings fresh and effective thinking to urban design.

Originally trained as a sculptor, Dreiseitl has created a name for himself by designing interactive water sculptures for children. His firm, Atelier Dreiseitl, now has a 30-year track record of innovative, ecologically revelatory work with water in the built environment, from public sculpture and fountains to public plaza and landscape designs incorporating water, to urban and regional plans for storm water management.

All of this work is informed by an elemental reverence for water as a basis for life, and the deep cultural and experiential bonds that water evokes. Atelier Dreiseitl now has offices in Shanghai and Beijing, China; Portland, Ore.; and Überlingen, Germany.

The School of Architecture and Urban Planning introduced the biennial Urban Edge Award, funded by the Wisconsin Preservation Trust and the law firm of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, in 2006. Previous recipients of the award are Julie Bargmann (D.I.R.T Studio) and Elizabeth Diller (Diller, Scofidio + Renfro).

As award recipient, Dreiseitl, who is currently a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University, will be working with students at SARUP during the spring 2011 semester. The goal of the studio, taught with UWM Associate Professor James Wasley, will be to conceive ideas for the site of UWM’s “harbor campus” near Greenfield Avenue and Water Street. The site will blend academic research and industrial incubator spaces, marrying environmental sustainability and economic redevelopment, with ecologically restorative water management as the core concern.

Dreiseitl will also present a public lecture on Friday, Feb. 11, “Ecological Waterscapes for Cities of the Future.” The event begins at 4:30 p.m. in the Engelmann auditorium, 2033 E. Hartford Ave. on the UWM campus.