A photograph of Douglas Robb.

Dr. Douglas Robb

PhD, MLA
Pronouns: he/him

Affiliations

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture

School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

Contact information

Email

douglas.robb@ucalgary.ca

Location

Office: SAPL1109

For media enquiries, contact

Vita Leung

Office: +1.403.220.5323
Email: vita.leung@ucalgary.ca
Twitter: @UCalgarySAPL

Background

Educational Background

PhD Geography, University of British Columbia,

MLA Landscape Architecture, University of Toronto,

HBA Architecture, Human Geography, Fine Art History, University of Toronto,

Biography

Douglas Robb (he /him) is an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape. Doug’s research centers on the production of just and inclusive climate futures using place-based methods of drawing, writing, and designing. Dr. Robb holds a PhD in geography from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Toronto. He was previously the inaugural Ian McHarg Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design and a Research Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Dr. Robb is also the Energy Futures Academic Co-Lead for the Institutes for Transdisciplinary Scholarship.

Research

Areas of Research

Impact assessment, cumulative effects, energy landscapes, wildfire, landscape design

Participation in university strategic initiatives

Energy Innovations for Today and Tomorrow (2013-2021)

Human Dynamics in a Changing World (2015-2021)

Projects

Summit to Steppe: Building Climate Resilience in the Age of Aridity

Summit to Steppe is an interdisciplinary project examining water governance, settler-colonial histories, and ecological resilience in southern Alberta’s Oldman River watershed. For over a century, canals, reservoirs, and irrigation have enabled intensive resource extraction, agriculture, and urban growth in this semi-arid region, yet these same infrastructures often obscure water’s deeper ecological and cultural significance. In reframing aridity not as a deficit, but as a generative condition that can foster just and sustainable landscape futures, this project challenges dominant narratives of dryness and envisions new approaches to water stewardship.

Photograph of the Oldman River Dam.
Photograph of agricultural land in Oldman River watershed.
Pyro-Mobilities: Ecologies, Communities, and Landscapes on the Move

Pyro-Mobilities explores how landscape architecture can support coexistence with wildfire in western Canada. Led by Dr. Robb, the project brings together transdisciplinary methods of field research, landscape analysis, and design to examine how communities can adapt to changing fire regimes while recognizing fire’s ecological and cultural significance. It advances approaches to planning and design that treat fire as an enduring condition of the landscapes we inhabit.

Photograph of burned forest in Waterton Lakes National Park.
Photograph of researchers examining burned trees.

Publications

  • Climate Conversations: Embracing Uncertainty in Landscape Architecture Education. Landscapes | Paysages. (2024)