Tim Waterman, beginning with gastronomy and landscape, and through analysis of taste and media apparatuses of tastemaking, examines our urban future imaginaries to discuss how new beliefs can be nurtured that bring us back to the quest for eutopia. Imagination in design process has agency in the larger construction of public imaginaries as forces for change in politics, culture, and society, and Waterman will propose ways for designers to wield this power.

Tim Waterman is a landscape architect, urbanist, and critic whose philosophy is informed by an eclectic past that includes community and political activism, owning a restaurant, and singing for a band that twice shared a stage with Nirvana. He believes that a sustainable future can’t just be earnest and worthy, it has to be a little bit delicious and a little bit rock and roll, too. He teaches at the Writtle School of Design in Essex and serves as a thesis tutor at the Bartlett. He is honorary editor of Landscape: The Journal of the Landscape Institute and author of Fundamentals of Landscape Architecture and, with Ed Wall, Basics Landscape Architecture: Urban Design.