LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Developing sustainable parks, neighborhoods and cities for a planet fundamentally altered by humans is a challenge that Stephen Luoni faces every day.

“The earth’s atmosphere is a human construction, no longer determined by nature itself. Watersheds reflect our wastes and output — we’ve changed their character a lot. It’s the same with global warming. We need to figure out now, in design and planning, how to deal with these issues,” he said recently.

As director of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, Luoni has led a number of award-winning projects that enhance the natural environment, promote economic development and improve public health. He will discuss his multifaceted approach to planning and design in a lecture titled “Building Recombinant Ecologies” at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, at the Arkansas Arts Center lecture hall in Little Rock, Ark. Luoni plans to discuss projects that range in scale from a “green” neighborhood for Habitat for Humanity to a proposed light rail system that would serve the entire northwest Arkansas region.

Stephen Luoni’s design and research have won more than 40 design awards, including two Progressive Architecture Awards, an American Institute of Architects Honors Award, and two American Society of Landscape Architecture Awards, all for planning and urban design.

Under Luoni’s leadership as director and holder of the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies, the Community Design Center has picked up 23 regional, national and international design and planning awards, and six national education awards. Current work includes design and planning for municipal infrastructure, residential communities, campuses, parks and big box retail. For more information on the design center’s projects visit its Web site.

Luoni’s work has been published in Oz, Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, Progressive Architecture, Architect, Places, L'Architecture d'Aujourd' hui, Progressive Planning and Public Art Review. He previously taught at the University of Florida and was the 2000 Cass Gilbert Visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of Minnesota. In Fall 2006 he was the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor in Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis.

Luoni’s lecture is part of an ongoing series co-sponsored by the University of Arkansas School of Architecture, the Arkansas Arts Center and the central Arkansas section of the American Institute of Architects. A 6 p.m. reception will precede the lecture.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Continuing Education Units will be awarded to design professionals.