Lecture: "The Foot, The Pen, The Naïve Question"

Monday, March 30, 2026
5:15pm - 7:oopm
Thomson Hall (Room 202), Richardson Memorial Hall
Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118

This lecture is open to the public.

Invited lecture "Climate Disaster and Reconstruction in Australia: the Living Lab Northern Rivers mode," featuring Dan Etheridge, Engagement Director, Living Lab Northern Rivers. This lecture is part of the Spring 2026 Lecture Series and Public Programs: "Common Good."

This lecture is supported by the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design.

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Dan Etheridge is a co-founder and the Engagement Director at Living Lab Northern Rivers. Based in Lismore, NSW, Australia, LLNR was founded after unprecedented catastrophic floods that impacted the region in early 2022. The program is an innovative collaboration between two universities and the State Government that seeks to connect local knowledge, technical expertise, and the authorizing environments of government to drive recovery and reconstruction in the region. In three and a half years the lab has produced a diverse portfolio of work ranging from adaptation focused urban planning proposals, new models of resilient and affordable housing, salvage and reuse of old growth timbers in houses demolished after the floods, exploration of future use of flood prone lands and more. This work has been recognised with national and state awards from the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and the Australian Planning Association.

Dan brings over 18 years of experience in the public interest design field to his role at LLNR, including working with the Tulane School of Architecture to open the Tulane City Center (now named Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design) whose initial focus was to support resident driven recovery and rebuilding programs after Hurricane Katrina. Dan helped direct the TCC for 10 years, establishing it as a critical component of the recovery and resilience infrastructure in the New Orleans area and one of the leading university-based community design centers in the country. Dan went on to co-found and direct the Public Interest Design Student Leadership Forum based out of University of Texas, Austin, a program that built a network of design and planning schools across America and developed an intensive short format curriculum focused on skills development for applying design and planning in the public interest.

Questions? Please reach out to Ben Neal at bneal1@tulane.edu.