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Watershed moments: Derek Hoeferlin on managing 21st-century waterways

2021-06-14T14:38:00-04:00

From headwaters near Salem, Missouri, the Meramec River snakes 218 free-flowing miles, through 14 counties and scores of towns, skirting St. Louis before emptying into the mighty Mississippi.

Derek Hoeferlin grew up outside St. Louis, on a wooded hill close to the Meramec. As he commuted to school along Interstate 44, he’d cross the river and its sprawling floodplain twice or more each day.

“It’s always mesmerized me,” Hoeferlin recalls. “Something about its meandering made me daydream. Rivers don’t give a damn about north or south, east or west — or interstates for that matter. Water flows where water wants to flow.”

Today Hoeferlin is a licensed architect and chair of both landscape architecture and urban design programs in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. In many ways, rivers have become his life’s work. But the daydreams are tempered by a growing sense of urgency.

“Too often, architects are responding to emergencies,” he adds. “It’s triage work. But we need to be m...

Sam Fox School names Hoeferlin chair of landscape architecture & urban design

2019-11-06T13:32:00-05:00

Associate professor Derek Hoeferlin has been named chair of the landscape architecture and urban design programs in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Hoeferlin, who joined the Sam Fox School’s College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design in 2005, is principal of the [dhd] derek hoeferlin design. His work spans architecture, infrastructure, landscape, and urban design, with a particular focus on water-based design strategies.

“From climate change and sustainability to urban density and the creation of public space, landscape architecture and urban design provide critical means for addressing many of today’s most pressing issues,” said Carmon Colangelo, the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School.

“Derek’s unique background as an architect with expertise in water management systems and adaptive land strategies, along with his ability to work collaboratively across disciplines and his dedication to teaching...