Arid Lands Institute

Water scarcity is both the history and the future of the American West. Re-thinking water use, particularly in the face of climate change, will be central to the region’s survival. The work exceeds the grasp of a single discipline, and touches all dimensions of the way people live and work.

The Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury University brings people and ideas together across multiple disciplines to shape answers and envision a future in which landscapes and communities are resilient in the face of regional aridity—environmentally, culturally, and economically.

Mission
The Arid Lands Institute is a self-sustaining education, research, and outreach center of Woodbury University dedicated to issues of aridity, climate change, and the design of the built environment. Its purpose is to train designers and leaders who will be resourceful and inventive in addressing water scarcity in the west.

Based in Burbank/Los Angeles, the Arid Lands Institute and its related program, the Summer Field Station, provide:

Education
undergraduate + graduate study;
immersive learning experiences in remote locations throughout the arid American west;

Research
a Visiting Research Fellows program;

Public Programs
non-profit planning and design advisory services for watershed communities, public agencies, and property owners in rural, suburban, and urban areas;
outreach, events, and public programs such as workshops, symposia, and conferences.

Publications
free downloadable publications documenting sustainable, localized water management strategies for rural, suburban, and urban communities in the arid lands.

Fieldwork is integral to the Institute's activities.

Design excellence is a hallmark of its outcomes.

Co-Founded by Peter + Hadley Arnold | The following online at Design Observer Peter & Hadley

Peter Arnold is a founding co-director of the Arid Lands Institute, an education, outreach and applied research center of Woodbury University in Burbank, California. ALI serves as both a training ground and a nonprofit planning and design-advisory firm, working with partner communities urban and rural to generate a diverse array of water-conserving design strategies. 

Arnold studied environmental design and physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and architecture at SCI-Arc. He has taught design and geospatial research studios at Woodbury and UCLA, and has photographed the infrastructural landscapes of the west extensively. Current work includes analytic modeling and visualization of ephemeral stream systems in arid rural environments, and the analysis of embedded energy within imported water supplies in the urbanized west.

Contact Information:
peter.arnold [at] woodbury.edu
aridlands.woodbury.edu

Hadley Arnold is a founding co-director of the Arid Lands Institute, an education, outreach and applied research center of Woodbury University in Burbank, California. ALI serves as both a training ground and a nonprofit planning and design-advisory firm, working with partner communities urban and rural to generate a diverse array of water-conserving design strategies.

Arnold was trained in art history at Harvard, served as Associate Editor at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, received a Master in Architecture from SCI-Arc, and has taught urban history, theory and design studios at SCI-Arc, UCLA and Woodbury.

Contact Information:
hadley.arnold [at] woodbury.edu
aridlands.woodbury.edu