Lolly Tai, Ph.D, RLA, FASLA
Professor of Landscape Architecture
Senior Associate Dean, Ambler College
Ph.D,Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh College of Art
MLA, Harvard University
BSLA, Cornell University
Principal: Lolly Tai, Landscape Architect
Licensed Landscape Architect: CT, NC, NJ, NY, PA, SC
ASLA, CELA, DCA, & EDRA Member

Dr. Lolly Tai is Professor of Landscape Architecture and a practicing Landscape Architect. Her expertise is in the area of landscape architecture design, site planning, technology, and computer aided design. A registered landscape architect, her work is characterized by a sustainable design approach that minimizes and mitigates impact to the natural landscape. Since 1989, Dr. Tai has maintained a private landscape architecture firm in Greenville, South Carolina. As a practicing landscape architect, Dr. Tai has been involved in design projects that incorporate energy efficiency, water conservation, and wildlife preservation. Selected projects she designed include the Xeriscape Interpretive Garden at the Town Hall in Hilton Head Island, SC; Ramsey Creek Preserve, a sustainable cemetery in Westminster, SC; StillWater Community in Seneca, SC, and the Heritage Gardens in the South Carolina Botanical Garden in Clemson, SC. Her work has been published and recognized through awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the National Landscape Association, and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, for design excellence as well as outstanding protection of natural resources.

Dr. Tai is currently collaborating on a $100,000 funded United States Department of Agriculture project which focuses on an improved course curriculum intended to strengthen undergraduate education. The purpose of the project is to develop, teach, implement, and evaluate sustainable designs using a service-learning model. Dr. Tai is involved on a $50,000 funded PECO Green roof Project currently under construction at Temple University Ambler Campus. She is also collaborating on a $100,000 funded Philadelphia Park Project for the redesign of Pleasant Hill Park.

Dr. Tai is the co-author of the acclaimed books, Landscape Design for Energy Efficiency and Tree Conservation and Home Site Development Guide. She is the author of Assessing the Impact of Computer Use on Landscape Architecture Professional Practice: Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Design Creativity. For her evocative article in Landscape Architecture, “Doctoring the Profession,” she received the 2004 Bradley Williams Medal from ASLA. Dr. Tai has contributed to dozens of books, journals, and other publications, in addition to refereed and invited presentations.

Dr. Tai taught at Clemson University from 1988 to 2002. She joined Clemson as the first landscape architecture faculty hired in their new program. While at Clemson, she taught a wide variety of courses, including sophomore, junior and senior design studio, materials and methods of construction, site engineering, and computer aided design. She has also taught in the Governor's School of South Carolina at the College of Charleston for eight consecutive summers and conducted a Maymester course abroad at Myerscough College in United Kingdom.

A dedicated teacher, she is the recipient of Clemson University’s Board of Trustees Award for Faculty Excellence, the Provost Medal for Scholarly Achievement, and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

She was a senior landscape architect with Robert Lamb Hart, Architects, Planners, and Landscape Architects in New York, NY, from 1979 to 1988. She was involved with the design of more than 50 major projects with the firm, including work at Drayton Hall, Charleston, SC; Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountains, GA; Conyers Farm in Greenwich, CT; The Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, W. VA; and the Nashville Airport.

Dr. Tai is an associated faculty member of the Center for Sustainable Communities at Temple University Ambler. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a member of ASLA’s Continuing Education Committee, the Environmental Design Research Association, and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.