Richard Weller is the Martin and Margy Meyerson Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia, former Director of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre (AUDRC), and is currently Creative Director of the Not in my Backyard: 2016 International Festival of Landscape Architecture. Please, tell us about yourself. What drew you to landscape architecture? And academia? My father was German born in Palestine – my mother in Manly, Sydney. The British arrested the Germans in 1942 and sent them to Australia – they had started what is now the city of Tel Aviv. They were put in a camp for seven years in Victoria and when they got out they became farmers on the …