William Johnson, professor and dean emeritus of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) and a pioneer in the field of landscape architecture, passed away on September 10, 2024. He was 93.

Johnson was born in Lansing, Michigan, and studied landscape architecture at Michigan State University. Following his military service, he completed the Master of Landscape Architecture program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where he was also an instructor. While in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he worked for Hideo Sasaki, and his early interests focused on broad-scale land development protection strategies. Inspired by one of Sasaki's beliefs about "no limits to scale," he pioneered cross-disciplinary ways of fitting land development programs to sensitive environmental conditions.

In 1958, Johnson was appointed associate professor of landscape architecture at the University of Michigan. At the same time as he worked to strengthen the landscape architecture program at U-M, he continued to work in different professional architectural firms and, in 1961, formed the Johnson, Johnson and Roy (JJR) firm in partnership with his brother Carl and their friend Clarence Roy. Their innovative “framework” approach from the 1963 U-M Central Campus Plan became widely adopted in the planning and design professions, also known as the “framework” plan. JJR (now SmithGroup) became known as one of the most esteemed planning and design firms in the U.S.

By 1963, Johnson had attained the rank of professor at U-M. In 1975, Johnson took a five-year leave of absence from JJR to serve as the dean of SEAS, which was known then as the School of Natural Resources (SNR). During his tenure as dean, the school underwent many changes including embracing a multi-disciplinary approach to natural resource management and environmental issues. This period was also one of an economic downturn, leaving Johnson to navigate financial challenges, and ensuring that the school would continue to prosper. Johnson stepped down as dean in 1983 and retired from U-M in 1988.

Robert Grese, professor emeritus of environment and sustainability at SEAS, says that Johnson was one of the most widely respected professors to have taught landscape architecture at U-M. 

“Always the visionary, he was among the group of faculty that decided to move the landscape architecture program from the College of Architecture in the 1960s to be located in SNR, clearly recognizing the critical environmental issues where landscape architecture could play a significant role. Bill comfortably fit into a role as a practitioner/educator, creating both innovative and forward-looking models of practice as well as teaching critical thinking, design and planning skills to graduate students at U-M.”

He adds, “He brought the unique ability to untangle critical planning issues and explain them through easy-to-understand diagrams, cutting to the heart of many planning and design issues and concepts. For the U-M campus, he created a forward-looking framework plan based on both functional and social factors. His long-standing association with Holland, Michigan, provided insights into how the community could combine ecological, historical, economic and social factors into a broader framework to guide the region and town center’s growth for many years. In the 1970s, his broad approach to regional environmental analyses—in many ways a predecessor to today’s GIS capabilities—provided a framework for what would become the Michigan Natural Features Inventory.”

A fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Johnson received the Society's Gold Medal, its highest honor, in 1986. In recognition of his excellence and exceptional contributions to the planning and design field, Johnson also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in 2019; the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) Medal in 2020; and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 2023.

When Johnson was awarded the LAF Medal, Joan Iverson Nassauer, a professor of landscape architecture at SEAS, noted that, “In 1975, Bill’s vision as dean of SNR was to move to a truly integrative exchange among faculty and students in a distinct environmental discipline, and this has propelled the school to become what it is today—a place where landscape architects learn ecological design by exchanging with other students who focus on ecology, climate science, environmental justice, behavior, informatics, policy—a place where landscape architecture faculty easily collaborate with colleagues in these disciplines. Seeing and realizing this possibility is only one of Bill’s important accomplishments, but it is an accomplishment that means a great deal to SEAS.”

Read William Johnson's obituary here. 

The Cultural Landscape Foundation produced a series of videos of Johnson discussing his life, career and design philosophy as part of their "Pioneers of American Landscape Design® Oral History Project" series. View the series of 12 videos below.