January 2026 Luncheon

#asceSTL is proud to partner with the St. Louis Chapter of Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI STL) to host Derek Hoeferlin at our upcoming Section Luncheon. He will present on Way Beyond Bigness, a design-research project that studies the Mekong, Mississippi and Rhine river basins.

Derek Hoeferlin, AIA, Affiliate ASLA

Derek is a registered architect, principal of [dhd] derek hoeferlin design and the Raymond E. Maritz Professor of Architecture at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is currently Chair of the Landscape Architecture program. His teaching, research, and professional work have been awarded, presented, and published internationally. Derek directs "Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for a Watershed Architecture," conducting comparative research among global deltas and watersheds—primarily the Mekong, Mississippi and Rhine, the focus and eponymous title of his recently published book (Applied Research + Design Publishing, 2023). Derek holds Bachelor and Master of Architecture degrees from Tulane University and a post-professional Master of Architecture degree from Yale University.

Presentation Description:

Way Beyond Bigness is a design-research project that studies the Mekong, Mississippi and Rhine River basins, with particular focus on multi-scaled, water-based infrastructural transformation. The book proposes a simple, adaptive framework that utilizes a three-part, integrative design-research methodology, structured as: Appreciate + Analyze, Speculate + Synthesize, and Collaborate + Catalyze. To do such, Way Beyond Bigness realigns watersheds and architecture across multiple scales (sites to river basins), disciplines (ecologists to economists), narratives (hyperboles to pragmatics), and venues (academics to professionals), defined as Watershed Architecture. The book highlights the author’s comprehensive work of over more than a decade, including in depth field research across the Mekong, Mississippi and Rhine, along with a diverse body of academic and multi-disciplinary professional collaborations and contributions, ranging from the speculative to the community-based.