Film

SITTING STILL

At a time in our culture where the notion of “profit over people'' is a pervasive one, Laurie Olin is battling to see beyond faulty economic models and misguided politics. He is fighting to bring sustainability to vast ecological systems and create more livable cities. When environments are suffering, so are the people. How we see and think about place is the first step toward improving the world we live in.
The stakes are high. With more and more evidence of climate change, we find ourselves at a critical juncture in human history. SITTING STILL creates an original way to see and understand our place in the continuum.
Olin’s life story of growing up in Alaska on the edge of the American frontier, living abroad and challenging belief systems around designing in nature, and his lifelong work transforming environments for social good become the launching pad for exploring critical themes around the sociology of public spaces and how they directly impact our human experience.

SITTING STILL is an original documentary that focuses on one of the world’s most preeminent landscape architects and his profoundly social vision. Hailed as a modern-day Olmsted, Laurie Olin has helped transform the design of public space, revitalize the American city, and pave the way for future design leaders. This portrait of an artist is told through a prism of issues which have defined Olin’s life and work for the past fifty years: urbanization and our lost connection to nature, economic marginalization, and the grave importance of humanity in design.

SITTING STILL gets inside the mind of a prophetic and visionary urban designer to see what he sees. In a time when global values increasingly reflect “profit over people,” Olin's vision has always been to create a more democratic and egalitarian society through healthy, shared public space.

SITTING STILL invites the voices of other design luminaries into the conversation, including preeminent architects Frank Gehry and Billie Tsien, and esteemed landscape designer and artist, Walter Hood, among others. According to these global thinkers and designers, environmental and human stakes have never been higher, and the most pressing challenges of the natural environment and social disunity can be addressed in how we think about the marks we make upon the land.