Site design-does it matter? When? Where? Why? How? In the face of dire environmental challenges including climate change, extreme wealth disparity, political strife, in addition to the only increased demand on natural resources and productive capacities of regional landscapes, the value of site-scaled built works can not be taken for granted. It is appropriate to question the importance of devoting energies to crafting built landscapes, and yet we know that some of these places will help bring communities together, support individual recovery, create places of memory and perhaps even nurture the sublime-in short, some built landscapes do matter a great deal.