Ground 22 – Summer 2013 – Play

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Landscape Architect Quarterly 06/

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Round Table Playing with Landscape Features A Brief History of the Urban Playground

Publication # 40026106

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Landscape Inspiration

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CSLA/OALA Awards Summer 2013 Issue 22

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Contents

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Up Front Information on the Ground Play:

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Round Table Playing with Landscape MODERATED BY NETAMI STUART, OALA

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A Brief History of the Urban Playground TEXT BY ADRIENNE HALL

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All Aboard for Landscape Inspiration Distinctive destinations around the world

President’s Message

Editorial Board Message

President’s Message

Editorial Board Message

Play is an essential part of life in order for any individual to attain full cognitive, emotional, social, and physical potential through growth and development.

If you’ve ever watched a two-year-old with a set of blocks, you know the intrepid business of play: the dauntless focus, the furrowed eyebrows. It’s a process we’re all familiar with: problem solving, taking risks, trying things out until we find the pleasing click-together of masses and ideas.

Besides architects, who may design child-oriented buildings such as schools, daycare centres, or hospitals, landscape architects are the professionals who specialize in the design and development of outdoor child-oriented spaces that provide challenging and safe opportunities for learning through fun exploration.

“Play” may be used in many different contexts: fun pretense, children’s games, theatrical and musical performances. Play is always associated with creativity and innocence.

Playing in Public Martin Rein Cano in conversation with Victoria Taylor, OALA

I would like to share a passage on creativity that touched me and which I have carried forward for more than thirty years. It reminds me that, as Association leaders and representatives, we must not be static but rather look for every opportunity to provide the tools for our members to attain full professional growth and development. This passage, which Professor Bob Scarfo shared with me and fellow students in our landscape architecture class at the University of Guelph in 1983, was written by Bernard Huebner:

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CSLA Awards

“BY THE TIME I WAS SIX I KNEW MOST EVERYTHING THERE WAS TO KNOW: […]

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OALA Awards

THAT AUNT ANNA’S PARROT TALKED EXACTLY LIKE AUNT ANNA,THAT SPOKES IN WAGON WHEELS AND WINGS ON HUMMING BIRDS STOOD STILL THEY WENT SO FAST. […]

COMPILED BY JOCELYN HIRTES

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Plant Corner Selected Plants for Playspaces

I KNEW THAT GOD COULD SEE ME HIDING UNDERNEATH THE PORCH, OR TIPTOEING INTO THE PANTRY.

TEXT BY JOCELYN HIRTES AND TODD SMITH

I THANKED GOD EACH NIGHT FOR MAKING ME SO HAPPY AND SO WISE.

Notes A miscellany of news and events Artifact Small Spaces, Many Stories TEXT BY LORRAINE JOHNSON

We also explore how play can augment the process of landscape architecture, as well as what happens when play is the subject of our work. We dissect the history of the modern playground, thinking about how the trajectory of child psychology has affected our work on play spaces.

We also complement this historical understanding with a look at the details. Which plants are best used to bring light and whimsy to a space?

On the topic of whimsy, we turn to the great creative muse of our natural world, asking the membership for ideas on where to travel for inspiration, and we end up in an art gallery marveling at the mind of Kim Adams’ imagined landscapes.

BUT I KNEW WHEN TO CRY AND WHEN TO LAUGH.

THEN ONE DAY A LADY TOLD ME HOW A RAINBOW WORKED, AND MADE ME TELL HER BACK, AGAIN AND THEN AGAIN UNTIL SHE THOUGHT I UNDERSTOOD; SHE SAID SHE HAD NEVER HEARD OF ANY POT OF GOLD. AFTER THAT I LEARNED TO WRITE MY NAME, COUNT, TELL TIME AND TALK OUT LOUD TO THE FLAG. THE LADY SAID I HAD A REAL GOOD MEMORY. I GUESS I DO: TODAY, FOR NO GOOD REASON, I SAW THOSE SAME SPINNING SPOKES FIXED IN MY MIND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS.”

Again, it is my continuous pleasure to serve.

To see what is new and exciting with the Association, please see our updated website at www.oala.ca.

JOANNE MORAN, OALA PRESIDENT@OALA.CA

Summer 2013 Issue 22

Play is a serious concept. Though we’re apt to approach our work with a sense of order and intention, the design process is necessarily messy, and requires exploration, failure, trial, error, and naiveté to produce creative thought. “The way we work does not always happen in a planned way. We can be… quite childish actually, in order to avoid the seriousness that doesn’t allow one to develop new ideas,” says Martin Rein Cano in this issue, in an intimate interview with Victoria Taylor.

This special issue also features the CSLA Awards of Excellence—Ontario Region, and the OALA Awards, a chance to see the remarkable outcome of risk and invention closer to home.

So detour with us, and take a seriously light-hearted romp through stories about art, absurdity, and leisure.

As always, we welcome your ideas for future issues, so get in touch with us via Twitter @GroundMag, or email magazine@oala.ca.

DENISE PINTO CHAIR, EDITORIAL BOARD

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Masthead

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Editor Lorraine Johnson

2013 OALA Governing Council

Photo Editor Todd Smith

President Joanne Moran

OALA Editorial Board Nancy Chater Eric Gordon Adrienne Hall Jocelyn Hirtes Karen May Leslie Morton (on leave) Kate Nelischer Denise Pinto (chair) Maili Sedore Lisa Shkut Todd Smith Brendan Stewart Netami Stuart Victoria Taylor Dalia Todary-Michael

Vice President Morteza Behrooz

Art Direction/Design www.typotherapy.com

Associate Councillor—Senior Inna Olchovski

Advertising Inquiries advertising@oala.ca 416.231.4181

Associate Councillor—Junior Katherine Pratt

Cover Children’s Creative Centre/Play Area, by Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Canadian Government Pavilion, Expo ’67; Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal/Gift of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Landscape Architect; drawing by Ken Terriss. See page 13.

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published four times a year by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

Ontario Association of Landscape Architects 3 Church Street, Suite 407 Toronto, Ontario M5E 1M2 416.231.4181 www.oala.ca oala@oala.ca Copyright © 2013 by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects All rights reserved ISSN: 0847-3080 Canada Post Sales Product Agreement No. 40026106

Treasurer Sarah Culp Secretary Doris Chee Past President Glenn O’Connor Councillors Alana Evers Jonathan Loschmann Moreen Miller

Lay Councillor Linda Thorne Appointed Educator University of Toronto Elise Shelley Appointed Educator University of Guelph Sean Kelly University of Toronto Student Representative Sara Ahadi University of Guelph Student Representative Sarah Taslimi

OALA

OALA

About

About the OALA

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects and provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas and information related to the profession of landscape architecture. Letters to the editor, article proposals, and feedback are encouraged. For submission guidelines, contact Ground at magazine@oala.ca.

Ground reserves the right to edit all submissions.

The views expressed in the magazine are those of the writers and not necessarily the views of the OALA and its Governing Council.

The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects works to promote and advance the profession of landscape architecture and maintain standards of professional practice consistent with the public interest. The OALA promotes public understanding of the profession and the advancement of the practice of landscape architecture. In support of the improvement and/or conservation of the natural, cultural, social and built environments, the OALA undertakes activities including promotion to governments, professionals and developers of the standards and benefits of landscape architecture.

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Andrew B. Anderson, BLA, MSc. World Heritage Management Landscape & Heritage Expert, Oman Botanic Garden John Danahy, OALA, Associate Professor, University of Toronto George Dark, OALA, FCSLA, ASLA, Principal, Urban Strategies Inc., Toronto Real Eguchi, OALA, Eguchi Associates Landscape Architects, Toronto Donna Hinde, OALA, Partner, The Planning Partnership, Toronto Alissa North, OALA, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto, Principal of North Design Office, Toronto Peter North, OALA, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto, Principal of North Design Office, Toronto Nathan Perkins, MLA, PhD, ASLA, Associate Professor, University of Guelph Jim Vafiades, OALA, Senior Landscape Architect, Stantec, London

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Up Front

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TREES

boundary trees defined A courtroom is not the place where one would expect to hear riveting debate about a tree trunk, but that’s exactly what happened at the Ontario Superior Court in May. (Riveting is a relative term, but for a tree nerd, this court hearing was gold. I sat in on the court hearing with rapt attention, particularly when the lawyers used phrases like “straying trees” and “codominant stem union.”) At issue in the case was whether or not a tree growing between two neighbouring properties in Toronto could be cut down unilaterally.

But the case wasn’t about just one tree.

The judge’s decision has far-reaching implications for municipalities throughout Ontario.

For perhaps the first time, a court has clarified what counts as a “boundary tree.”

Hilary Cunningham and Stephen Scharper live in a quiet, leafy area of mid-town Toronto. When their neighbour, Katherine Hartley, applied for and received a permit from the Urban Forestry Department to remove a 55-foot-tall Norway maple, Cunningham and Scharper were aghast.

“We were shocked,” says Scharper, “that the Urban Forestry Department would grant permission to cut down a perfectly healthy tree.” The permit was provided to Hartley based on a report she commissioned from an arborist, who recommended removing the tree. Concerned, Scharper and Cunningham hired their own certified arborist, who concluded that the tree exhibited “very good vigour and vitality” and was in “good overall health.”

The health of the tree was not the only disputed issue, however. Scharper and Cunningham considered themselves coowners of the tree, convinced that it straddled the property line, and thus withheld

Up Front: Information on the Ground

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permission for Hartley to access their property for the purpose of cutting down the maple. Hartley applied to the Ontario Superior Court for a declaration that she was the sole owner of the tree.

The provincial Forestry Act regulates trees and woodlands. The Act states that “every tree whose trunk is growing on the boundary between adjoining lands is the common property of the owners of the adjoining lands.” While this might sound straightforward, the act is silent on a crucial question: does the definition of trunk apply to any part of the trunk? What if part of the trunk is growing on one property and part on another? While the Forestry Act doesn’t clarify this, the City of Toronto’s 2007 Boundary Line Trees Policy does, stating that “When verifying tree ownership,

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This Norway maple, growing between two Toronto properties, was the subject of a recent court case that clarified the definition of a “boundary tree.”

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Lorraine Johnson

Up Front

measurement is taken at ground level, just above the trunk flare.” Obviously, the trunk of a tree that begins its life entirely on one property can grow over time and expand its girth onto a neighbouring property. Once the trunk reaches this point, does the tree then become a boundary tree, with each neighbour having the rights and responsibilities of joint ownership?

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tree by-law. Most municipalities require specific credentials and don’t accept reports from just any ‘person with other similar qualifications.’ It seems to me that Hartley should never have gotten her removal permit in the first place, regardless of the whole property line issue.”

her own hands. In May, 2013, she launched the Guelph Outdoor Preschool, the first licensed daycare centre of its kind in the province, whose curriculum will meet all the requirements of Ontario Ministry of Education guidelines.

TEXT BY LORRAINE JOHNSON, A FORMER BOARD MEMBER OF LEAF (LOCAL ENHANCEMENT AND APPRECIATION OF FORESTS) AND THE EDITOR OF GROUND.

The preschool is located at Guelph’s Ignatius Jesuit Centre, a 600-acre ecologi-

Hartley asserted that the base of the trunk, at ground level, was growing entirely on her property and, hence, she was the sole owner of the tree. Scharper and Cunningham, on the other hand, argued that because part of the trunk crossed the property line, the tree was a boundary tree. Further, they argued that even if the judge were to accept Hartley’s (and the City of Toronto’s) trunk-at-groundlevel test for determining ownership, the tree did in fact straddle the property line at its base, just above the trunk flare.

(Scharper and Cunningham had added 20-30 cm of soil to their yard, in effect raising the “ground”; and if one removed the fill, the place where the trunk ended and the roots began was on the property line.)

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Tricky business for arborists, municipal forestry departments, and feuding neighbours everywhere. But not so tricky for the courts. Justice Moore ruled that the legislation is clear: any part of the trunk growing on the property line—not simply “the arbitrary point at which the trunk emerges from the soil”—governs the definition of a boundary tree. Thus, Judge Moore dismissed Hartley’s application and declared the tree a boundary tree. According to Michael Rosen, President of Tree Canada, “This is one of those decisions that I believe can be called landmark because of the tree protection precedent it sets—trees are one step closer to receiving the respect they deserve.”

Unfortunately, one “respect” issue unresolved in the case relates to professional credentials. Unlike some Ontario municipalities, Toronto does not require that reports assessing tree health—reports on which tree-removal permits are granted— be written by certified arborists. As Oliver K. Reichl, an ISA-certified arborist based in Ottawa, puts it: “Toronto needs to tighten up its definition of ‘arborist’ in the private

SCHOOLGROUNDS

landscapes of learning Research shows that outdoor environments such as forests, meadows, streams, and even mere patches of dirt offer an optimal context for early childhood development.

Natural areas are more stimulating, less stressful, safer, and healthier for kids, yet these places are often inaccessible to children in urban and suburban environments.

Given their limited contact with natural areas, it’s not surprising that up to a third of children feel nervous about playing outside for fear of “getting dirty,” despite outdoor playtime having numerous benefits, including improved physical, mental, and emotional ability, and overall well-being.

After a colleague introduced her to an outdoor school model popular in Norway and the Nordic countries, Masha Kazakevich, a practising landscape designer and Master of Landscape Architecture candidate at the University of Guelph, began researching the subject. As a parent of a young child, she discovered that there were few daycare centres that would provide the kind of outdoor educational experience she wanted for her son. So Kazakevich took matters into

cally significant property that is home to a retreat centre and a farm, and whose mandate includes education and fostering an ecological way of life. Children will spend as much time as possible outdoors—two hours in the morning and one-and-a-half hours in the afternoon—where they’ll play and learn about flora and fauna by exploring forests, meadows, marshes, orchards, and gardens, all on the Ignatius property. “This is not Survivor for preschoolers,” Kazakevich notes. “We have a terrific indoor facility, too. But twice a day, we’ll be outdoors having adventures.”

While opportunities for spontaneous exploration are abundant, natural play environments at the Guelph Outdoor Preschool are carefully designed or enhanced to allow for safe and enriching learning experiences.

Drawing on her years of experience as a landscape designer, Kazakevich has identified appropriate locations where learning will take place—landscapes that with a little tweaking offer rich opportunities for discovery, play, and story-telling. Her goal is to help children develop a sense of wonder and respect for their environment.

Up Front

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Kazakevich and her team are also planning a number of amenities to be implemented over the next few years. Plans are in the works to build a children’s garden to include an outdoor classroom; eating areas; a vegetable, fruit, and herb garden; and a water feature. To help develop gross and fine motor skills, other fun play structures will be introduced, such as a sandbox, a bridge, a sunflower or corn maze, and vine-covered teepee-like structures for shade and sheltered games. Throughout the property there will be places for story-telling, and various opportunities for artistic expression and play, such as willow structures, teeter-totters, and labyrinths.

Special consideration will also be given to keeping the kids comfortable during the cold, windy, and buggy seasons, with windbreaks to manipulate microclimates and create comfortable play spaces and small shelters, or perhaps a yurt, equipped with a wood stove to keep kids warm. Kazakevich plans to have these cold-season activity areas and warming areas in place by fall, 2013.

The preschool’s location at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre is ideal. The setting is magical, and the centre offers many programs and activities for kids and their families to tap into. For example, the preschool will take advantage of the centre’s community shared agriculture program to offer kids healthy meals prepared from organic, local, and seasonal foods. Kazakevich is planning a preschool demonstration farm and teaching garden. According to Kazakevich, the garden “must be beautifully designed,” and will include teaching and gathering areas, and perhaps cooking areas, too. The intent is that the garden will provide the preschool with a fair amount of the vegetables used to prepare the children’s meals.

Growing and preparing food on-site will provide opportunities to introduce children to concepts such as science, technology, and arithmetic. Kazakevich and her team believe that “the culture of food is a natural and inviting forum for helping children’s social, language, and communication development.” By participating in planting,

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growing, and harvesting the food they consume, she expects that kids will build ecological and food literacy, and set healthy eating patterns for life.

The outdoor environment offers children the opportunity to try new things—to explore and experiment more freely. With fewer constraints, children are more inclined to take physical, social, and emotional risks that help build greater confidence and selfesteem compared to children who spend the majority of their time indoors. Kazakevich believes that providing kids with rewarding learning experiences and superior nutrition early on will give them the healthiest possible start in life and support the entire family.

With learning environments occupying a significant portion of a child’s daily life, school landscapes offer tremendous potential to enrich educational experiences.

Through design and understanding of landscape processes, landscape architects are well qualified to lead the charge to create outdoor school environments that integrate formal curriculum with informal discovery of, and interaction with, landscape.

TEXT BY JENNIFER MAHONEY, OALA, A TORONTO-BASED LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT.

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Design features can enhance the outdoor learning environment.

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Guelph Outdoor Preschool

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Tending the garden.

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Guelph Outdoor Preschool

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In keeping with this issue’s theme, Ground “played” with our Round Table format, holding it as a public forum, part of the Grow Op: Exploring Landscape + Place exhibition at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto in April, 2013. The four panellists delighted the audience with presentations that roamed far and wide across a playful landscape.

MODERATED BY NETAMI STUART, OALA

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Netami Stuart: I work for the City of Toronto’s Parks, Recreation and Forestry Division, so my job is making fun places to be! For this panel discussion, I’d like to talk about how we can use play as a design tool. How can we design playfully? And how does that turn into great places to be?

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DIANE BORSATO, AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF STUDIO ART AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH, IS AN ARTIST WHO HAS BEEN WORKING WITH AMATEUR NATURALISTS IN SITE-RESPONSIVE PROJECTS FOR MANY YEARS. FOR MORE THAN TEN YEARS, HEIDI CAMPBELL, OF THE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION EVERGREEN, HAS WORKED WITH COMMUNITIES TO PLAN AND DESIGN NATURAL PLAY-LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS ON SCHOOLGROUNDS AND IN CHILDCARE CENTRES THROUGHOUT THE GREATER TORONTO AREA AND BEYOND. SHE ALSO PROVIDES SUPPORT TO EVERGREEN’S 18 NATIONAL ASSOCIATES, WHO ARE IMPROVING CHILDREN’S OUTDOOR PLAY ENVIRONMENTS IN SEVERAL CITIES ACROSS CANADA. HEIDI IS THE AUTHOR OF LANDSCAPE AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT: A DESIGN GUIDE FOR EARLY YEARS—KINDERGARTEN PLAY—LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS, PUBLISHED BY EVERGREEN. MARC HALLÉ, OALA, STUDIED CIVIL ENGINEERING AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, AND HIS CREATIVE AND TECHNICAL BACKGROUND BRINGS AN EXPERTISE THAT TRANSFORMS CONCEPT INTO BUILT FORM. WORKING AND STUDYING INTERNATIONALLY, MARC IS INTERESTED IN CROSS-CULTURAL SENSIBILITIES ABOUT MEANING AND INTENTION AND THEIR IMPACT ON DESIGNING FOR THE DIVERSITY IMPLIED IN PUBLIC SPACE. CHRISTIE PEARSON IS AN ARCHITECT WHO WORKS FOR LEVITT GOODMAN ARCHITECTS IN TORONTO. HER INSTALLATIONS AND EVENTS IN PUBLIC PLACES DRAW ON WORLD CULTURES OF PUBLIC BATHING. SHE IS A FOUNDING MEMBER OF PERFORMANCE AND INSTALLATION GROUPS SUCH AS THEWAVES, URBANVESSEL, THE WADE COLLECTIVE, AND OF THE JOURNAL SCAPEGOAT: LANDSCAPE, ARCHITECTURE, POLITICAL ECONOMY. ELISE SHELLEY, OALA, IS THE PRINCIPAL LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT OF ELISE SHELLEY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT (ESLA). ESLA DESIGNS ARE SPATIAL AND FUNCTIONAL WITH ATTENTION TO CRAFT AND TECHNICAL DETAILS. STRATEGIC USE OF MATERIALS, BOTH HARD AND SOFT, AND CREATE TRANSITIONS AND THRESHOLDS BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE, FORM EXTERIOR ROOMS THAT ARE SEASONAL AND FLEXIBLE, AND FRAME THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS THAT DEFINE THE LANDSCAPE: WIND, LIGHT, WATER, AND VEGETATION THAT VISIBLY MARK THE PASSAGE OF TIME. SHELLEY'S WORK WITH CHILDREN'S LANDSCAPES AND PUBLIC SPACES ENGAGES COMMON MATERIALS IN INNOVATIVE WAYS, INTRODUCING CREATIVE CONCEPTS OF PLAY AND INTERACTION WITHIN THE PLAYGROUND CONTEXT NETAMI STUART, OALA, IS A MEMBER OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD AND WORKS FOR THE CITY OF TORONTO’S PARKS, RECREATION AND FORESTRY DIVISION.

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Venice Biennale installation by Norma Jeane, 2011.

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Marc Hallé

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Adults give themselves over to pleasure at Hanlan’s Point, Toronto.

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Marc Hallé

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From Rolling on the Lawn at the Canadian Centre for Architecture,

by Diane Borsato, 2000.

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Diane Borsato

Marc Hallé: One reason adults don’t play as much as they could is because of the fear of being judged and criticized. I’ll give you an example that has to do with play.

Consider the glass floor at the CN Tower.

You often see children going crazy on the glass floor, with their parents staying very cautiously away from it. Adults have been exposed to reality long enough that they have a sense of probability, knowing for example that glass is fragile, and stepping on it can be dangerous. Adults might be cautious about abandoning themselves to play because there is a learned sense that too much fun can bring about catastophe.

In thinking about landscape and play, I’d like to talk about a photo taken at Hanlan’s Point, a clothing optional beach in Toronto.

I have never seen such a positive experience of landscape before in my entire life.

There was a sense that everybody felt welcome; you didn’t have to be nude, maybe 30 percent of the people were that day. But you had all kinds of people: families, swingers, transsexuals, straight people, gay people, and people smoking marijuana. And the amazing thing was that a boat came in, in the afternoon, with a live Latin band, and everybody on the beach got very excited, went into the lake, started splashing like mad. The thing that made it so astonishing was not only how inclusive it was—you could go there, feel safe, and nobody was judging you—but also how people’s personal space was so much reduced. How could so many people co-exist on one piece of sand without feeling uncomfortable being so close to one another?

This phenomenon is part of the inspiration that was the starting point behind the urban beaches in Toronto. It is very important to find a device that can encompass everybody—all these different people of different classes, different incomes, different ethnicities, all co-existing—again, with personal

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space quite reduced—within one space, so people will be enraptured and too preoccupied with their own pleasure to bother judging or criticizing each other. This frees people to pursue their own happiness without interference.

One of the universal aspects that can trigger this playful distraction is water. Others are sunlight, food, trees, and triangulation, in which two separate individuals are linked by their gaze towards a third object. Another phenomenal aspect is a change of texture.

Colour is another. One example is a project in San Paulo, where local favela residents were invited to participate in saturating spaces with paint, as well as specific words that became legible from specific site lines.

These types of experiences create a moment of de-familiarization that can allow you to realize how special these places are, bringing a collective zest that allows every-

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body to be “in the moment,” out of their self-consciousness, and able to perceive something that is unique to that location.

For anyone who wants to make a public space, as long as you can maintain these key ingredients, your place will probably be very successful.

In Montreal, every spring, in the Quartier des Spectacles, there is an installation by a group of artists called Daily Tous Les Jours.

They are fantastic. One installation is called “Les Balançoires,” which translates as “The Swings.” When everybody swings, their individual movements produce harmonic tones; so, when all of the swings are in action, a melodic ambiance is created, resulting from this collective abandon to playfulness. A good art piece can distil the genius of a moment which, when installed on a site, can endow that place with a certain genius as well.

Another example of how you can engage “play” at an adult level is to give people the freedom to express their views and inject their own meaning. The artists Daily Tous Les Jours collaborated with us last year for the installation of “Pink Balls” in the gay village of Montreal; people were encouraged to position themselves in certain locations, push a button, and have their photo taken, which was automatically uploaded to the Internet. Visitors could then search to find their moment and download their photo. If you look through the website, you go through tens of thousands of photos—an amazing archive!— which brings about the phenomenon of seeing yourself in public space.

Another example is an art installation by the artist Norma Jeane that was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2011. The installation started as a huge block of plasticine, composed in three layers of red, white, and black. People were invited to express themselves, and impose whatever they wanted on the surrounding walls. It was open-ended, it was chaotic, and it established a common denominator to unite a diverse group of individuals by allowing them to be free and carry out their heart’s wishes. This kind of experience of diversity liberates people to reveal that they are united by their differences.

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Diane Borsato: I considered various meanings for the word “play” in preparation for this event. I tried to think of how it was relevant to my way of working, and some of the ways in which play is described is that it is spontaneous and unstructured—a free thing that you would do. I made a piece when I was in Montreal as a student, where I had been studying sculpture mostly, and my practice was very focused on materials and the bodily experience of materials. I used to walk past the Canadian Centre for Architecture every day. It has the most famous lawn in Montreal—immaculate and green and irresistible in some ways, like you just want to spoil it because it is so perfect. It has a barrier as well; it is “framed” and separated from the world with a strict boundary. This was a perfect place to “play” in. I walked by it every single day—vertically—and I decided to experience it horizontally. So, spontaneously, I just rolled along the length of the lawn. To some extent, I wrapped the whole city block around my body and had

a different way of traversing that space. It was a kind of research exercise that produced a new perspective, quite literally, on the city. I couldn’t resist in the winter doing it again, and then I thought I might as well do it in the spring and in the summer. It was about a new relationship of my body with the landscape of the city, and it was certainly “playful.”

Another definition of play is that it is about attunement with your body, with other people, with objects, with things, and with a place; and so making it an artwork, to some extent, gives it that structure that helps you to do such shameless, embarrassing things like this in the landscape.

Another project of mine was called Moving the Weeds Around. I was invited to do a piece of public community art in Halifax. If you think about “play,” there is no material goal or useful, tangible, practical outcome. I

Round Table

took the notion of community gardening and I made it as useless and ineffective as humanly possible. What we did was we dug up weeds, I had about twenty volunteers who were game to travel around the city all day digging up weeds from random places, trading them at the gallery, and then travelling around the city replanting them in random places. We literally just moved the weeds around for an entire day. The project was beyond a minimalist activity; I wanted to accomplish nothing—as hard as I possibly could. And all that is left is meaning. There was a particular moment when I was making it when I was thinking a lot about gentrification in cities and how we address problems simply by moving them around.

If you want to create a playful scenario, an easy trick is to invite snakes. The Art Gallery of York University has a fantastic initiative where, to get people to the gallery, they have performance artists do projects on a bus that takes people up to York. I was invited to do a performance on the bus. I hired a reptile educator to do a live reptile display and everyone was encouraged to touch, and handle, and get up close and personal with a skink, an anteater, and various snakes and other reptiles. It was a somewhat familiar situation, but also a really surprising scenario. You could experience the tiny, narrow, enclosed space of a moving bus in a uniquely intense way. Adults became like children, asking questions, squealing, etc.

In the past couple of years especially, I have been working a lot with naturalists, naturalist organizations, mushroomers, beekeepers, and astronomers. I did a project in both Toronto and New York City in which I worked with the local mycological society. I’ve been part of it for many years, and every weekend in the fall, you go out to collect fungi in the woods and you lay them out on the table and someone helps identify them all. I proposed to the mycological society that we do a foray in stores in Chinatown. Many of the members are Chinese and so we had a big Sunday morning foray in Markham in medicinal shops, grocery stores. The whole group went to a section of canned food, and we identified all these species with our field guides and our magnifying glasses in the produce section.

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In another piece, I coordinated an exchange between mushroomers and astronomers. What we did was exchange terrestrial knowledge for celestial knowledge. So the mushroomers in the morning—this was just outside of Vancouver— hosted the astronomers, and we did a foray in the forest. Then, in the evening, we got out all the telescopes and the astronomers hosted the mushroomers. It was about those two really different ways of knowing.

Mushrooming is sensorial in a visceral, intimate way, with smelly, slimy fungi that decompose in hours, affected by seasons and weather. Astronomy is much more conceptual. You have to imagine you are seeing back in time, making intellectual leaps.

So it was these two dramatically different ways of knowing in one day, as well as this gesture of looking down all morning and then looking up all night, and ideally learning everything in one day.

I think that what’s important about “play” in terms of artworks is that it’s never just play, it’s not just fun. Many of these pieces have a critical dimension and a symbolic possibility.

More than just for fun—I would hope—they are provocations and raise questions.

Christie Pearson: I’d like to talk about a few projects that I’ve done that relate to play and landscape, starting with two projects by thewaves, a collective including myself and my partner, Marcus Boon. We are interested in the vibrations of water and sound, and space. The first project we did was for the inaugural Nuit Blanche, held in Toronto. The idea was to do something inside of the Trinity Bellwoods swimming pool. I am very interested in expanding possible uses of public spaces that are heavily underused. For example, a swimming pool. How many hours of the week is a public swimming pool in use? What could we do in a swimming pool at night, for example? Nobody is swimming at night.

So our idea was to transform the Trinity Bellwoods pool into a Roman bath situation.

We expected maybe twenty of our friends to show up to this. On the mural at the pool’s end, we had a projection of the changing phases of the moon. We brought in a lot of swimming toys and lounging equipment, and hung a mylar ceiling so you could see yourself reflected while swimming. We had some fantastic sound artists and DJs per-

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forming, with a new set every hour for twelve hours. We turned up the heat of the water in the children’s pool, and we tried to make it like a Roman caldarium; we switched all the lights to red bulbs. Then things got really out of hand...basically, ten thousand people showed up. The five lifeguards who came to work for the evening freaked out; people started busting in all of the doors around the swimming pool to get in…. People on the bleachers started taking their clothes off and jumping into the pool. It was truly mayhem, and we were all overwhelmed—it was great.

Sunnyside: Fire on the Water is a project thewaves did at Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion in Toronto this past August. As a public bathing freak, I have wanted to do something at Sunnyside for a long time. What really upsets me when I am at Sunnyside is that the big logia on the second floor, built for people to watch people swimming, is now an expensive rental venue for weddings rather than a public space. The courtyard doors are often locked. Many people have never even been up in this beautiful logia built by the city.

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Sunnyside: Fire on the Water, a project by thewaves.

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Giulio Muratori

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Inhabiting the Sunnyside logia through art and performance.

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Christie Pearson

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So the project was, for one day, to take over that building and make it what it used to be, and what it could be: just opening up all the spaces to the public. The whole Toronto waterfront wasn’t always cut off from the city by the Gardiner Expressway.

How could we make those connections again? Why can’t we make Toronto like a beach city? We have beaches; we have Sugar Beach. I think that trying to re-imagine ourselves creatively could transform how the environment actually is.

So that is what we tried to do. A number of different events were going on all through the day by different artists. There was a live music and dance performance (created by Aimee Dawn Robinson and Juliet Palmer), with singers out on a canoe and performers that led the audience through the pavilion, down to the lake, and back again. This kind of occupation of a space in a playful way is really exciting. We tried to create different little spaces that you could explore, and make up your own possible games.

You can just bring things into a place and suddenly people start using it differently.

And, of course, music changes everything.

The Afro-Brazilian dance troupe Marcatu Mar Aberto brought everybody out as part of a participatory ritual that brought people down to the beach with the dancers, around the building, and then back up into the building with this glowing canoe as a fire remnant from out of the lake. It was supposed to be a fire offering to the lake to say that we are sorry for treating it so badly, and that we are going to do better.

Space-making, landscape-making, and play are so important. Through events, we create the temporal memory of the city. I think events and celebrations can encourage the kind of affection and imagination of the city that we need more of...more affection for our public spaces.

Heidi Campbell: Take a minute to reflect back on when you were a child. Think about where you played, how that affected you, what you did when you played. Current research is saying that the way we play and learn and interact with the world around us as young children has a profound and formative effect on our health and our thinking and behaviour throughout our lives. In their

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childhood, a lot of people built and played in forts, looked for bugs, roamed through backyards, ate fruit from people’s trees, got dirty, explored ravines and climbed trees, made boats or played in the creek, climbed up and down hills, and grew things in the garden. But childhood today is changing.

Children no longer freely explore the world around them, or they do so in extremely limited ranges. Fear over child safety, overstructured routines, and time spent on electronic media are some of the main inhibitors of outdoor discovery. What will the impact of these changes be for future generations?

Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder has stimulated an international conversation about the relationship between children and nature. Louv links the lack of nature in children’s lives today to some of the most concerning childhood trends, such as the rise in obesity, attention deficit disorder, and depression.

Louv’s research, along with other health practitioners and social scientists and educators, compels us to take action in our cities and in our schools to bring the outdoor experience back into children’s lives.

The challenge for us is to negotiate space for young people in the larger urban fabric of parks and streetscapes, and neighbourhoods, and begin to create networks of vibrant safe places for children to do what comes naturally, to play.

Play helps promote healthy brain development. Play allows children to explore the world, conquer their fears, and practise adult roles. Play helps children to develop their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. We are learning all the time from the built environment. Play is so important to optimal child development that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. It is a right for every child to have play in his or her daily life.

Children love the natural world and from a very early age, they are curious about nature. By closely exploring their own outdoor spaces, they begin to develop a broader sense of connection to the world beyond their playgrounds.

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In the document that Evergreen has just published [see Notes item on page 31], we came up with a design framework based on children’s developmental needs: emotional, physical, cognitive, social. We worked with people from school boards, parents and teachers, educators and administrators, who all came to the table to look at how to reshape children’s landscapes in their schoolyards or childcare centres. People just need a few ideas to get them going and so we gave them in the book, things that relate to child development, both fixed components and moveable components, and we built on these ideas.

When Evergreen works on schoolyards, we speak with all the community members, including children. Children are very involved in the design process, very participatory, and they create these drawings.

We do interviews with them and they have an incredible knack for coming up with a really creative vision. Then we try to manifest that in some of the design results.

Topography is a compelling feature for children. And, of course, shade is one of our guiding principles. At a school in Durham, which basically had just an asphalt area with a large mature tree, we removed a lot of tarmac, and then created lots of soft surfacing using a palette of natural materials. We were trying to get some graduated risk in there, and this is very challenging for school boards to accept.

It’s less of a challenge for them to choose a play structure out of a catalogue. We are trying to get away from the catalogue play structure idea, although we still retrofit lots of playgrounds with natural features around those structures.

Kids like to use stumps as little pathways.

Sand is huge, and if you can mix sand and water, that is just like magic! Kids sweep sand off the walkway and create these imaginary worlds where they work things out, so it’s an enhanced social environment.

The YMCA has got a new vision for their childcare centres and they recently revamped two of them. They’ve started bringing in trees, and soft surfacing, and lots of pathways, and interesting little nooks and places for children to play. And they planted the very first bush I think in any childcare

Round Table

space in Canada. I don’t see these kinds of things in childcare centres, but this one passed CSA. We had to put a maintenance schedule with this, because it’s natural materials and things deteriorate, but we were very excited and the children were really excited about this piece. When we ask children what they’d like in their play areas, they draw huts and forts, those kinds of things.

Children can shape their environments; that’s really the most important thing. They want to have an effect on their environment.

So designing right to the edges of a play space is not always successful with children. At Evergreen’s children’s garden in Chimney Court at Evergreen Brick Works, we’ve created an anarchy space basically; the kids shape it, they move stuff around, working with dimensional wood, building shelters, and having large activity walls. It’s a place for them to just express themselves.

Elise Shelley: Landscapes should foster imagination. They should be focused on creating spaces for play, places that engage the special aspects of the outdoor environment. We know that when we think about the places where we played as children, usually they are connected with being outside or being in nature, in the woods, or at a creek, or rolling on a dirt mound; something that didn’t necessarily involve a piece of equipment that had a lot of metal and plastic parts.

So why don’t we see that in our parks and playgrounds? It unfortunately has a lot to do with the role of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) in our ideas about playgrounds, in our images of playgrounds. They have only been involved in the oversight of playgrounds over the past thirty years, but they have completely transformed the ideas about what a playground is.

Anyone who has spent time with children knows that they will figure out how to make a game out of anything. We need to design places that allow kids to play, that aren’t prescriptive, that don’t say you have to play this way. Unfortunately, that is not what we see in most of our public parks and playgrounds. Again, it has a lot to do with the

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standards that are in place. Anytime you want to do something atypical, anytime you want to use non-traditional elements, or do something that might be considered natural, you still have to comply with all the standards. So, we can have boulders in the landscape, but they have to be spaced either close together or two metres apart, because at least if somebody falls off the boulder, they won’t hit their head. So there is this kind of funny dilemma where we want to design like nature would allow us to in spaces that we perceive as natural, but we have to do it aligned with these regulations and rules that don’t always seem to facilitate that way of working.

I recently had the opportunity to work on a project at Evergreen Brick Works, where we were able to use a variety of recycled materials to abstract these ideas about the landscape. One of the critical things here is that this isn’t a playground. So even though it is completely compliant with all codes that apply in this particular scenario, it is not going to be inspected on an annual basis by the CSA inspectors. So it doesn’t have the same level of scrutiny. That label of a “playground” is a really important thing to consider when one is designing a space for play. Obviously there is still lots of opportunity for play even though we do not call it such a thing; and there are lots of ways to spark the imagination if we can be smart about it.

The CSA actually defines “play space.” In their terminology, it’s “an area containing equipment, a play structure, or structures, protective surfacing etc., that is intended for the use of children between 18 months and 12 years.” Eighteen months and 12 years is a pretty broad range in terms of abilities, interests, and yet that is the framework that the CSA sets up. It talks about technical and structural integrity, and issues of ongoing maintenance, but it really is not at all concerned with children’s needs or desires.

With CSA standards, we’ve really started to see the image of playgrounds being predominated and defined—at least in a public context—by equipment that is out-of-thebox and often quite prescriptive. And it is not just the equipment; it is also the area around the equipment that is a huge factor and a challenge, especially when you are

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dealing with smaller spaces. One of the real temptations to use this stuff out of the equipment catalogues is because it comes with the certification—the paperwork that says, “yes, this is compliant.”

Some incredible companies are doing really interesting things—of course, many of them from Europe. But, still, a lot of what we see and a lot of what is expected is the stuff that looks like a pirate ship, or that has all the plastic parts, because that is what, unfortunately, we have come to think of as the norm and the standard. We really need to educate the client to the fact that you can think of it as a pirate ship even though it does not look like one, so then it can also be a spaceship, or it can be whatever the child’s imagination takes them to that day.

It’s important to acknowledge that children’s playspaces are not just places for creativity and imagination, but also places for learning.

WITH THANKS TO DALIA TODARY-MICHAEL FOR TRANSCRIBING THIS DISCUSSION.

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Recycled materials are often very stimulating for kids.

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Elise Shelley Landscape Architect

A Brief History of the Urban Playground

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children’s leisure soon becomes an issue of public welfare, championed by municipal reform movements rising across the U.S. and Canada. Civic groups demand dedicated places of play as a haven from the physical and moral dangers of the street.

In response, city parks departments as well as school boards initiate public recreation programs at city-run sites and schools. The focus of many early city playgrounds are fields designated for organized recreation such as baseball, folk dancing, and competitive games led by paid “play leaders.”

Play equipment mostly consists of vandalproof iron pipe structures such as swings, “gymnasium”-style climbers, and see saws, along with informal sand pits.

Advertisements for play equipment reflect worried classist attitudes, with an ad from A.G. Spalding & Bros. proclaiming “All Steel vs. All-Steal.” In subsequent years, city recreation departments also organize activities such as skating and tobogganing in the winter, and public bathing sites with slides in the summer.

TEXT BY ADRIENNE HALL

While they are now an essential part of our urban fabric, playgrounds only emerged as a discrete entity—specific, public sites dedicated to play— in the late 19th century.

Since then, the evolution of public playgrounds has reflected the politics and social issues of their times.

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Public playground designs in Ontario have often followed on the heels of American and European trends, but there have been notable moments of innovation closer to home, many contributed by the work of landscape architects. The following is a chronology that attempts to summarize where we have come from and where we are heading.

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Urban areas undergo dramatic population growth, mostly concentrated in already densely crowded and squalid neighbourhoods. Inner-city districts such as Toronto’s Ward, near Dundas and Bay Streets, lack organized recreation facilities, and children are forced to amuse themselves, unsupervised, in places such as vacant lots and the street. There is growing unease among the middle class. In addition to physical dangers, unsupervised play in city streets is thought to foster juvenile delinquency and provide few opportunities for young newcomers to integrate into Canadian society. There is growing unease among the middle class, and 01

War and devastation are the setting for significant playground innovation in European countries. In Denmark, “junk playgrounds,” or “adventure playgrounds,” are introduced by landscape architect Carl Theodor Sorenson; children are given construction debris along with hammers and nails to build their own worlds of play in an enclosed area under the eye of a play supervisor. The concept is extremely successful and adventure playgrounds become popular in Britain in the 1950s, championed in particular by landscape architect Lady Allan Hurtwood. In addition, children and recreational spaces are put at the centre of new housing policy and urban renewal plans in many European cities, with designers such as Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck pioneering new spaces for play. (The influence of van Eyck’s equipment such as sand play tables and “jumping stones” can be seen in popular structures today.)

In 1940s North America, a number of landscape architects such as Garrett Eckbo, Dan Kiley, and James Rose begin to advocate for the reconsideration and reinvention of play-

A Brief History of the Urban Playground

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grounds. In addition, many psychologists begin discussing the link between play and cognitive and social development. Artists such as Isamu Noguchi explore alternative, sculptural forms for playgrounds including earthworks and pathways to form a complete play experience. However, most of these ideas are not realized in the average public playground. Public park administrators focus more on recreational programming rather than design, with recreation leaders and activity schedules forming the majority of park improvements.

Precast concrete-formed structures and themed equipment become popular in the 1950s, with space-themed climbers being especially common in a Cold War culture.

The production of modular equipment begins, with designers and artists collaborating with manufacturers.

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renaissance. Designers, artists, architects, and landscape architects collaborate to create new worlds of play heavily influenced by psychology research and design innovation in Europe. Landscape architects M. Paul Friedberg, Robert Nichols, Robert Royston, Hideo Sasaki, and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander all create exceptional playgrounds and write on the subject during this time.

Despite the flurry of interest among designers, adventure playgrounds remain a hard sell in North America, with a few playgrounds created in the same spirit being exceptions, many of them shortlived. Instead, the evolution of the physical form of the public playground is focused on equipment, with the concept of linked platforms being a widespread model.

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The ideas explored in the past decade begin to gain more ground and, by 1967, academics declare a public playground

By the mid-1970s, the increasingly liabilityadverse attitudes of American society lead to an approach of risk aversion and hazard reduction in playground design. As the attitude begins to spread to Ontario, many landscape architects step back from custom playground design because of increasing constraints on creativity due to the risk of legal exposure. Physical structures designed by equipment manufacturers begin to dominate, and safety surfacing is introduced. Wood is also introduced as a significant material.

Safety concerns, combined with the elimination of park supervisors in many cities due to budget shortfalls, make playground design by catalogue a common choice.

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Playground on Gerrard Street East, Toronto, 1913

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City of Toronto Archives

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Regent Street playground, Toronto, 1913

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City of Toronto Archives

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High Park toboggan runs, Toronto, 1913

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City of Toronto Archives

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Children’s Creative Centre/Play Area,

by Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Canadian Government Pavilion, Expo ‘67

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Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal/Gift of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander

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Children’s Creative Centre/Play Area,

by Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Canadian Government Pavilion, Expo ‘67

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Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal/Gift of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Landscape Architect; drawing by Ken Terriss

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1970s playground equipment

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Froschmann

A Brief History of the Urban Playground

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Children’s Village by Zeidler Partnership Architects with Eric McMillan, Ontario Place, 1972

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Zeidler Partnership Architects

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1990s Miami exercise playground

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Todd Smith

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Playground at Piedmont Park, Atlanta, designed by Isamu Noguchi, 1976, restored 2009

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Chris Brooks

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Playground at Willowdale Park, Toronto, by JSW+Associates, 1997

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Ron Bernasch, JSW+Associates

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The Jamie Bell Adventure Playground, High Park, Toronto, designed by Robert Leathers and built with community members in 1999; rebuilt 2012

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Grant MacDonald

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Large, connected wooden structures with platforms and turrets are popularized in parks and schoolgrounds by playground suppliers, with a select few of these structures being built by communities themselves.

However, numerous municipalities’ preference shifts away from wood structures in subsequent years because of maintenance requirements and increasing instances of arson. Powder-coated steel and aluminum superstructures with plastic elements flood the market and quickly become preferred for safety and reduced maintenance costs.

A Brief History of the Urban Playground

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The safety and liability concerns that surfaced in the 1950s come to the fore in Ontario in the 1990s, with strong influence from the United States. The Canadian Standards Association releases the “Guideline on Children’s Playspaces and Equipment,” first as a guideline and later as a standard for all public parks, schoolgrounds, childcare facilities, and other public institutions. Inspection agencies are retained by public bodies to ensure compliance with the standard, and in the process of review, hundreds of playgrounds across Ontario are deemed non-compliant and demolished.

Complicated standards discourage custom designs by landscape architects and inhouse design staff at school boards. As a result, a select few locally- and internationally-owned playground manufacturers come to dominate the Ontario market, offering entire CSA-approved catalogues and design services. The plastic platformand-post super-structure becomes a standardized model.

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Playgrounds experience a revival in interest from early education and child psychology experts. Research on the positive relationship between play and cognitive development from previous decades resurfaces and is proven through clinical trials. In addition, publications from researchers such as Richard Louv on “nature deficit disorder” spark an international conversation on the importance of access to nature for children. The result is

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a renewed interest in the concepts of adventure playgrounds and the sculptural earth forms of the 1960s. Organizations such as Evergreen are integral in introducing new design guidelines for schools, which take into account the whole landscape as a site of play. Natural elements become a major element of new school playgrounds in Ontario. Custom designs by landscape architects and artists incorporate sensory planting and natural materials. Designers and public bodies establish a new relationship with inspection agencies, designing custom features that still meet CSA standards.

Concerns over access to nature are paralleled by concerns over rising obesity rates.

As a result, more active elements requiring upper-body strength as well as freestanding exercise equipment are offered by manufacturers. Significant improvements in accessibility are also made in the 2000s. Following on the growing awareness of access for those with disabilities in the 1990s, the Annex H accessibility guideline is implemented in Canada in 2007.

Accessible playground designs being implemented include ramps, rubberized surfacing, sensory stimulation, and equipment focusing on upper-body strength.

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The 2000s see a renewal of interest in playgrounds with natural themes and elements.

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Mirari Erdoiza

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Adventure playgrounds, popular in the 1960s, make a comeback in the 2000s.

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Nilson Menezes

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Chimney Court at Evergreen Brick Works, Toronto, completed 2010

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Heidi Campbell, Evergreen

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Playground at Sibelius Park, Toronto, by PMA Landscape Architects, 2012

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PMA Landscape Architects

Send your thoughts to magazine@oala.ca.

WITH THANKS TO RON BERNASCH, HEIDI CAMPBELL, AND TODD SMITH. BIO/ ADRIENNE HALL IS A DESIGNER AT NAK DESIGN STRATEGIES IN TORONTO AND IS A MEMBER OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD.

All Aboard for Landscape Inspiration

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Distinctive destinations around the world COMPILED BY JOCELYN HIRTES

Where in the world do you find inspiration?

What landscapes fire your imagination, soothe your spirit, or feed your creativity?

From tiny urban oases to spectacular natural formations—some are well known and others are hidden gems—what follows are travel destinations recommended by OALA members and students in response to our call to roam.

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We invite you to take an imaginative trip to these special landscapes, near and far.

FROM KELLIE SPENCE, MLA STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

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The Limestone Caves at Unicamp, Shelburne, Ontario: “Ontario is ours to discover and we should!

During my graduate research at the University of Guelph, I came upon limestone caves near Shelburne, Ontario, at Unicamp, a Unitarian-Universalist Camp & Retreat Centre. Along the Bruce Trail and part of the Niagara Escarpment, the caves are found amidst steep and rocky limestone cliffs and are a natural wonder that can be appreciated by landscape architects and nature enthusiasts alike.”

FROM SHAN TENNYSON, OALA, ISA, BEACON ENVIRONMENTAL

02 FROM LEILA F. TODD, MLA CANDIDATE 2013, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

Barcelona’s waterfront: “A variety of play opportunities are provided in a long, revitalized strip of waterfront.”

FROM JUDE GABOURY, BLA STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

Promenade Samuel de Champlain, Québec: “I finally had the chance to visit this site over the summer. Extremely well executed in terms of approach and detailing.

Additionally, it’s incredibly sympathetic to the landscape and viewscape (waterfront and mountains).”

Muscat, Oman—the Corniche area adjacent to the harbour: “Tiled marble sidewalk, benches and retaining walls, ornamental light standards, irrigated annual flowers in medians.

Beautiful and well done.”

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Barcelona waterfront

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Leila F. Todd

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Muscat corniche, Oman

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Andrew B. Anderson

All Aboard for Landscape Inspiration

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Gardens at Chateau de Versailles, France: “The Musical Gardens at Chateau de Versailles are spectacular! Classical music plays throughout the garden and in some parts the music is synchronized with the water fountains. The modern sculptures at Chateau de Versailles are a great addition to this Renaissance garden.”

FROM CHRISTOPHER BROWN, OALA, SENIOR PLANNER, TOWN OF HUNTSVILLE

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Hyde Park Square, Cincinnati, Ohio: “Erie Avenue makes a brief bifurcation, resulting in this little green galleon in a river of traffic, where people play chess, eat lunch, and even have their wedding photos taken. Lively yet bucolic thanks to simple devices that set the space apart from traffic.”

FROM ALANA EVERS, OALA, DILLON CONSULTING

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Cape Spear, Newfoundland: “The easternmost point in continental North America. It’s a great place to watch a sunrise, knowing that of the millions of people on the continent, you’ll be the first to catch a glimpse of daylight. The lighthouse on site is designated a National Historic Site of Canada, and is accessed by a wooden boardwalk that winds its way alongside the rugged cliffs and crashing waves. This dramatic landscape also provides an entry point to the East Coast Trail.”

FROM CHRIS CLAYTON, OALA

06 FROM KAARI KITAWI, MLA CANDIDATE, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa: “The museum layout guides visitors on a journey through the horrors of apartheid and the subsequent triumph of democracy marked by the reflective, open grassland landscape. It is an emotional journey that creates an urgency to end injustice and concludes with a feeling of liberation as you emerge in the landscape—Free At Last!”

Hiking into Machuu Pichu: “Hiking on the Inca trail amid spectacular mountains hardly prepares you for this World Heritage Site. Built in complete harmony with its surroundings, it’s a marvel of human skill. The stone work is unsurpassed by any other place in the world; the astronomical connections are amazing…the beauty is breathtaking.”

Walking the streets of old Amsterdam and Jerusalem: “The narrow streets of these two ancient cities give you a new appreciation for space and community. Life is real here, and the mix of old and new is inspirational.”

FROM DENNIS WINTERS, OALA, TALES OF THE EARTH

Mt. Kailas, Western Tibet: “Mt. Kailas is the holiest landscape for Buddhist, Hindu, Bon-po, and Jain pilgrimage: invested with the power of Mt. Meru, centre of the universal lotus, navel of the world, axis connecting heaven and earth, its essence contained the spirit of the entire globe.”

Lake Manasarovar, Western Tibet: “Most sacred lake. It is said the first stones to be set upright in the landscape were here, where 8,631 stones were erected and guarded by the Eight Great Naga Kings.

Also known as Anavatapta, the lake without heat or difficulty, from which the four great waters flow to the four cardinal directions.”

Rajgir, Bihar, India: “Site of the first monastic woodland garden and first cloistered monastic garden 2,500 years ago.”

Torres de Paines, Chile: “Patagonia, the end of the world, the beginning of everything. Indescribable granite mountains soaring 10,000 feet.”

FROM KAREN ANDERSON, OALA, CITY OF WATERLOO

Blue Mountain Village in the Town of Blue Mountain: “This place showcases a broad range of landscape architecture—from landscape preservation and sustainability to urban design to unique action sport facilities. The project planning and design detailing is worth checking out. The village has been planned, designed, and built with fun in mind and, while hosting numerous festivals throughout the year, the plan continues to unfold with more new and exciting examples. The mountain setting on Georgian Bay is breathtaking.”

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Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa

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Kaari Kitawi

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Chateau de Versailles

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Kaari Kitawi

All Aboard for Landscape Inspiration

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the “borrowed scenery” typical to Chinese and Japanese garden design. You will also witness the rigorous maintenance and pride in upkeep (i.e., do you comb your pine trees for yellow or dead needles?). Well worth it to sign up for a tour of the Imperial Villa of Katsura, and research the smaller, lesstouristy gardens—equally breathtaking.”

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09 FROM H.T. LAM, OALA, CITY OF HAMILTON

08 FROM FUNG LEE, OALA

Sutro Baths, San Francisco: “Sutro Baths is about history, natural ecology (it’s on the northwest coast of San Francisco), and design. The ruins themselves are spectacular and the slopes are covered in wild flora that take a beating by the elements (winds and saltwater). The interpretive centre and its parking lot use a very modern yet appropriate material palette.”

Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco: “The two most lovely spots within this complex are: the great lawn complete with designed waterfall, large trees, and a drinking fountain to fill up your water bottle; and the coolest playground ever with two long metal slides, rubber slopes, a Noguchiesque water play feature, and interactive railing. It was a great relief to find the playground when travelling with small children!”

Any garden or park in Kyoto, Japan: “In my humble opinion, Kyoto is a must-visit for landscape architects and craftspeople.

While westerners conventionally revere Zen Gardens, Kyoto offers endless types of gardens and is the perfect location to witness

Alaksa: “My most memorable experience in life, thus far—to see, experience, touch, and smell true unadulterated nature along the Alaskan coast. Trekking through restricted paths as we traverse mature forest growth consisting of native flora and fauna species and feeling the balance of biodiversity around you—an experience of a lifetime!”

10 FROM DAVID DUHAN, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL INTERN, CITY OF MILTON

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, Patagonian Chile: “Easily one of the most amazing places I have ever been, and consistently rated one of the top national parks in the world, this landscape reminded me just how much there is to see and how incredible the natural world is. In our profession we aim to create places that can stimulate, comfort, and intrigue; I think that landscapes like Torres del Paine can be the perfect inspiration.”

12 FROM ALANA DE HAAN, BLA STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

Parc del Centre del Poblenou, Barcelona, Spain: “Parc del Centre del Poblenou in Barcelona is an inspiring urban park and playground designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel. It is comprised of architectural and sculptural elements that form an intricate shadow play in the summer.”

Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark: “Superkilen is an innovative urban park, a linear playground comprised of street furniture, objects, and play equipment from all over the world, with a goal of representing and uniting the diverse cultures of the neighbourhood. Its unique concept and colourful details provide a pleasant surprise within the city of Copenhagen.”

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Sutro Baths, San Francisco

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Fung Lee

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Alaska

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H.T. Lam

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Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, Patagonian Chile

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David Duhan

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Parc del Centre del Poblenou, Barcelona

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Alana de Haan

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Superkilen, Copenhagen

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Alana de Haan

All Aboard for Landscape Inspiration:

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interpretation of a memorial site. The gardens and various memorials—in particular the Children's Memorial—integrate planting, rock, and other textural form to create spaces that are truly contemplative and emotional.”

13 FROM VICTORIA LISTER CARLEY, OALA

Vaux le Vicomte, France: “I first visited it on a hot summer evening and saw the garden full of people and lit with hundreds of candles. It was extraordinarily beautiful and exuded the atmosphere of the original parties. Seeing it on a cold day with very few other visitors, it is a much different garden and one which tells a different story of court life. It is a landscape to see as much as to think about the original purpose of chateau gardens within the culture of the time.”

Villandry, France: “A must-see not only for the beauty of the garden but also for the actual gardening.

The pruning of the topiary, espaliers, and pollards is a great example of the pruning art. It is now a fully organic garden.”

Stowe, U.K.: “The best-known extant example of Capability Brown’s landscapes. To truly understand his genius you must take the tour of the house, now a school but they provide tours. It is only from this point of view that you see the genius of his composition.”

Petra, Jordan: “Another magnificent example of buildings integrated with landscape. Massive buildings dating from the 2nd century BC carved into red sandstone cliffs make for a pretty stunning sensory experience.”

16 FROM NATHAN PERKINS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

14 FROM LINDA LAFLAMME, OALA, NIAGARA ESCARPMENT COMMISSION

Bruce Peninsula, Ontario: “The eastern shores of the Bruce Peninsula form part of the larger protected landscape of the Niagara Escarpment Plan Area, designated as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. The Niagara Escarpment is a prominent topographical feature in Southern Ontario and is one of Canada's most magnificent landforms.

Travel to the beautiful Bruce Peninsula and enjoy the rugged and natural landscape rising above the crystal-clear waters of Georgian Bay. Lion's Head, the magnificent cliffs of White Bluff, Cabot Head, and Wingfield Basin are all spectacular.”

FROM PAULA BERKETO, OALA, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION

FROM NINA PULVER, OALA, THE LANDPLAN COLLABORATIVE LTD.

Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel: “It is Israel's official memorial site for the Holocaust, and encompasses a massive complex of museums, archives, memorials, and gardens on Mount Herzl, backing onto the Jerusalem Forest. The main museum, with Moshe Safdie as architect and Shlomo Aronson as landscape architect, is an astonishing integration of building with landscape, and quite a beautiful

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Oakes Garden Theatre and Rainbow Gardens, Niagara Falls: “Overlooks Niagara Falls. Built in 1938 and 1942, designed by H.B. Dunnington Grubb and William Lyon Sommerville, the Oakes Garden Theatre and Rainbow Gardens replaced the Clifton Hotel. This is a historic landscape in Beaux Art and Art Deco style.

Owned by the Niagara Parks Commission, the landscape remains almost entirely original!”

Dan Kiley's sunken garden plaza at the Art Institute of Chicago: “Arguably this is Kiley's greatest design (I would say so). The courtyard is a masterful composition of Modernist design. Looks like blah in plan but is a beautifully subtle piece of art to experience.”

The Walls of China at Lake Mungo, New South Wales, Australia: “The Walls of China along the ancient shore of Lake Mungo in New South Wales, Australia, are somewhat remote and stunningly beautiful—within a classic Outback landscape.”

Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa: “Table Mountain is said to have 30 percent of the floral diversity of South Africa. The experience of being in such a biologically diverse habitat with clouds rushing in every ten minutes is worth the crowds on the way up.”

BIO/ JOCELYN HIRTES IS A LANDSCAPE DESIGNER AND ARBORIST WITH VICTOR FORD AND ASSOCIATES INC.

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Villandry, France

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John Carley

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Bruce Peninsula

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Linda Laflamme

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Dan Kiley’s sunken garden, Art Institute of Chicago

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Nathan Perkins

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Lake Mungo, Australia

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Nathan Perkins

Playing in Public

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Victoria Taylor, OALA, met with Martin Rein Cano, of the Berlinbased design firm Topotek 1, when he was in Toronto to present his Copenhagen park project, Superkilen, at the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

They met at the Royal Ontario Museum and, surrounded by ancient artifacts and the sounds of school children, Rein Cano reflected on a new image of the city.

Victoria Taylor (VT): Could you talk about your Superkilen project in Copenhagen? This public park has received a lot of international attention.

Martin Rein Cano (MRC): Superkilen is in a very difficult neighbourhood of Copenhagen where 99 percent of the residents are from different countries. There is a very low economic standard, a low level of education, and a poor knowledge of Danish. In a certain sense it’s a ”sick” area of the city. Here, to develop the park was not just a matter of beautification; the context required a different solution and a different set of tools.

Many times, landscape architects don’t have an interest in exploring different methodologies to approach different situations. With Superkilen we tried to apply a more aggressive and provocative approach because the situation was calling for it; it needed immediate attention. Sometimes you have to push in certain areas. Sometimes it is important to push things, otherwise they wouldn’t happen.

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Superkilen has become a kind of cultural “coming out” for Copenhagen. Superkilen makes public the mix of cultures that has typically been foreign to most Danes by developing a familiarity and building a curiosity towards other cultures. A neighbourhood that was perhaps before seen as something dangerous and scary now becomes the reality of public space and the everyday life of Copenhagen.

VT: How were the residents of the Nørrebro district involved in the process of creating Superkilen? I understand that you developed various web tools that allowed residents to propose design features that related to their various cultural backgrounds, so that the park became a kind of multi-ethnic celebration…

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Victoria Taylor, OALA, in discussion with Martin Rein Cano about his firm’s Copenhagen park, Superkilen—a place where the city’s multi-ethnic residents are invited to play with ideas of identity

MRC: We created a website with a home page where people went on line to propose things. We needed this tool to bring people into the process—people who didn’t have a lot of spare time to talk about landscape architecture. And many do not speak Danish. We tried to give them an easy way to contribute and we worked a little like curators with these ideas. The home page was necessary to effectively galvanize community participation and to give people the joy of seeing their ideas come to life and to be a proud part of the city. This was such an enjoyable part of the work.

VT: You also developed a software app?

MRC: For the residents who proposed the unique features for the site, the app plays a role in their pride of having their object chosen to be there in the park. With the app, the information is always available. It is multi-layered; an experience of a place can happen immediately on site or can happen independently off the site.

Playing in Public

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The Superkilen app allows for the possibility of experiencing the site on a second level.

Projects have a kind of second life that might be as important as their first; sometimes even more important. It really depends. But now we have a choice and we should really try to work with these tools. If you’re interested in the design, live far away, or are a professional and want to engage in the discussion, you might be interested in the app.

VT: There is criticism about the project being a park of asphalt.

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conscious. The way we work does not always happen in a planned way. We can be pretty naïve, quite childish actually, in order to avoid the seriousness that doesn’t allow one to develop new ideas. At the beginning of projects we need to lose a certain amount of knowledge…be empty somehow, a little like a child. It’s an exercise because when you learn something it’s really hard to forget about it again.

Designing has a lot to do with this. For every new project you have to try to forget what you actually know, otherwise you repeat.

Repetition is sometimes all right, but in many cases repetition is not the best, appropriate, or unique thing to do. When it comes to landscape architecture, places depend a lot on myths. It’s not actually what you see but the expectations that you have about a place created through information, through things that you read, pictures you see. They contribute not only for the people who visit from elsewhere but also for the people who live there. This information becomes part of the myth of the place and creates the identity of a place.

MRC: Maybe Superkilen is not going to age as nicely as if we’d done a granite square…but it needed to be there immediately because the problems were immediate. It needed immediate treatment.

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VT: Tell us about how communication factors into your work at Topotek 1.

MRC: When we consider a city, we realize that the image of a city is as important as people’s perception of that city.

Communication is a very important part of its story. How do we tell that story? For Topotek 1, telling a story is an essential part of our work but our design process is not always

Places, parks, and squares—all the things we do as landscape architects—have a lot to do with identity. Today the design of information is as crucial and as important as the actual design of the place itself.

VT: I’d like to ask for your thoughts on a Toronto park—Yorkville Park. This park was built in one of the wealthiest areas of the city but, like Superkilen, has inspired a new level of discussion in Canada about conceptual playfulness for park design. I know you worked with Martha Schwartz, Yorkville Park’s designer, in the early part of your career. Were you involved in Yorkville Park and what impressions could you share?

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MRC: I didn’t work on that project but I’m a very big fan of Martha’s work and she is very important for us as the next generation of landscape architects. Many landscape architects still think that beautifying is what we should do. Many times it’s okay. But many times it’s not. It’s not enough just to have one weapon—the beautification weapon and nothing else. Martha was one of the first to apply a kind of angry woman approach to design—no longer the nice girl planting gardens and flowers, but being angry. It was a kind of emancipation for the profession through her work. We didn’t have all those movements that architects and artists had, such as the Bauhaus, to help us break with tradition. She was probably one of the first to play differently…

VT: And to address the artificiality of design…

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MRC: Artificiality has always been a tradition for us. What we do is artificial and has always been, but it’s been covered over in the idea of Romanticism to look natural. Our traditional landscapes were as artificial as a plastic bottle. But the real point is not about these formal aspects. More important is the idea about being a bit mean…not being nice. To no longer have to behave by a set code. We are still going through this emancipation…it’s not finished.

BIO/ VICTORIA TAYLOR, OALA, LAUNCHED VTLA/VICTORIA TAYLOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT IN 2012 TO PURSUE PROJECTS THAT EXPOSE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AS AN ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL PRACTICE.

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Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark

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Iwan Baan

CSLA Awards

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CSLA AWARDS 02

Canadian Society of Landscape Architects Awards of Excellence— Ontario Region

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The Canadian Society of Landscape Architects Awards of Excellence are given for outstanding accomplishment in landscape architecture.

Congratulations to the following Regional Award winners.

CSLA REGIONAL CITATION AWARD

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CSLA REGIONAL CITATION AWARD Project Name: Edwards Gardens Sustainable Parking Lot Retrofit Consultant: Schollen & Company Inc. Client: City of Toronto Location: Toronto Category: New Directions

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CSLA REGIONAL CITATION AWARD

Project Summary: This project transformed a deteriorated asphalt parking lot that serves Edwards Gardens and the Toronto Botanical Garden into a new model of sustainable design. It was designed to enhance the quality and moderate the quantity of stormwater discharged into Wilket Creek.

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Project Name: Rideau Canal Muti-use Crossing Environmental Assessment Consultant: DTAH Client: City of Ottawa Location: Rideau Canal at Fifth and Clegg, Ottawa Category: Planning & Analysis Project Summary: This environmental assessment study deals with the integration of a contemporary new bridge structure into a highly valued cultural heritage landscape. Landscape architects worked with architects and engineers to create a solution that received wide public acceptance as well as the strong support of design review panels at the national level.

Project Name: Devonian Gardens Consultant: Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc. Client: City of Calgary Location: Calgary Category: Design Project Summary: The Devonian Gardens, originally built in 1972 on the 4th floor of a downtown shopping mall, is a 2.5-acre year-round indoor tropical park, and is recognized as the only indoor city park in North America. The facilities were in desperate need of an overhaul.

The completely redesigned Devonian Gardens is now home to a botanical collection of tropical plants, which includes 215 trees, 284 broadleaf palms, and more than 11,000 groundcovers. A green living wall adjacent to the events terrace lends stunning visual effect and mechanically reduces ambient temperatures by 10 degrees.

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Edwards Gardens Sustainable Parking Lot Retrofit

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Courtesy of Schollen & Company Inc.

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Rideau Canal Multi-use Crossing Environmental Assessment

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Courtesy of DTAH

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Devonian Gardens

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Courtesy of Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc.

CSLA Awards

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CSLA REGIONAL CITATION AWARD

CSLA REGIONAL HONOUR AWARD

Project Name: Mary & Al Schneider Healing Garden, Seidman Cancer Center Consultant: Visionscapes Landscape Architects, Inc. Client: University Hospitals Location: Cleveland, Ohio Category: Design

Project Name: West Toronto Railpath Consultant: Scott Torrance Landscape Architect Inc. Client: City of Toronto Location: Toronto Category: Design

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Project Summary: The Schneider Healing Garden is an integral component of the new Seidman Cancer Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. Patients and cancer survivors, staff, volunteers, and family engage in the quiet confines of this whimsical garden, where a canopy of plane trees stands guard over an accessible granite labyrinth, diverse plantings, erratic boulders, and a gathering space with moveable tables and chairs. The garden walls and fountain are illuminated with the soothing colours of the seven chakras, extending the garden's appeal during long winter evenings.

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CSLA REGIONAL HONOUR AWARD Project Name: Market Square Consultant: Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc. Client: City of Guelph Location: Guelph Category: Design

Project Summary: The West Toronto Railpath is a multi-use public trail and linear park located alongside an active rail line in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood. The design has successfully addressed the two natures of the city—the wildness of the rail lines and the normalcy of the Toronto neighbourhood—and brought them together in a symbiotic composition of landscape, movement, and urbanity. The West Toronto Railpath has turned an impassable brownfield corridor into a well-loved neighbourhood connector, creating urban value and ecological habitat at the same time.

Project Summary: Market Square, the new civic plaza at Guelph's City Hall, is an important gathering space for the community and host to many events such as music concerts, movie nights, markets, Canada Day celebrations, ice skating in winter, and water play in summer. The project was developed to rejuvenate the downtown core, encouraging residents to rediscover their city and return to shop, play, and enjoy.

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Mary & Al Schneider Healing Garden

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Courtesy of Visionscapes Landscape Architects, Inc.

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Market Square

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Courtesy of Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc.

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West Toronto Railpath

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Courtesy of Scott Torrance Landscape Architect Inc.

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CSLA Awards

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CSLA REGIONAL MERIT AWARD

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CSLA REGIONAL MERIT AWARD Project Name: Riverwalk Commons Consultant: Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc. Client: Town of Newmarket Location: Newmarket Category: Design Project Summary: Riverwalk Commons is a unique effort to provide the growing Newmarket community with an innovative destination and event space; one that links the old with the new and positions the town as a proponent of design excellence. The project transformed an 8-acre downtown parking lot and brownfield site adjacent to Holland River Park and Fairy Lake into a multi-use, adaptable, and seasonally functional iconic destination for town-wide and regional events, and connects a broad network of recreation trails.

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CSLA REGIONAL MERIT AWARD Project Name: Goderich—Downtown Core Area Master Plan Consultant: The Planning Partnership Ltd. Client: Town of Goderich Location: Goderich Category: Planning & Analysis Project Summary: Faced with the devastation left by the tornado of August, 2011, the Town of Goderich retained The Planning Partnership to prepare a Downtown Core Area Master Plan as a first step in the rebuilding and revitalization of the beloved downtown.

Project Name: Joel Weeks Park Consultant: Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc. Client: City of Toronto Location: Toronto Category: Design Project Summary: Joel Weeks Park has become the centrepiece of the regeneration of a neighbourhood, and exemplifies excellence in design team collaboration, community consultation, and community building.

The park design pays homage to the history and geography of the area and the Don River, and provides critical open and flexible greenspace for the vibrant mixed-income Rivertowne community.

Though small (1 hectare), the facility has a powerful civilizing effect.

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Riverwalk Commons

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Courtesy of Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc.

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Goderich—Downtown Core Area Master Plan

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Courtesy of The Planning Partnership Ltd.

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Joel Weeks Park

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Courtesy of Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc.

CSLA Awards

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CSLA REGIONAL MERIT AWARD Project Name: East Hamilton Recreational Trail Hub and Waterfront Link Consultant: Steve Barnhart, City of Hamilton Client: City of Hamilton Location: Hamilton Category: Design

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CSLA REGIONAL MERIT AWARD Project Name: Rouge Park Trails Master Plan Consultant: Schollen & Company Inc. Client: Rouge Park Alliance Location: Toronto/Markham Category: Planning & Analysis Project Summary: The project team was retained by the Rouge Park Alliance to develop a Trails Master Plan for the 4,050-ha Rouge Park.

The plan was conceived as a blueprint to direct the process of future trail development and management within the park for the next 25 years. Seven million people reside within an hour's drive of the park. A well-planned trail system was envisioned to afford visitors an experience of the park with a minimum of impact on the environment and to plan for an anticipated increase in the use of this significant urban wilderness and future national park.

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Rouge Park Trails Master Plan

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Courtesy of Schollen & Company Inc.

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East Hamilton Recreational Trail Hub and Waterfront Link

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Courtesy of City of Hamilton

Project Summary: The East Hamilton Recreational Trail Hub and Waterfront Link project created a strategic connection between regional trail facilities, and created a haven of nature in a highly urbanized area of Hamilton.

Surrounded by two highways (QEW and Red Hill Valley Parkway) and residential and industrial land uses, the area was deficient in non-motorized connections across these barriers. This project created that link, restored a provincially significant wetland, and remediated two closed landfills. A collaborative effort, the city of Hamilton worked with DuToit Allsopp Hillier architects for the award-winning bridge design, as well as the restoration experts at St. Williams Nursery and Ecology Centre and Dougan & Associates to create a visually stunning project.

OALA Awards

OALA Awards The 2013 OALA Recognition Awards were presented in March at the OALA Conference and AGM Ceremony in Ottawa.

Congratulations to all those honoured with awards, and a special thanks to the Honours, Awards and Protocol Committee: Glenn O’Connor (Chair), Jane Welsh, Jim Melvin, Nelson Edwards, Joanne Moran, and Linda Thorne.

OALA AWARD FOR SERVICE TO THE ENVIRONMENT: This award is given to a non-landscape architectural individual, group, organization, or agency in the Province of Ontario to recognize and encourage a special or unusual contribution to the sensitive, sustainable design for human use of the environment.

This year, two Awards for Service to the Environment are being presented.

01. The Beaver River Watershed Initiative Dedicated to the restoration and rehabilitation of the Beaver River Watershed, in Grey County, Ontario, this initiative has involved the community-at-large, government agencies, individual stakeholders, service clubs, member municipalities, landowners, and sports clubs in their efforts.

02. Citizens for Safe Cycling, Ottawa In Ottawa, there are no greater champions of cycling than Citizens for Safe Cycling and the group’s president, Hans Moor. Along with inspiring new cyclists and building consensus among advocacy groups, Hans has been a reliable and invaluable resource, providing input on many City of Ottawa policies and projects that involve cycling issues, and has made a substantial impact on the community.

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OALA CARL BORGSTROM AWARD FOR SERVICE TO THE ENVIRONMENT: This award is given to individual landscape architects or a landscape architectural group to recognize and encourage special or unusual contribution to the sensitive, sustainable design for human use of the environment. This award is named in honour of Carl Borgstrom who, of all OALA’s founders, was the most actively in tune with the natural landscape. This year, two Carl Borgstrom Awards for Service to the Environment are being presented.

01. Victoria Lister Carley, OALA Victoria Lister Carley weaves her skills as a visual artist with her passionate interest in the environment to create landscapes that combine the evocative and emotional qualities of art with sensitivity to the environment.

She is a long-time member of the Friends of the Leslie Street Spit Steering Committee, a former Board member of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and the Ontario Field Ornithologists, participant in various citizen science projects, and a founding member of the Ground Editorial Board.

02. Glenn Gilbert, OALA Glenn Gilbert’s interest in working with First Nations and the environment brought him to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Ontario Region, where, in the mid-1990s, he was appointed Regional Manager, Environment Unit. He has worked with many diverse groups, often at odds, to bring environmental principles to the forefront of the management of a multi-million-dollar capital program affecting 127 First Nation communities.

OALA PUBLIC PRACTICE AWARD: Jeff Silverthorn, OALA This award recognizes the outstanding leadership of a member of the profession in public practice who promotes and enhances landscape architecture by working for improved understanding and appreciation of the work of landscape architects in both public and private practice.

Jeff Silverthorn has been in public service for 25 years. He started his career in the public sector, at the City of Kanata, where he worked for 13 years. With the 2001 amalgamation of Kanata with the City of Ottawa, Jeff became the program manager for all

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park and open space design and construction in Ottawa. He and his team now develop an average of 18 new parks per season and complete an additional 25 related park projects per year. As Manager of Design and Construction (Buildings and Parks), Jeff not only oversees all municipal park projects in Ottawa but also all of the many municipal architectural projects.

DAVID ERB MEMORIAL AWARD: The award is named after David Erb, who was an outstanding volunteer in furthering the goals of the OALA, and his example set a truly high standard. The award is the best way to acknowledge the one outstanding OALA member each year whose volunteer contributions over a number of years have made a real difference. This year, two David Erb Memorial Awards are being presented.

01. Marianne Mokrycke, OALA Marianne has given tireless dedication to the OALA, contributing to many successful events, including several annual general meetings, continuing education seminars, workshops, industry tours, and as co-chair of the OALA Continuing Education Committee (CEC). Her enthusiasm, strong determination, perseverance, and motivation in putting together programs for the CEC have been, quite simply, exceptional.

Her sense of humour and frankness have had a positive impact on the entire committee, and on the OALA in general.

02. Diane Emmerson, OALA For the past five years, Diane has taken a leading role in guiding the activities of Landscape Architecture Ottawa. As chair of this group, Diane has worked tirelessly to organize and chair monthly meetings, professional events, and social gatherings.

Her involvement has re-invigorated what was an essentially dormant chapter into a vibrant group of more than 75 professionals.

Diane has served as the communications conduit through which Ottawa-area members are able to exchange information, stay informed on continuing education sessions, and form positions on local issues, such as the re-development of Lansdowne Park and Ottawa Street Tree Planting policies.

OALA Awards

OALA RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AWARD: Professor Robert D. Brown This award recognizes the outstanding leadership, research and/or academic achievements of a member(s), or nonmember(s), who, through scholarly activities, including academic papers, research, publications, books, e-applications, or public presentations, contributes to the knowledge base that furthers the advancement of the art, the science, and the practice of landscape architecture.

Dr. Robert Brown, who teaches at the University of Guelph, has a distinguished record of academic scholarship. He is among the leading landscape architectural scholars in North America, ranking in the top ten percent for research productivity. In Canada his record is even more striking: he is the most-published scholar in the country (59 academic journal papers).

The global reach of Dr. Brown's research is notable. He has lectured and presented his research in seven countries, yet most of his work is based in Ontario, especially in his role as advisor to undergraduate and graduate students.

OALA EMERITUS MEMBER: Alexander Topps, OALA Emeritus members are full members of the OALA who have ceased full-time practice and who are nominated by another full member in recognition of their years of service to the profession.

Alexander Topps’ early career focused on regional planning, preparing background environmental studies for numerous urban expansion areas. As a persistent environmental advocate, he persuaded clients to construct artificial wetlands and restore degraded watercourses well before these became common practices; devised a unique root-zone recharge system to sustain a provincially significant woodlot; designed a golf course maintained entirely by recycled urban runoff; and, as the environmental planner on the winning team in the 1994 Seaton design competition, illustrated the value of terrestrial tableland habitat linkages between sub-watersheds, a concept that is now a routine principle of sustainable urban planning.

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In the 1980s, he became one of the first landscape architects to build a substantial practice as an expert witness at boards and tribunals. As his career evolved, he became progressively more design-focused, establishing an award-winning portfolio in public open space and urban design. Throughout his career, Alexander has been an active OALA volunteer, serving on the Examining Board as one of the group that successfully advocated for the LARE. He is also active with the CSLA, assisting with various task forces and as a member of the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Council.

OALA HONORARY MEMBER AWARD: Alex Munter The Honorary category of membership is for non-landscape architects whom Council wishes to recognize for outstanding contributions in their own fields to improving the quality of natural and human environments.

Alex Munter is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, home to some of Canada’s leading researchers in the area of childhood obesity. Alex encourages landscape architects to continue to build stronger communities and, in particular, to: • Recognize the needs of children/youth in land-use/transportation planning; • Promote partnerships among policy makers, governments, researchers, communities, and specialists to develop child-/youth-friendly planning guidelines; • Involve young people in land-use planning and transportation decisions; • Encourage and facilitate active forms of transportation; • Use mixed-use land planning to allow people easier access to essential goods and services.

We are pleased to award Alex Munter an Honorary Membership in the OALA. OALA PINNACLE AWARD FOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL EXCELLENCE: Steve Sunderland, OALA This award recognizes an OALA member and his or her professional work. It singles out specific projects to draw attention to a body of work which demonstrates outstanding professional accomplishment.

Steve Sunderland has been a principal of CSW since 1979 and has brought strong administrative, organizational, and technical capabilities to a diversity of projects.

His extensive portfolio of work includes residential, recreational, urban design, urban planning, and transportation planning projects. Of particular note is his special interest and proficiency in detail design and construction, which he has applied to projects across Canada.

Steve has worked on more than twenty major urban design projects, including street malls, parks, plazas, markets, and multi-use projects. Through his tireless enthusiasm, leadership, and passion for landscape architecture, Steve has made an invaluable contribution to the profession.

OALA PRESIDENT’S AWARD: Glenn O’Connor, OALA The President’s Award is given in recognition of the contributions by an OALA Full Member who supports and advances initiatives and actions of the association and promotes the profession of landscape architecture in Ontario. It is given in recognition of dedicated volunteerism, generous service to the association, and for leadership in the field of landscape architecture.

Glenn O’Connor has brought strength, energy, and leadership to the OALA and, more recently, the CSLA on many initiatives that further the profession of landscape architecture in Ontario. Glenn has served on many professional committees since 2003 and, in particular, since 2007 on OALA committees, OALA Council, Council Executive Committee, and, most recently, the CSLA Board of Directors.

On the OALA Council and Executive Committee, Glenn has held positions of Treasurer for three years, President for two years, and Past-President for a year.

Through his leadership he has facilitated the OALA in becoming a more sustainable association. His vision, enthusiasm, and belief in landscape architecture have attracted membership involvement in the association. Glenn has left his signature on the OALA and the CSLA, and all members have benefited from his contributions.

Plant Corner

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TREES TEXT BY JOCELYN HIRTES AND TODD SMITH

The following trees, shrubs, grasses, and perennials are wonderful plants to enhance play value, and make dynamic counterpoints to static hard surfaces and play structures. Elements to consider in choosing plants for playspaces include sensory stimulation, play value (props), seasonal characteristics, and, of course, hardiness, adaptability, maintenance requirements, and tolerance of compacted soils from romping and stomping during recess! Inclusivity should also be incorporated into designs to make playgrounds accessible for those with disabilities—for example, consider the sound of wind rushing through leaves, the scent of flowers, or leaves that are aromatic when crushed.

Trees are especially important in playspaces for the shade they provide. The Canadian Cancer Society suggests considering growth rates (moderate to fast) and canopy density (medium to dense) in selecting species.

Daycare facilities, schoolgrounds, public parks, and private gardens present different challenges to the designer, and may dictate plant choices to a certain extent. Highlight seasonal characteristics of plants, especially in locations where children will not regularly use the space during the summer. Plant selection should be carefully considered against each unique set of conditions.

In public places, community involvement or stewardship may be key to maintaining a successful play area. Fence off plantings where possible to allow time for plants to become established. Involving children in care and upkeep of the plantings will help foster a sense of ownership.

Be sure to check your plant selection against the latest edition of the Canadian Standards Association Publication Z614 – Children’s Playspaces and Equipment. Table G.1 (Appendix G, Section 8.4) lists toxic plants that should be avoided in children’s areas.

POPULUS TREMULOIDES COMMON NAME: Quaking Aspen HARDINESS ZONES: 1-7 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 40 to 50 feet DESCRIPTION: This tree spreads vegetatively and forms clonal colonies, so give it some room in a big play area. Its fast growth rate means that it is quick to provide shade—it is one genus recommended by the Canadian Cancer Society.

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CERCIDIPHYLLUM JAPONICUM COMMON NAME: Katsura HARDINESS ZONES: 4-7 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 40 to 60 feet DESCRIPTION: Katsura grows to a beautiful, multi-stemmed specimen. Senescing leaves have a spicy scent. Mature specimens have a shaggy bark for touchappeal and interaction.

TILIA AMERICANA COMMON NAME: Basswood HARDINESS ZONES: 3b-9 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 60 to 80 feet DESCRIPTION: This native, shade-tolerant species becomes a multi-stemmed tree over time, and provides dense shade.

Medium growth rate. Requires well-drained soil. The June blooms have a subtle and lovely scent. Since this species is not especially resistant to compaction or urban pollution, it is more appropriate for edges of playspaces, where foot traffic can be reduced, or in areas away from main roads.

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TSUGA CANADENSIS Eastern Hemlock HARDINESS ZONES: 3b-6 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 40 to 70 feet DESCRIPTION: This slow-growing conifer has soft, feathery branches that encourage interaction and provide good screening.

Tolerant of shade and moist soil; especially useful for planting at the bottom of a slope.

COMMON NAME:

LARIX LARICINA COMMON NAME: Tamarack HARDINESS ZONES: 1-5 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 40 to 80 feet DESCRIPTION: This fast-growing deciduous evergreen turns lovely shades of orange in the fall. Interesting needle attachment to the branch and small cones provide some play value. It is salt- and soil-compaction resistant, and can grow in poorly drained soils.

Intolerant of shade and pollution.

CARPINUS CAROLINIANA Blue-beech HARDINESS ZONES: 3b-9 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 20 to 30 feet DESCRIPTION: This fine, small, understorey tree is adaptable to a wide range of soils and light conditions. The smooth bark is reminiscent of a beech, but is distinctively “ropey” or “muscled,” which provides great touchappeal. Provides dense shade.

COMMON NAME:

LIRIODENDRON TULIPIFERA Tulip Tree HARDINESS ZONES: 4b-9 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 80 to 90 feet DESCRIPTION: Extremely fast growing, tulip tree provides relatively dense shade and, hence, is good for playground spaces. Plant in open areas in well-drained to moderately well-drained soil.

COMMON NAME:

Plant Corner

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PERENNIALS ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA COMMON NAME: Butterfly Weed HARDINESS ZONES: 3-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT GENERALLY: 2 feet DESCRIPTION: Butterfly weed is a host plant for the monarch butterfly, so kids can look for eggs and chrysalides. Slow to emerge in spring, it might need protection from trampling.

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ULMUS AMERICANA ‘VALLEY FORGE’ COMMON NAME: ‘Valley Forge’ Elm HARDINESS ZONES: 3b-9 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 60 to 80 feet DESCRIPTION: This fast-growing tree has a wide spread that will provide quick shade, and an elegant vase shape. It showed the highest resistance to Dutch elm disease in controlled trials by the US National Arboretum.

SHRUBS AMELANCHIER SPP COMMON NAME: Serviceberry HARDINESS ZONES: 3-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 15 to 25 feet DESCRIPTION: This native shrub grows in sun to shade and is adaptable to a wide range of soils. Edible berries attract kids and birds. Low maintenance—needs little pruning.

PHYSOCARPUS OPULIFOLIUS COMMON NAME: Ninebark HARDINESS ZONES: 2-7 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 6 to 10 feet DESCRIPTION: This is an underused and tough shrub perfect for playgrounds. It is adaptable to a wide range of soils, drought tolerant once established, and forms a good low screen with attractive flowers in June.

RHUS TYPHINA COMMON NAME: Staghorn Sumac HARDINESS ZONES: 4-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 15 to 25 feet DESCRIPTION: This shrub, suitable for naturalizing, grows tall quickly, but is fairly open, so visibility can be maintained in a playground. Fuzzy fruit/seed heads persist into the winter and are of interest to children.

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Katsura

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Jean Pol Grandmont

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Eastern hemlock

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Chris Breeze

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‘Valley Forge’ elm

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North Carolina Native Plant Society

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Redbud flowers

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Greg Hune

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CERCIS CANADENSIS COMMON NAME: Eastern Redbud HARDINESS ZONES: 4-9 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 20 to 30 feet DESCRIPTION: This elegant native is available in single stem or multi-stemmed habit and produces gorgeous pink flowers that open before the leaves. Requires almost no maintenance, except pruning for form when young. It is shade tolerant, and works well as an understorey planting.

Adaptable to a variety of soils.

GRASSES DESCHAMPSIA CAESPITOSA COMMON NAME: Tufted Hairgrass HARDINESS ZONES: 4-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 2 feet DESCRIPTION: For schoolgrounds, ‘Goldschleier’ works well because it flowers early, in June, while children are still in school. In the fall, flower spikes and leaves change to a golden/buff colour and persist throughout the winter. Panicles can be broken off and used as play props.

PANICUM VIRGATUM COMMON NAME: Switchgrass HARDINESS ZONES: 4-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 5 feet DESCRIPTION: Mostly a full sun plant, but some varieties grow well in part shade (notably ‘Cloud Nine’ and ‘Heavy Metal’). Makes a nice rushing sound when the wind ripples through the plant. Looks great in a mass.

CHASMANTHIUM LATIFOLIUM COMMON NAME: Northern Sea Oats HARDINESS ZONES: 4-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 4 feet DESCRIPTION: This interesting grass has a thicker leaf blade than many other ornamental grasses, and produces dangling jewel-like seedheads in mid-summer that persist throughout the winter. The sound of wind blowing through the grass is reminiscent of the beach. Tolerant of partial shade.

IMPATIENS CAPENSIS COMMON NAME: Common Jewelweed HARDINESS ZONES: 4-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 3 feet DESCRIPTION: This bottomland denizen is a self-seeding annual; projectile seeds explode out of the pods when lightly touched—good fun for kids in September!

Seed in a large, moist area suitable for naturalizing.

ECHINACEA PURPUREA AND E. PALLIDA COMMON NAME: Coneflower HARDINESS ZONES: 3-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 3 feet DESCRIPTION: Large sturdy purple flowers look great as a mass planting. The spiky central discs are fun to touch and flowers can be cut and used as a prop.

LIATRIS SPICATA Rough Blazing Star HARDINESS ZONES: 4-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 3 feet DESCRIPTION: This prairie meadow plant has pinkish flower spikes that provide a nonstereotypical flower structure for kids.

COMMON NAME:

HELIANTHUS DIVARICATUS Woodland Sunflower HARDINESS ZONES: 4-8 MAXIMUM HEIGHT: generally 3 feet DESCRIPTION: A tall native perennial with yellow flowers that brighten up a shady play area.

This tough plant works well around the edges of a playground.

COMMON NAME:

SOURCES DIRR, MICHAEL. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TREES & SHRUBS. PORTLAND, OR: TIMBER PRESS, 2011.

HIGHTSHOE, GARY L. NATIVE TREES, SHRUBS AND VINES FOR URBAN AND RURAL AMERICA: A PLANTING DESIGN MANUAL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGNERS. TORONTO: JOHN WILEY & SONS, 1988.

MOORE, ROBIN C. PLANTS FOR PLAY: A PLANT SELECTION GUIDE FOR CHILDREN’S OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENTS. BERKLEY, CA: MIG COMMUNICATIONS, 2007.

CANADIAN STANDARDS ASSOCIATION, Z614 CHILDREN’S PLAYSPACES AND EQUIPMENT, SECTION G8.4, TABLE G.1. LATEST EDITION. BIOS/ JOCELYN HIRTES IS A LANDSCAPE DESIGNER AND CERTIFIED ARBORIST WITH VICTOR FORD AND ASSOCIATES INC. TODD SMITH IS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL INTERN AND CERTIFIED ARBORIST AT IBI GROUP IN TORONTO.

Notes

Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

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awards The Ground Editorial Board selected GeoGarden (A Subterranean Symphony in C) by Karen Abel, with a soundscape by Rose Bolton, as the winner of the Gladstone Grow Op 2013 OALA/Ground Prize, part of the April exhibition Grow Op: Exploring Landscape + Place that took place at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto in April. [See Ground 20, page 33, for more information on Grow Op.]

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plants The University of Guelph Arboretum Auxiliary Plant Sale will be held Saturday, September 14, 2013, from 9am to 2pm at the R. J. Hilton Centre on College Avenue East, Guelph. A large selection of unique plants will be available, including rare natives such as blue ash, pawpaw, leatherwood, and dwarf chinquapin oak, and outstanding exotics, such as ginkgo, sweetgum, and Siberian spindle tree. As well, a diverse selection of native wildflowers, ferns, grasses, and high-quality ornamental perennials will be for sale. All proceeds aid with the continued maintenance and development of the arboretum, a 408-acre living museum of plant collections, gardens, forests, conservation and research projects, and public outreach programs tucked amidst the University of Guelph campus. For more information, see www.uoguelph.ca/arboretum.

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Building on a Bachelor of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo and a decade as a draftsperson with the City of Kitchener’s Planning Department, Mark earned a Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph in 1988. For the next 24 years he was a passionate advocate for his profession and worked on many urban open-space projects in Waterloo Region. He was a dedicated member of the team that developed the Walter Bean Grand River Trail, from its inception. He also found great satisfaction in helping to plan the revegetation of the Erb Street Landfill and working to transform the former Victoria Street North gravel pits into the Stanley Park Optimist Natural Area and Kolb Park.

As is the OALA’s custom, a book will be added to the OALA’s library and a memorial tree will be planted at the Guelph Arboretum Wall-Custance Memorial Forest in Mark’s name.

conferences 03

in memoriam The OALA is saddened to announce that Mark Peterson, a long-standing full member of the OALA, passed away on May 17, 2013, at the age of 62, after a courageous fight against a chronic illness. Mark’s dogged determination to live a full life in the face of daunting ongoing health challenges earned him the awe and respect of all who knew him well.

On September 23-25, 2013, Evergreen and the International School Ground Alliance (ISGA) are hosting, in Toronto, the 2013 International Green School Ground Conference, the first significant gathering of the ISGA since its founding less than two years ago. Along with presentations, there will be sessions with hands-on training and skill building, and tours of outstanding schoolgrounds in the GTA. For more information, visit www.evergreen.ca.

Notes

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schools The University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design is on the move. In June, plans were unveiled to renew and transform an historic building at One Spadina Crescent into the new home of the Daniels Faculty.

Along with renovations to the 19th-century Gothic Revival building, a new addition, designed by Nader Tehrani and collaborator Katie Faulkner, will be built. The faculty will move into the renovated building in the summer of 2014 and the addition will be completed in 2015. The ambitious project represents the largest architecture school expansion in Canada’s history, according to the Daniels Faculty.

publications For more than a decade and a half, the non-profit organization Evergreen has been transforming Canadian schoolgrounds into diverse, nature-filled learning environments. The wealth of knowledge amassed during these years of effort and innovation has recently been published by Evergreen, in a manual written by Heidi Campbell. This comprehensive, 154-page book, A Design Guide for Early Years— Kindergarten Play—Learning Environments, is filled with design ideas that incorporate green design principles and is centred on meeting children’s development needs— physical, cognitive, social, and emotional.

To order or download a copy, visit www.evergreen.ca.

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in memoriam OALA member Katherine Dugmore passed away peacefully at home with her family by her side, after a courageous fight against cancer, on March 24, 2013.

Katherine worked for more than twenty years in both land development and in the public sector as a planner and landscape architect. She was appointed project manager for Thunder Bay’s waterfront redevelopment in 2007. Katherine also helped on numerous projects, including the Terry Fox monument, and was a Ground Editorial Board Advisory Panel member. The OALA and the Ground Editorial Board extend condolences to Katherine’s family, friends, and colleagues.

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green roofs

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University of Guelph Arboretum plant sale

In 2010, the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design created a state-of-the-art green roof research facility on top of its building at 230 College Street. Now, the interdisciplinary research team behind the Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory, or GRIT Lab, has launched a new website —grit.daniels.utoronto.ca—which will allow it to share the results of its work with a much broader community. Led by Assistant Professor Liat Margolis, the Lab is a platform for multi-disciplinary research and education, linking the fields of landscape architecture, biology, hydrology, and building science.

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Courtesy of University of Guelph Arboretum

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GeoGarden, by Karen Abel, with Rose Bolton

The new home of the Daniels Faculty at the University of Toronto includes an historic building and addition.

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Courtesy of Karen Abel

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Courtesy of John H. Daniels Faculty

Mark Peterson

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Katherine Dugmore

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Courtesy of OALA

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GRIT Lab, Daniels Faculty rooftop

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Courtesy of John H. Daniels Faculty

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Courtesy of Peterson family

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01

TEXT BY LORRAINE JOHNSON

What is it about worlds in miniature that seems to invite playful engagement? Perhaps it’s their inevitable evocation of childhood games. Or maybe it’s the absurdity of scale—a hint or wink towards a less complicated world that somehow feels kinder, more benign.

In Canadian artist Kim Adams’ recent exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, an entire world in miniature, under glass, is on display. Artist Colony (Gardens) presents a bustling imaginary landscape populated by urban and rural figures and features in which the quotidian mixes with the exotic. For the young at heart, there’s even a giraffe escaping from a zoo.

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Agriculture, consumption, and land use are issues explored in Adams’ fictional landscapes, and the stories they tell resonate through the real, sometimes less playful, world we all inhabit.

KIM ADAMS’ ARTIST COLONY (GARDENS) IS ON VIEW AT THE ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO UNTIL AUGUST 11, 2013.

Kim Adams’ sculptures

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Details of Kim Adams’ Artist Colony (Gardens), 2012-2013

IMAGES/

Toni Hafkenscheid