Ground 47 – Fall 2019 – Power

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Landscape Architect Quarterly

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Round Table A seat at the table Features Leading with Landscapes

The Power’s in the Process

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Children’s Lands

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The Power To Influence Public Policy

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Fall 2019 Issue 47

Masthead

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Editor Glyn Bowerman

2019 OALA Governing Council

Photo Editor Jasper Flores

President Jane Welsh

OALA Editorial Board Kanwal Aftab Shannon Baker Trish Clarke Jasper Flores Eric Gordon Aaron Hernandez Eric Klaver (chair) Phaedra Maicantis Nadja Pausch Le’ Ann Seely Katie Strang Sarah Turkenicz Andrew Taylor Devin Tepleski

Vice President Kendall Flower

Web Editor Jennifer Foden Social Media Manager Jennifer Foden

Treasurer Steve Barnhart Secretary Stefan Fediuk Past President Doris Chee Councillors Cynthia Graham Cameron Smith Justin Whalen Associate Councillor—Senior Mark Hillmer Associate Councillor—Junior Leah Lanteigne

Art Direction/Design Noël Nanton/typotherapy www.typotherapy.com

Lay Councillor Peter Hersics

Advertising Inquiries advertising@oala.ca 416.231.4181

Appointed Educator University of Toronto TBC

Cover Photograph of The Bentway water feature by Nic Lehoux. See page 08.

Appointed Educator University of Guelph Brendan Stewart

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

University of Toronto Student Representative Elspeth Holland

Ontario Association of Landscape Architects 3 Church Street, Suite 506 Toronto, Ontario M5E 1M2 416.231.4181 www.oala.ca oala@oala.ca Copyright © 2019 by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

Contributors retain copyright of their work. All rights reserved.

ISSN: 0847-3080 Canada Post Sales Product Agreement No. 40026106

University of Guelph Student Representative Devon Kleinjan

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.

Upcoming Issues of Ground Ground 48 (Winter) Death & Renewal Deadline for advertising space reservations: October 9, 2019

Ground 49 (Spring) Access Deadline for advertising space reservations: January 14, 2020 Deadline for editorial proposals: October 15, 2019

Erratum The image on the over, as well as page 07 of Ground 46 (Summer 2019) was misattributed to Lynnette Postuma.

The image is actually by Mathew Ediger.

In the same issue, we would like to acknowledge StreetARToronto as the producer of Lynnette Postuma’s ‘Gradation’ mural, pictured on page 10, for greater context.

OALA Staff Executive Director Aina Budrevics Registrar Ingrid Little Coordinator Sarah Manteuffel

See www.groundmag.ca to download articles and share content on social media.

See www.groundmag.ca for a digital, searchable, archival database, listing all articles, authors, subjects, key words, etc. published in Ground over the years.

TO VIEW ADDITIONAL CONTENT RELATED TO GROUND ARTICLES, VISIT WWW.GROUNDMAG.CA.

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Advisory Panel

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, FCSLA, Partner, The Planning Partnership, Toronto Ryan James, OALA, Senior Landscape Architect, Novatech, Ottawa Alissa North, OALA, Associate 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 Victoria Taylor, OALA, Principal, Victoria Taylor Landscape Architect, Toronto Jim Vafiades, OALA, FCSLA, Senior Landscape Architect, Stantec, Toronto

Contents

Up Front Information on the ground

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Power: Leading with Landscapes

President’s Message

President’s Message

Editorial Board Message

In my landscape architecture studies at the University of Guelph, I participated in a semester abroad program to research the work of renowned landscape architect and former IFLA President Dame Sylvia Crowe, author of the influential “The Landscape of Power” (1958).

One of the legendary stories from my school days was from one of my professors, who told a tale about a site planning test he once wrote while he was a student. The test involved describing strategies for the landscape design of a conservation area and sketching a plan. His answer was simple: do nothing. Unfortunately, according to his professor, do nothing was not an option. He failed.

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TEXT BY NETAMI STUART AND PINA MALLOZZI

Round Table A seat at the table MODERATED BY LE’ ANN SEELY 14/

The Power’s in the Process Creative, Collaborative and Community-Driven Approaches to Design and Planning

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TEXT BY SARA UDOW AND NADIA GALATI

Children’s Lands Empowering Children to Lead Sustainably

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TEXT BY JOAQUIN SEVILLANO AND NATALIE SCHIABEL

Professional Practice The Power To Influence Public Policy TEXT BY GLENN A. O’CONNOR

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Notes A miscellany of news and events 32/

Artifact Musical Mushrooms

A charming trail-blazer, she confronted the challenges of new landscape issues in her writing and approach to design. As the first landscape consultant for the Forestry Commission, she revolutionized the approach to planting and harvesting forests in Britain. Her work was an inspiring example of the power of landscape architects, and how our profession can work with government to influence and change how we experience the landscape.

Landscape architects are working for and with all three levels of the government. They influence the landscape in profound ways at every scale. From Toronto’s Downtown Parks and Public Realm Plan, to protecting natural features of the Niagara escarpment, and transforming strip mall parking lots to innovative plazas, the power of landscape architecture is evident every day. We have transformed the grounds of Parliament Hill with a grand staircase overlooking the Ottawa River, and transformed waterfronts across Ontario.

Building connections at the municipal level OALA participated in the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) Conference in Ottawa in August, raising the profile of our profession, and meeting with municipal and provincial representatives from across the province.

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TEXT BY ERIC KLAVER

OALA Engages in Provincial Consultation OALA remains engaged in a public stakeholder consultation for the Provincial Policy Statement review of the Planning Act through Bill 108, More Home, More Choice Act, 2019.

Working with Allied professionals In May, Eha Naylor represented the OALA at the Ontario Association of Architects conference in Quebec City. She participated in a panel presentation on Inclusive Design of Safety in the Public Realm. And I will attend the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI) Annual Conference this fall, to speak about ensuring urban growth is climate resilient.

Fall 2019 Issue 47

Editorial Board Message

It might be easy to dismiss this as academic hubris or conceit, but it points to a central conflict at the foundation of landscape architecture as a business: in practice, we play a role in the development economy, while as a profession, we are stewards of natural systems.

Now that we are “Open for Business” in Ontario, this conflict is just beginning to test the moral mettle of our profession.

Many processes and policies developed over the years that protect our core ideals are being threatened. As much as conservation authority procedures and rules can be onerous, success can be seen in the slow recovery of our watersheds over the past 30 years. Many times I have been happy that questionable development options were dead before they started, due to these policies. Having the conservation authorities play “bad cop” makes our job easier to perform in many ways when it comes to our core principles.

The OALA’s pursuit of a Practice Act targets reduction of the risk to public harm, directly mentioning financial loss due to negligence. The OALA has also has spoken out about Bill 108 and its threat to the public realm and green space in our cities. These are concerns at the core of the business of our profession. What of the core values of our profession? What of the threats to natural heritage embodied in our greenbelts, rivers, and lakes? What of the threats to our cultural heritage, symbolized by putting Ontario Place up for sale?

The power of our profession lies in its core values—the ones we so often pat ourselves on the backs for, lecture, write and tweet about. These values bring meaning to our day-to-day undertakings.

This issue demonstrates the power of our profession— sometimes fully employed, sometimes untapped. I hope the contents can help bolster spirits for the challenges ahead.

OALA’s new website The new OALA website has been redesigned to allow for increased security, speed and added functionality. We’ll have upcoming events listed there, and other valuable information. Let us know what you think!

This issue is also the first for our new editor, Glyn Bowerman, and it’s been a pleasure working with him.

We also enjoyed a productive visioning session in midsummer, to map out the creative direction for the next two years of Ground. We look forward to thoughtful and productive collaboration in the future.

JANE WELSH, OALA, FCSLA OALA PRESIDENT PRESIDENT@OALA.CA

ERIC KLAVER, OALA CHAIR, EDITORIAL BOARD MAGAZINE@OALA.CA

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Up Front

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Elder Whabagoon honouring Musqueam First Nation activist Audrey Siegle, 2019 CSLA Congress, Vancouver

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CSLA

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Rooftop Design Workshop

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Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag

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Petroglyph painting workshop led by Kettle Point First Nation artist Moses Lunham

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Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag

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MOCA exhibit, Life of a Dead Tree

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Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag

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of key areas, including Indigenous spaces, curriculum, faculty hires, student access, and engagement with Indigenous communities.

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the power of reconciliation

Up Front: Information on the Ground

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada calls on post-secondary institutions to respond to the 94 Calls to Action, and to take a leadership role in education.

Many academic institutions have since undertaken a process to examine the ways in which they are providing education to Indigenous, as well as non-Indigenous students. In my current leadership roles at the University of Toronto, I have been encouraged by the acknowledgement of the university’s “responsibility in contributing to the plight of Indigenous peoples,” and also by its efforts to build pathways for reconciliation in a number

However, the challenges of answering the Calls to Action are not simple, or easy.

As noted by Eve Tuck, associate professor of critical race and Indigenous studies at the U of T Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, “universities don’t become different just by wishing for it… University administrators say ‘Indigenization’ and what they mean is, simply bringing more Indigenous people into the same structures, into the same buildings without much thought about what universities can learn from Indigenous communities.”

This statement resonates deeply, as an essential learning, for me, has been the importance of honouring and including Elders and knowledge keepers in every issue related to the key areas listed above.

Without Elders and knowledge keepers, an

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Up Front

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teachings, landscape architecture, and environmental conservation.

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sufficient resources to any program or change that is put in place; changing the structure by way of decision-making; and changing the culture of the institution.”

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Albion Hills presentation to Lieutenant Governor

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Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag

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Youth learn about invasive vs. native insect species at the MOCA Life of a Dead Tree exhibit

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Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag

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Albion Hills presentation to Lieutenant Governor

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Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag

authentic understanding and transmission of Indigenous philosophies, values, and ways of living and knowing is not possible.

Furthermore, it is important to be honest and recognize the entrenched discrimination across the primary, secondary, and post-secondary education systems. Sheila Cote-Meek, associate vice president, academic and Indigenous programs, at Laurentian University emphasizes the persistent lack of understanding among educators of Indigenous peoples, histories and culture. She proposes that, in order to “(bring) about deeper systemic, transformative and reconciliatory change… four intersecting aspects (are to) be considered: addressing the systemic under-representation of Indigenous peoples in the academy; providing

Landscape Architecture programs and professional practice alike are critically under-represented by Indigenous peoples.

After many conversations, lectures, workshops with and by Indigenous peoples within and without the academy, I realized that, in order to have meaningful change to our institutional culture, it is necessary to support the hiring of Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, scholars, and professionals, and support the enrolment of Indigenous graduate students. Yet, in order to do so, it is necessary to support the enrolment of undergraduate students.

And since Indigenous students are nearly absent in either our graduate or undergraduate programs, it is necessary to focus our attention on youth.

In Winter 2018, I had the honour to meet an Anishinaabe Elder, and together with two other incredibly dedicated women, we co-developed a new Indigenous youth program which provides employment, mentorship and a pathway to postsecondary education. The program, which was later named by the participating youth, Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag—Flooded Valley Healing in Anishinaabemowin (Manitoulin dialect)—is designed for high school youth, ages 15-18, living in the Greater Toronto Area. The interdisciplinary curriculum foregrounds culture and spirituality as a path forward and interweaves Indigenous

The program’s motivation is, first and foremost, to provide the space for intergenerational learning of ancestral knowledges: a connection between youth and Elders. Second, to provide with a transformative and reconciliatory experience for the youth and the mentors involved.

The youth are inspired to define their future education and cultural path. Non-Indigenous mentors increase awareness, learn how to best support Indigenous students, and build relations with Indigenous peoples ‘in a good way.’ Indigenous mentors have the opportunity to listen and learn from the youth and share their own experience in the unique context of this program. Ultimately, youth gain confidence, become role models in their own communities, and hopefully see themselves represented in environmental – and community-building work.

Bringing about a systematic change to academic institutions and professional practice requires deep and sustained commitment of human and financial resources. As an educator and administrator, I have the privilege and responsibility to engage in reconciliation, walking side by side with my Indigenous colleagues, together. I invite each of my students, academic peers, and professional colleagues to ask of themselves ‘what Calls to Action can I respond to?’

I WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE NIKIBII DAWADINNA GIIGWAG’S CO-CREATORS ELDER WHABAGOON, SHEILA BOUDREAU AND LUCIA PICCINNI, AND EXTEND MY GRATITUDE FOR THE YOUTH AND ALL THE INDIVIDUAL MENTORS, FIRMS, AND INSTITUTIONS WHO PARTICIPATE AND SUPPORT THIS RECONCILIATION WORK. TEXT BY LIAT MARGOLIS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, AND DIRECTOR OF THE MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM.

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Up Front

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DE-COLONIZING

indigenization at evergreen Isaac Crosby, whose job title is Lead Hand in urban agriculture at the Evergreen Brick Works, has a big smile, a big heart, and a big question: “If the Brick Works is on Indigenous land, why did First Nations communities stop coming down here?” It’s a question that informs all of Crosby’s work at the site, in the Don Valley of Toronto.

Crosby is Black and Ojibwe from Anderdon, unceded land about half an hour south of Windsor, and he is one of 13 employees who comprise the Indigenous Inclusion Working Group (IIWG) at Evergreen. The focus of the group, which has been in place for four years, is to Indigenize the Brick Works, through policy development, programs, and leadership. “It was a rough start,” Crosby notes, with characteristic directness, “but we’re now going fullsteam ahead. We have a ways to go, but we’re doing it.”

One of the priorities of the IIWG is to develop strong and meaningful relationships with Indigenous people and organizations, and to partner with First Nations in Indigenous place-making at the Brick Works. “It’s all about sharing space and sharing power,” says Crosby, who acknowledges that, in general terms, many people at non-Indigenous organizations are afraid of this process.

“You have to let go of this fear, and you have to be willing to share,” says Crosby.

“Yes, you’ll make mistakes, but those will be opportunities to learn.” The worst that can happen, notes Crosby, is that a partnership won’t work out, in which case you can learn from that experience in your outreach to others. “Don’t give up,” he urges.

When asked about potential pitfalls, Crosby mentions tokenism, which he says has been “rampant” for a long time within many organizations and businesses. “Don’t just include Indigenous people in programs and decision-making when you need to for the funders,” he

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says. “Indigenous people and Indigenous issues should be part of everything that organizations do.”

Crosby stresses the value of spaces that are conceived of as Indigenous-led and Indigenous-programmed. At the Brick Works, for example, this includes the Thrive Garden, a “special spot,” says Crosby, where Elders gather for ceremony and where, every Sunday, the organization Ojibiikaan teaches Anishinaabemowin exclusively to First Nations toddlers and families in the morning and then opens it up to settlers and newcomers as well, in the afternoon. “There’s a special energy at the Thrive Garden,” says Crosby, who hopes that one day the area—which also includes a sweat lodge—will house an Indigenous cultural centre.

On the policy front, Crosby suggests that all organizations and businesses should engage in cultural competency training as a matter of course. “You’ll learn things you never learned in school,” he explains, about the past, present, and future. “It opens up a dialogue that should have happened a long time ago.”

One particular policy issue that has led to problems with other organizations, though not with the Brick Works, is smudging: an important cultural practice for many First Nations. Crosby recommends that

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Mound garden featuring medicine plants, Evergreen Brickworks

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Lorraine Johnson

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Teepee in Thrive Garden

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Lorraine Johnson

Up Front

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organizations and businesses develop explicit policies for the practice and also deal with practical considerations so that fire alarms aren’t triggered.

Two of the most visible ways for non-Indigenous organizations and businesses to signal their commitment to reconciliation, says Crosby, is to do land acknowledgements at all public events and to include land acknowledgements in employees’ email signatures. “It shows that you take these issues seriously,” he says, pointing to the value of staff training around land acknowledgements. “Teach people how to do it properly, how to embrace it in your soul, rather than just reading it off a piece of paper.” When you make it your own, Crosby notes, “that’s when people start to really listen to what you’re saying.”

Finally, and most significantly, Crosby stresses the importance of ensuring that Indigenous people have a voice in all organizations and businesses. “Be guided

by Indigenous people,” he advises, noting that there are no shortcuts to this process.

“First Nations must be at the table,” and that means hiring Indigenous staff and doing outreach to build meaningful relationships.

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Evergreen, for example, recently hired an Indigenous Cultural Coordinator to help guide the organization and to ensure an Indigenous voice in decision-making.

“There’s a general fear out there,” says Crosby, “that by sharing power, you’re going to lose power. But, in fact, it makes it better for your organization.”

Besides, notes Crosby, speaking of a change that is inevitable, “First Nations have always been pushed to the sidelines.

Now, no longer.”

TEXT BY LORRAINE JOHNSON, FORMER GROUND EDITOR AND AUTHOR OF BOOKS ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES.

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Wild rice growing in the Brickworks

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Lorraine Johnson

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Isaac Crosby

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Lorraine Johnson

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Canoe planter in Thrive Garden, Brickworks

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Lorraine Johnson

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Canada 2067, the largest national youth engagement about the future of STEM education for Let’s Talk Science

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Ruth Silver/Groundswell

Up Front

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13 PROCESS

the power of asking why What’s the most annoying thing you experience regularly in design work? For me, it’s getting halfway through a project before the problem we were solving is actually identified. Most of us spend a lot of time doing the work without spending time figuring out why the work needs to get done. How often can you clearly articulate what exact problem your work is solving? Do your budgets include exploring the problem space? Do your work plans identify dedicated time to reflect throughout, to ensure you continue to solve for the problem you identified?

Asking open-ended questions can help designers get more specific about the problems they’re trying to solve, build consensus amongst teams and clients, and create coherent design solutions.

So… let’s start with a question! What is a design project? A person or people (the client) decide there’s a sequence of ideas and events (the solution) that people with expertise (the design team) should propose, and then execute, to change the current status of something (the problem). If you’ve been to this rodeo before, you know clients often feel the symptoms, yet usually can’t articulate the problem.

Well, of course they can’t express the underlying causes of the problem! They’re experts about their own experiences, but not necessarily in problem-framing or design interventions. An integral part of

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design work is uncovering the underlying need not being met, and doing it in a way that creates client confidence while you take time to frame the problem.

An analogy that works really well in this situation is that of physician and patient: the physician (designer) is seeking to identify the underlying cause of the patient’s (client) symptoms. The physician asks clarifying questions that deepen their understanding of the symptom(s) and context. A designer’s diagnostic might read something like this: 1_

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What’s the problem you’re trying to solve?

To build a playground at the train station.

Young grasshopper! This isn’t a problem: it’s a solution.

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If this playground was a super success, what might that look like?

If it was well loved and busy with families for most of the day, most days.

Value-for-money is not a good way to measure success. Ask again!

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How does the lack of a playground manifest in user behavior today?

How do you know?

Without a playground, families have no place to go with their kids while they’re waiting for the train and the kids run wild.

This is a problem hypothesis. Has the client interviewed families and other passengers about their waiting experience? They should! That would be a great way to find out more and deepen their hypothesis.

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What are the outcomes of not having a playground?

There are a lot of parents reporting lost kids.

Did you notice I asked the same question twice worded differently?

Lost kids are a real problem the client is experiencing. Will a playground solve for this problem? How have they quantified the problem? Is a playground an appropriate solution for the scale of the problem? Is this problem only for families and kids?

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Why is that important?

No place to wait leads to frustrated customers on the train and unpleasant travel experiences.

Aha! After asking five consecutive open-ended questions, we’ve identified the PROBLEM and demonstrated that this problem could have a variety of solutions beyond the one the client identified.

Most people don’t feel comfortable asking this many open-ended questions consecutively, but trust me on this one. I’ve been practicing this for 12 years and have never, not even once, been denied. On the contrary, most people actually feel a sense of catharsis and gratitude when nudged to think deeper by using an easy process of answering seemingly simple questions.

The outcome? You’ll start falling in love with your clients, you’ll find out more than you ever imagined about the problem space, your team will be aligned on what it is they are solving for, and rather than “delivering on a brief,” your design solution will solve a problem.

TEXT BY RUTH SILVER, FOUNDER OF GROUNDSWELL PROJECTS, A DESIGN THINKING FIRM BASED IN TORONTO.

Leading with Landscape

How landscape architects bring delight to large urban infrastructure projects

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Leading with Landscape

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TEXT BY NETAMI STUART AND PINA MALLOZZI

Landscape architecture is a multidisciplinary field, requiring knowledge in design, horticulture, dendrology, geomorphology, architecture and ecology–to name a few. Because their formal training teaches landscape architects to be generalists, across a wide spectrum of disciplines, they can tackle projects at varying scales and levels of complexity. As a result, landscape architects bring a unique perspective to infrastructure design, and make great project leaders.

Perhaps the most famous example of this leadership is New York’s Central Park, famously designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted, regarded as a pioneer in the field, did not shy away from complexity. After winning a design competition for Central Park in 1858, Olmsted, together with landscape architect Calvert Vaux, transformed approximately 300 hectares in the downtown of a quickly expanding metropolis into its most cherished asset.

The most visited park in the world, Central Park has served as a model for urban

greenspace and, more generally, for how landscape architecture can be a catalyst for city building. In Boston, Olmsted’s plan to create a connective park system (known as the Emerald Necklace), while re-routing sewage and cleaning up polluted marshland, illustrates how integrating infrastructure as a landscape into the city seamlessly can shape how people experience public space. It shows us how transformative landscape architecture can be. There continues to be much to learn from the leadership Olmsted and others brought to their craft and the value they placed on shaping spaces for human experience, regardless of the inherent function.

Leading with Landscape has been one of the principles of Waterfront Toronto for over 15 years, guiding the tripartite government agency to commission landscape architects to lead the design of some of its most ambitious and innovative infrastructure projects. Here are three case studies where landscape architects have been retained by Waterfront Toronto as the prime consultant of large multidisciplinary design teams, and landscape truly leads.

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The Bentway view west towards Strachan Avenue Andrew Williamson The Bentway water feature

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Nic Lehoux

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Yoga under an expressway

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Nicole Pacampara

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The Bentway is a unique public space that transforms 1.75 kilometres underneath Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway into a new gathering place for our city’s growing population. The initial phase, designed by landscape architects at Public Work together with Ken Greenberg—from Strachan Avenue to Bathurst Street—knits together seven local neighbourhoods, with over 70,000 residents, while providing access to important attractions and destinations.

The Bentway is a member of the High Line Network, an international group of likeminded projects turning underutilized ifrastructure into public space—inspired by the transformation of the West Side Elevated Line in New York City, railway infrastructure designed to take freight trains off of busy roadways, turned into a 2.3-kilometre long greenway with both ecological and cultural richness, visited by 7.6 million people in 2015.

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Projects like the Bentway and the High Line show landscape architects have the unique ability to see industrial relics as more than infrastructure built to move more people and goods through our cities. Their interdisciplinary approach lets them use their imagination to uncover the beauty of these spaces: the juxtaposition of landscape ecology with the massive scale and utilitarian design of infrastructure creates opportunities for unique experiences, which the landscape architect is able to curate. The Bentway, once a dirt patch spotted with spalling concrete “bents” from the highway above, is now home to a liquid landscape, an events dock, an ice skating trail and a splash zone: all beneath the cathedral-like space created by the highway. This simple landscape creates a canvas for cultural and arts programming and provides much needed public space in a growing city.

Leading with Landscape

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Queens Quay, which runs east-west parallel to the lakefront, is the waterfront’s main street. It spans more than three kilometres from Bathurst Street to Parliament Street in the central waterfront.

It has been transformed into one of the world’s first complete streets.

Plans for Queens Quay were developed after an international design competition which selected a team led by West 8 and DTAH, landscape architects. The brief: ensure the central waterfront becomes a destination and not just the uninviting traffic corridor it has historically been.

Now, this world-class street links major destinations along the water’s edge, creates pedestrian- and cycling-friendly promenades, and encourages an economically vibrant area that serves as a destination for locals and visitors alike. This once-auto focused environment with little space for pedestrians and no dedicated space for cyclists now provides a generous public promenade along the shores of

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Lake Ontario, a dedicated bi-directional cycling path, and high order light rail transit, all while maintaining auto access to properties along its length and connections north to the broader road network.

While largely a transit and transportation project, the landscape architects led the design team with a strong vision for the street—this acted throughout the design process as the mediator for complex technical issues. The public realm vision, simple in nature, guided decision-making related to utility design, signalization, grading, stormwater management, structural design, soil specifications, irrigation, and lighting. The result is that the sum of the parts is greater than each of the individual pieces. The landscape was not treated as a value-add sprinkled near the end of the design process, but rather was the core reason for doing the project.

Queens Quay before revitalization Waterfront Toronto Queens Quay after revitalization

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Waterfront Toronto

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Queens Quay and Simcoe WaveDeck

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Waterfront Toronto

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Point Bar on the new Don River Waterfront Toronto, rendering by MVVA Canoe Cove in South Promontory Park Waterfront Toronto, rendering by MVVA

Looking to the future, the Port Lands Flood Protection project is a 41-hectare infrastructure project which will naturalize and extend the mouth of the Lower Don River into Toronto’s Port Lands. Once complete, this $1.25-billion project will unlock nearly 290 hectares (715 acres) of land currently within the flood plain for future city growth. This project will have a significant influence on the City of Toronto, both in terms of creating crucial infrastructure, and as a catalyst for visionary city building.

In addition to providing much needed flood protection, it will create 37 hectares of new publicly accessible greenspace, including a network of new public parks along the banks of the new river, and a series of connected aquatic, wetland, and terrestrial habitats.

The route of the river will carve a new island—Villiers Island—that will evolve into a highly sustainable mixed-use community with four distinct water’s edges.

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The Port Lands Flood Protection project is being designed by a team led by Michael Van Valkenburgh and Associates which consists of hundreds of people from various disciplines, ranging from water resources, structural, ecological, civil and marine engineering to wayfinding, play, and lighting design. Each team member plays a specific and important role. This team is being led by a landscape architecture firm with an inspiring vision that drives the whole team towards excellence. As generalists, the project leads landscape architects are able to understand and decode the complexity of this multi-disciplinary challenge. Success for a project like this will be characterized by the creation of a seamless experience, through a series of unique ecosystems and highly engineered landscape typologies. Once the project is established, the line between the flood plain and the parks should be invisible to visitors, and the heavily-designed infrastructure built to protect hundreds of hectares from flooding should be almost indiscernible from the public space.

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Master Plan, to be completed in 2024

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Picnic Peninsula overlooking the new River Valley

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Master plan, to be completed in 2024

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Waterfront Toronto, rendering by MVVA

Waterfront Toronto, rendering by MVVA

Waterfront Toronto, rendering by MVVA

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In each of these projects, the landscape architect had a strong and holistic vision; the technical capacity to lead the complex process of city building; and the ability to guide decision-making throughout design and construction. These capacities allowed the leads to deliver major projects that were not just traditional parks, but also streetscapes, infrastructure and urban renewal projects.

However, it is the landscape architect’s aspiration to create delight within our cities that truly separates them from their peers.

The first principle articulated in the New York City High Performance Landscape Guidelines is to “Engage users: create delight, in any

of its forms— seasonal beauty, discovery, aesthetic beauty, and even whimsy.”

In fast-growing cities where parks and public space are becoming an increasingly limited resource, each open space needs to work hard. Often, opportunities to create delightful experiences in the public realm are not obvious—it takes a project lead who can see how landscape can be integrated with necessary infrastructure (like roads, highways, rail or flood measures). As lead on these projects, the landscape architect’s gift is to consider how people will inhabit and enjoy a place, and to ensure that each precious new public space will be the place of endless delightful experiences.

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BIOS/ NETAMI STUART, OALA, HAS BEEN WORKING TO

REVITALIZE PARKS IN TORONTO FOR 15 YEARS.

SHE IS THE SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER AT

WATERFRONT TORONTO.

PINA MALLOZZI, BLA, MLA, IS VICE PRESIDENT, DESIGN AT WATERFRONT TORONTO, AND AN ADVOCATE FOR USER EXPERIENCE IN THE DESIGN OF PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE.

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The challenges and rewards of championing landscape MODERATED BY LE’ ANN SEELY

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2007 competition submission Toronto’s Don Mouth Park Atelier Girot, Waterfront Toronto Port Lands after Waterfront Toronto

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CAROLYN WOODLAND, OALA, FCSLA, MCIP, RPP, JOINED THE TORONTO AND REGION CONSERVATION AUTHORITY (TRCA) IN 2002. AS THE FORMER SENIOR DIRECTOR, PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT AT TRCA, SHE DIRECTED THE ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, POLICY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FUNCTIONS WITHIN 18 MUNICIPALITIES IN THE JURISDICTION. AS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND URBAN PLANNER, CAROLYN’S SIGNIFICANT WORK HAS HELPED TO PROTECT ONTARIO’S FUTURE BY DEFINING POLICIES AND PLANS TO MANAGE GROWTH, PROTECT AND ENHANCE GREENSPACE, PROTECT WATERSHEDS, AND FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE. CLAIRE NELISCHER HAS A BACKGROUND IN URBAN PLANNING, PUBLIC POLICY, AND CIVIC PROCESS. SHE IS A PROJECT MANAGER WITH THE RYERSON CITY BUILDING INSTITUTE, WHERE HER WORK FOCUSES ON PLANNING AND POLICY TO SUPPORT A VIBRANT PUBLIC REALM. SHE HAS AUTHORED REPORTS ON A RANGE OF TOPICS INCLUDING STREET DESIGN, PARKS POLICY, AND PLANNING FOR CIVIC ASSETS.

SHE WAS AN URBAN FELLOW WITH THE CITY OF TORONTO, WHERE SHE CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITY’S FIRST COMPLETE STREETS GUIDELINES. SHE HOLDS A M.SC. IN CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING FROM PRATT INSTITUTE AND A BAH FROM QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY. CHRIS GLAISEK IS THE CHIEF PLANNING AND DESIGN OFFICER AT WATERFRONT TORONTO AND IS A PASSIONATE ADVOCATE FOR DESIGN EXCELLENCE IN THE PUBLIC REALM. HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING PLANNING AND DESIGN INITIATIVES AND MANAGING DETAILED DESIGN FOR WATERFRONT TORONTO PROJECTS IN THE 2,000-ACRE DESIGNATED WATERFRONT AREA. UNDER CHRIS’S STEWARDSHIP, WATERFRONT TORONTO HAS RECEIVED MORE THAN 60 NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS FOR ITS MASTER PLANS, PARKS, AND STREETSCAPE DESIGNS. NINA-MARIE LISTER IS GRADUATE PROGRAM DIRECTOR AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE SCHOOL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING. FROM 2010-2014, SHE WAS VISITING ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN. SHE IS

THE FOUNDING PRINCIPAL OF PLANDFORM, A CREATIVE STUDIO PRACTICE EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANDSCAPE, ECOLOGY, AND URBANISM. LISTER’S RESEARCH, TEACHING AND PRACTICE FOCUS ON THE CONFLUENCE OF LANDSCAPE INFRASTRUCTURE AND ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES WITHIN CONTEMPORARY METROPOLITAN REGIONS, WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON RESILIENCE AND COMPLEX, ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS DESIGN. AT RYERSON UNIVERSITY, LISTER FOUNDED AND DIRECTS THE ECOLOGICAL DESIGN LAB. EHA NAYLOR, OALA, FCLSA, IS A PARTNER AT DILLON CONSULTING AND LEADS THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN PRACTICE NATIONALLY. SHE HAS OVER 30 YEARS OF CONSULTING EXPERIENCE IN ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING AND SITE DESIGN FOR BOTH THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS, AND EARNED NUMEROUS PROFESSIONAL AWARDS. SHE IS A MEMBER OF SEVERAL PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS INCLUDING THE ONTARIO PROFESSIONAL PLANNERS INSTITUTE, AND THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS. IN 2000, SHE WAS NAMED FELLOW OF THE CANADIAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS AND RECEIVED THE ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS PINNACLE AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN 2013.

JASON THORNE LEADS THE PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT AT THE CITY OF HAMILTON. HE OVERSEES A TEAM OF 800 STAFF WORKING ACROSS MULTIPLE PORTFOLIOS INCLUDING PLANNING, BUILDING, DEVELOPMENT ENGINEERING, TRANSPORTATION PLANNING, PARKING, ARTS, CULTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. JASON’S DEPARTMENT TOUCHES ON ISSUES OF HOUSING AND AFFORDABILITY. THIS INCLUDES LEADING THE CITY’S PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT APPROVALS FUNCTION, WHICH DIRECTLY AFFECTS LAND AND HOUSING SUPPLY, AND DEVELOPING PLANNING AND FINANCIAL POLICIES TO SUPPORT AFFORDABLE HOUSING. BORN AND RAISED IN HAMILTON, HE HAS BEEN WORKING IN PLANNING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT HIS ENTIRE CAREER. HE WAS MANAGER WITH THE ONTARIO GROWTH SECRETARIAT AND DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PLANNING WITH METROLINX. LE’ ANN SEELY, OALA, IS A GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER AND PRINCIPAL AT WHITEHOUSE DESIGN GROUP INC.

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Keating Channel at the foot of the Don River before Waterfront Toronto

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Keating Channel at the foot of the Don River after

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Bead Maze at the West Harbour Go Station by artist Laura Marotta

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Waterfront Toronto

Jon Evans Rouge Park, from Keesmaat Roundtables presentation (City of Toronto) Carolyn Woodland / City of Toronto

Le’ Ann Seely: In what situations have you found landscape architects have the primary power of influence over the outcome of a project? What do you think was the main reason they had that power?

Nina-Marie Lister: This tends to happen in unusual projects, or projects that are highly integrated. They’re not strictly in the domain of the development planner, or where the landscape architect is reduced to landscape decorator. These are powerful projects of integration, across different sectors. Waterfront Toronto is certainly a place where we’ve seen landscape leading, and not just because the physical lie of the land is a landscape, but rather the development potential is a different vision of the city, where landscape is infrastructure and the infrastructural investment requires a speciality beyond the traditional approach to planning and development.

Chris Glaisek: I think part of the power of landscape architecture is bringing design thinking to a problem. When the landscape architects bring that power, it transforms how people look at possibilities, how people look at what’s in their daily life that they’ve never paid attention to before, and suddenly they’re thinking about it and interpreting it and seeing some meaning or cultural messages in it. I think landscape architects are bringing a much more conscious and premeditated way of looking at the landscape that centre different, important issues: environmentalism, ecology, systems thinking, nature, health. It’s all embedded in what landscape architects do. To me, the real power is when you unveil a really good landscape design, it changes how people perceive the world of possibilities.

Carolyn Woodland: I can see from the work I’ve been doing for the last 20 years that there’s a gap between policy, and what we think we’re doing in our policy, and the engineering technical side of regulations and

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thinking. Or if it’s a built form. Or, even if it’s ecological restoration, those can kind of crowd out the exercise of landscape architecture. Unfortunately, landscape architecture typically only dominates when it is a project or canvas that is uncluttered by other considerations. Once those other considerations come into play, I think landscape architecture quickly takes a back seat.

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standards. They don’t come together easily.

A landscape architect, and thinking about landscape, is actually quite powerful in terms of problem solving. Whether it’s an urban design scenario, a water management scenario, a restoration of a landscape—those components can be brought together and you can have some added value to it. The power is how it’s conveyed, and how you communicate it with other people. I find people struggle with communications, and a skilled landscape architect can help bridge those communications as well.

Jason Thorne: To me, "power" suggests the ability to do unilateral decision making. And I’m not sure any discipline should be in the position of being able to exercise power in unilateral decision making. When I heard "power" I kind of took it as creative control.

So when does a landscape architect largely have creative control over an outcome. I would say, in my experience, unfortunately, the answer is not often and probably not as often as should be the case. Where I have seen it in my experience, it tends to be in situations where there’s not other considerations that are crowding out that exercise of creativity. Generally, it’s public sector-driven projects. If there’s competing demands on space from your traffic engineers then that becomes the dominant paradigm that’s going to drive your design

Claire Nelischer: I think there is a growing recognition of the importance of our public spaces and landscapes, and a growing recognition of those places as landscapes themselves and not just leftover spaces between buildings. That’s a really powerful concept, and I’m not sure how that translates into the decision making power of landscape architects, or how they engage with other professions and collaborative projects. But as a way of thinking about how landscapes and how the work of landscape architects fit into the broader city building endeavour, understanding how landscapes themselves are becoming more and more important to people and are recognized as such demonstrates the increasing power that we’re affording to this practice and to these concepts and how they might influence the cities we live in.

N-ML: We are sitting on the edge of the Anthropocene at a time when there are more people living in cities than ever before in history. Our cities are growing faster than ever. So, it stands to reason that on the climate crisis moment, and the biodiversity crash around us, the urban landscape will be the only landscape our children will ever know. That’s a really powerful thing to think about. It gives a huge weight of responsibility and opening for landscape architecture to make and remake those landscapes. As we have less of what we recognize today as a naturalized landscape, it becomes more important. I think we are very well poised and perhaps burdened by the urgency and the moment to take advantage of investment in landscape as infrastructure.

JT: I think, increasingly in the future, we’re going to have less ability to rely on the private realm to satisfy certain needs: the backyard, the larger homes. As people live in smaller and smaller footprints, the public

realm becomes that much more important.

Peoples backyards are going to be the public realm. That puts a lot of responsibility on landscape architects to design in such a way that you’re meeting the needs of a whole lot of different people who need that space for various different reasons.

CG: We have this huge outdoor deficit in our society. I heard a statistic that the average child now spends seven minutes outside each day and seven hours on the screen.

If that’s true, landscape needs to be more; it actually needs to find a way to draw those people back out into the landscape.

Landscape architects really have to find a way to capture people’s imaginations and get them to want to come back outside. It’s a tough job to compete with screens and a virtual world on our phones. They’re shown to be addictive, and I’m not sure if nature has been shown to be as addictive as screens are. Maybe we need to think about how we approach it and how we talk about it in a way that gets people wanting to participate in it. And I think it’s going to be the landscape architects who will figure this out.

N-ML: The statistics are overwhelming. Yet we, as a human species require nature. It’s biophilia: this idea that nature, or the living landscape, designed or otherwise, is in our genes. It’s in our blood and we need it.

This means the real agency of landscape architects is to capture people’s imaginations. This idea that we have the capacity to show and to give sensation and realization and legitimacy to those landscapes is absolutely paramount. We know that living landscapes are essential for physical wellness, for mental health and wellbeing.

Eha Naylor: These landscapes are being asked to do a lot by a lot more people, and we’re using a framework for protecting them which I think is outdated. Here we have climate change: it needs to be the vessel for resiliency. We have issues related to people’s wellness, living in intensified areas, and these are places that we need to be able to seek refuge in. We’re protecting them with very archaic tools, and we’re not acknowledging, yet, how instrumental they are to survival in urban environments.

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2007 competition winning entry, Portlands Estuary

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Gore Park, Hamilton

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Waterfront Toronto, rendering by MVVA

Francis Fougere Street design featured in the City Building Institute’s 2018 report, Toronto’s Great Streets Claire Nelischer for the Ryerson City Building Institute

CW: There’s a big role for professionals in selling how important it is to the politicians who, in a lot of cases, if you look at where growth is coming, don’t understand the importance of nature, because we’re so pressed right now to develop every inch.

We need to build the argument of how that value is there. When you look at who’s out there in municipalities, landscape architects are working in these areas, but they haven’t got the power to be strong in those situations. We can’t just keep telling each other that it’s important. You have to get out there.

N-ML: Good design can successfully solve a number of different challenges. Which is why, when you lead with landscape architecture in a large public project, you are able to satisfy multiple objectives. Waterfront Toronto is an excellent example where, not so long ago, the Portlands were the city’s back porch where you threw the junk. And now it’s once again returned, metaphorically and physically, to look at the water, through good design, to make accessible the city’s front porch. That only works if it’s tied in, up the ravines to the headwaters, to those great protected areas. And it is, in that sense, intended to be a functioning, well designed system. But if you fragment it and break it into smaller development

parcels, without an eye to the value of the whole landscape system, all that effort, investment, and good design on waterfront doesn’t mean much.

CG: Getting ecology, flood protection, and urbanism to all co-exist was a challenge for all the disciplines involved. I think landscape architects bring a convergent thinking to problem solving as opposed to divergent thinking. In the case of the Don River, one of the main factors was putting the landscape architect at the top of the pyramid, which is not conventional and was a fairly controversial move, and I had to fight pretty hard to convince people it was a good thing to do. But when they’re in the driver’s seat with the engineers and hydrologists and all those others, that leads you to those convergent solutions.

Having the conviction to put them at the top and treat them the way you would treat an architect. No one would ever hire an engineer and say ‘design the structural system for my building first and then I’ll bring the architect in to design the building.’ Everything would turn out wrong. But that’s exactly how we design landscapes, typically. You bring the civil engineer in and then the landscape architect comes in at the end and you’ve got the cart before the horse. So inverting that, I think is the right way to go. But it’s a very difficult sell.

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LS: In what situations have you found landscape architects have not had the primary power of influence on the outcome of a project, despite the scope of work falling within what is performed by landscape architects elsewhere? Why do you think these situations occur and how do we fix it?

N-ML: A lot of these issues of influence come down to procurement, particularly through public realm projects. Or that may be a symptom. The real cause may also be that you have decision makers in charge who don’t understand the role of landscape architects. It’s not visible to them.

They only hear the first word, landscape, which they interpret as ‘bring in the landscapers and they’ll put some shrubs.’ I hear that many times from my colleagues: that they’re asked to add the nature band-aid after the development is done.

CN: I think that’s a challenge in a lot of the design disciplines: when a design is done well, you don’t see the labor behind it. That leads to people discounting the necessity of that work from the outset. That’s a huge problem in street design, which is something I’m particularly interested in. When everything is working well and it’s engineered within an inch of its life, then you as a user of that street do not see all of the detail that goes into that work.

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JT: Street design’s a great example. Why aren’t more landscape architects project managers on street design? Typically, far too often, the outputs that are valued most are, first we’ve got to have our parking, and our traffic flow, bike lanes, wayfinding components, and then storm controls. Then, finally, the landscape architect can plant some bushes in the spaces left over. Each of these things have staunch advocates arguing for them. There’s not a strong advocate for getting the landscape right.

EN: The challenge is to be able to be articulate, intelligent, and experienced enough to make the case that we should leading these exercises. Or at the very least, be at the table from the beginning. In my role as the Chair of the Practice Legislation Committee, we do butt up against engineers and architects who are regulated and look at landscape architects and say ‘well, you may have these skills, but you’re still not a regulated profession.’ To be recognized as having skills and experience that is equivalent to architects and engineers—we have to advocate for that. That said, I don’t think there’s been a better time to be a landscape architect. With crisis comes opportunity. We have a climate change crisis, but for landscape architects it is an opportunity to actually be able to grow a voice and demonstrate our skills. And to help our communities be places that are more resilient. I think it’s a fantastic time.

CW: Decision makers need waking up.

They need to be told over and over again what, and how exciting the landscape could be, whether it’s an urban street scape or a major new park.

CG: One of the biggest risks I see to all of this opportunity is fiscal constraints. Not just in terms of capital dollars, but in terms of what people are willing to pay for design.

EN: So the problem can be solved by educating those who are setting budgets to set appropriate budgets. Those in the position of setting budgets and determining what the quality of the design is should know that you get what you pay for.

JT: Quite often what you’re faced with is ‘we can do five parks at an okay design or we can do four parks and invest heavily in design.’ Well, someone’s not getting a park if you go for the excellence in design option.

Often that’s the debate, and conversation just ends there.

N-ML: Then we shift the conversation, and look to landscape architecture to show where ecological performance and social value benefits are being accrued, and the public says, ‘wait a minute, we want that.’ That’s the conversation that needs to happen and it is part of the burden and responsibility of the profession and allies to make visible those benefits to a public who will demand them.

CW: I did educate people about that value and how important it is, and it got documented in the Living City policies, and in presentations. Over time in your career, you can do those things if you consciously move in that direction.

N-ML: Sharing the stories.

EN: You have to be loud to be heard. I think it’s time, at every level, for landscape architects to talk to those who hold the purse strings and make decisions about how beneficial the knowledge of landscape architects is to creating a better place. A more resilient place, a happier place.

THANKS TO NADJA PAUSCH FOR HELP COORDINATING THIS ROUND TABLE.

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The Power’s in the Process

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What we can learn from artist interventions in planning and design

TEXT BY SARA UDOW AND NADIA GALATI

Anyone who works in or is passionate about city-building knows that public engagement processes are often limited in who they reach. Those who participate (which itself requires time and resources) often experience ‘consultation fatigue’ and develop apathy toward the process.

Participants volunteer their time and energy, only to wait years before their feedback and ideas are implemented, if they are at all. In addition, traditional consultation processes often fail to reach diverse demographics within a community.

As planners who have worked on many park revitalizations, master plans and new developments, we have become increasingly frustrated by what we see as a limited and exclusive process.

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The Power’s in the Process

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Learning from Socially Engaged Art and Artist-Run Centres Socially engaged art is a medium that engages people in social discourse and/ or change through collaboration with individuals, communities and institutions in the creation of art. Recognizing that planning and design can learn a lot from socially engaged art practices, we partnered with artist-educator Jennie Suddick to create “Crazy Dames.” The name is an ode to Jane Jacobs, the seminal urban theorist, who was often dismissed as a ‘crazy dame’ by male counterparts. We use the artist’s studio as an experimental space to test Jacobs’ ‘crazy’ ideas: her focus on people and fostering tactical and collaborative approaches to our cities.

Over the past few years, Crazy Dames has worked with Artist Run Centres (ARCs) and galleries across Canada as socially-engaged artists. ARCs were established in Canada as galleries and art-spaces initiated and managed by artists. Increasingly, ARCs are involving their artists and gallery visitors in conversations about city-building, often through socially-engaged art practices.

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Working with ARCs, we’ve recognized some key lessons that city-builders can learn from ARCs about power-sharing.

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Second, ARCs are dedicated to partnership development. While they have an established community of artists and visitors, ARCs are always interested in exploring new communities to partner with.

Third, ARCs welcome opportunities to create. Instead of solely collecting ideas and feedback through engagement, there is an openness to co-design and create projects illustrating how input can be turned into action.

Courtesy of Process

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Collecting Ideas

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Building a gathering space in Horseshoe Bay

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Collecting Ideas

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First, ARCs open their doors to experimentation and diverse forms of arts-based engagement. There is not one linear process, but instead, extensive research (stakeholder mapping), flexibility, and shared creativity to find the most appropriate (and interesting) ways to engage.

Dene Nahjo led Urban Hide Tanning Discussion

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Courtesy of Process

Courtesy of Process

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Young city-builder

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Courtesy of Process Placemaking in Victoria, BC Courtesy of Process

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Examples of Crazy Dames’ socially engaged art practice work with Canadian Artist Run Centres Building Together, Yellowknife Artist Run Community Centre (YARCC), Yellowknife, Northwest Territories In Fall 2017, Crazy Dames worked with the YARCC on a city-wide public engagement initiative called Building Together, where we took over a vacant mall space to codesign an art installation.

In Building Together, we worked closely with YARCC to engage a diverse group of community members and school groups in a series of arts-based workshops. As outsiders to Yellowknife, we wanted to open up the space to local community groups and artists to run their own workshops. This included an incredible workshop by artist and Dene Nahjo founding member Melaw Nakehk’o, who shared Dene Nahjo’s 2017 urban hide tanning camp and led a discussion on Indigenous cultural resurgence in the context of reconciliation in Canada. Lastly, 05

we invited planners, councillors, and MPPs to join local artists and active community members in reimagining public spaces in a creative placemaking workshop.

From the beginning, we were open about where the process would take it.

After the engagement workshops, we decided, alongside the YARCC, to present recommendations we gleaned from our workshops to city council. This included a recommendation for a community arts centre. In 2019, the YARCC developed a mobile art gallery as a temporary response.

Imagining Collective Culture, Arts Assembly, West Vancouver, BC In 2017, Crazy Dames worked with Arts Assembly to develop a communitydesigned gathering space in Horseshoe Bay that would act as a site for community engagement and user research. We facilitated an initial workshop in the park itself, to learn about what types of community gathering spaces attendees and passers-by would want there.

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Participants recommended having a picnic table with benches, shade, a vertical garden, and a busking stage, to name a few. We then worked with community members to develop the gathering space using waterproof fabric, shipping palettes, and other recycled materials.

Over the course of five days, we brought food, music, and art to the space. We had conversations with people about their experiences, needs and priorities in the park, all of which we documented.

This simple community-driven pilot project illustrates to community members that their involvement in a process can easily be integrated into design, showcasing that their input is meaningful and powerful.

Creative Placemaking Workshop, Open Space Art Gallery, Victoria, BC We were invited to Victoria, B.C. by Open Space Art Gallery (Open Space), to lead creative placemaking workshops. Before we arrived, there was a controversial park revitalization project that was held up due to the municipality’s oversight in consulting

with some of the main park-users: street-involved people who would set up camp every night in the park. The new designs for the park included a children’s playground, which in Victoria means street-involved people could not camp there anymore. Many anti-poverty activists protested the park redesign, which then failed to pass at council.

Open Space reached out to Our Place Society, a nonprofit organization assisting those faced with homelessness, poverty, addiction, and mental health challenges in Greater Victoria. A workshop was planned with street-involved folks to talk about the park and other issues within the city.

Crazy Dames invited City of Victoria urban design, city planning, and parks staff.

By working collaboratively, there was an opportunity for City staff to learn concerns from a group of people rarely consulted. The street-involved participants who attended were able to share, felt heard, and learned from City staff about staff goals and ideas—much of which

focused on eradicating homelessness.

We provided recommendations to City Council and the Parks Planning division, which included the desire for more public washrooms, longer benches, and storage.

Next steps for planning and design Working with ARCs, we’ve learned how successful nonlinear, creative and inclusive projects can be. When engagements are rooted in experimentation, partnerships, and prototyping, there are opportunities to reach diverse demographics, resolve consultation fatigue, and (importantly) share power and ownership of projects and public spaces. As municipalities, designers, and planners are re-examining how and who to engage, we should turn to socially engaged art practices and ARCs for key lessons.

BIOS/ SARA UDOW AND NADIA GALATI ARE MEMBERS

OF PROCESS, A TEAM OF URBAN PLANNERS,

DESIGNERS AND ARTISTS. THROUGH

COLLABORATIONS AND CREATIVE PROCESSES,

THEIR WORK AIMS TO TRANSFORM HOW WE

PLAN, DESIGN AND EXPERIENCE PLACES AND

COMMUNITIES. WE PROVIDE STAKEHOLDER

ENGAGEMENT, URBAN PLANNING, CULTURAL

PLANNING AND PUBLIC ART SERVICES.

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TEXT BY JOAQUIN SEVILLANO AND NATALIE SCHIABEL

Empowering Children to Lead Sustainably

The concept of empowerment stands at the forefront of Children’s Lands, a Peruvian-born program where plots of land are reserved for the stewardship of children. The interview below was conducted, through email, with the founder of Children’s Lands, Joaquin Leguia (JL), and the President of Children’s Lands Canada, Jackie Ryan (JR). Written

by Joaquin Sevillano (JS) and Natalie Schiabel (NS),

families and other people, and nature. In places where there is no access to land, children can plant pots with minimum three plants (one plant for them, for others, and for nature).

JS + NS: Can you explain what Children’s Lands is and why you think it’s important in today’s world?

JS + NS: What long term impact do you believe Children’s Lands, or more broadly speaking does children fostering a relationship with the Earth, have on society as a whole?

JL: The Children’s Land initiative reconnects young people to the natural environment. It instills in them an understanding of how and why we should protect, nurture and restore natural ecosystems and promote sustainability in our changing world. Children’s Lands is an area of land given to children by adults, where they can learn how to collect seeds, propagate and plant useful native and multipurpose plants. Through handson practice and teamwork, creating a Children’s Lands instills a value in nature that they can apply to the wider world. In the program, children implement actions which will benefit themselves, their

It can be implemented by a child from any socioeconomic or cultural background, in an urban or rural area, in the home, at school, in the neighbourhood or the community, and in valuable ecosystems.

JL: There is increasing evidence that children who grow up in regular and positive contact with nature, compared to those who do not, develop more empathy and skills in favour of life, and as adults will take more care of the Earth. That is why it is absolutely essential that nature is present in the lives of children and that they are emotionally linked with it.

It will allow more empathic citizens and entrepreneurs to build a more peaceful, inclusive, prosperous and environmentally sustainable world.

Children’s Lands

JS + NS: The philosophy of Children’s Lands flips traditional power structures upside down by giving children the authority over the design and planning process. Do you see this philosophy extending beyond Children’s Lands and influencing other sectors of society, such as how people in positions of power lead and how cities are planned and designed?

JL: Francesco Tonucci has been promoting “the city of children” for several years. In their proposal, the opinion of girls and boys are considered in the process of designing cities. His philosophy, which I share 100%, is that if a city is friendly to children, it is friendly to all. Personally, I consider it a mistake to always talk about children in terms of the future, rather than of the present. The Quechua consider that in the western urban culture we consider the child as an incomplete adult, instead of treating them as complete human beings with valuable abilities that are fundamental to creating a better world filled with joy, affection, playfulness, sense of humor, and vulnerability, who use these qualities as opportunities to generate empathy, join together, and compliment each other. If cities would have these five characteristics immersed in their design, I do not doubt that we would live better in them. Planners could begin by including girls and boys in the decision-making process related to green areas, natural areas, domestic and wild animal treatment and the environment in general.

JS + NS: What are your hopes for the Children’s Lands in the future?

JL: My wish is that the Children’s Lands initiative inspires and serves as a reference for Mother Earth to be included in all the educational institutions of the world, as the teacher in empathy and development of skills in favour of life and nature, as well as valuing the ancestral worldview of the native peoples of each country and region.

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JS + NS: Can you explain what happens at Children’s Lands, as well as what the children do?

JR: Since the beginning of the program, children have been responsible for the creation of a 12,000-tree forest, a one acre wetland, an interconnected trail system that spans several kilometres, a mini fruit orchard, a children’s garden area, several living lodges (grape arbour, sunflower house, bean tipi), a wildflower meadow, a fairy tree, a birch tree circle, a bug hotel, a bug trail, a climbing stump circle, rope swings and much more. They also met with Ministry representatives and worked with them to develop their official ten year plan for the land.

JS + NS: Can you please explain how Children’s Lands Canada came to be and how it’s evolved since opening?

JR: I met Joaquin almost twenty years ago and learned about Children’s Lands through him. I immediately fell in love with the Children’s Lands philosophy and wanted to bring it to Canada. I travelled to Peru and had the honour of being trained by the children in Peru who had been running the program for almost two decades. When I returned home, we were given forty-six acres of land in Brantford, Ontario, to create the first Children’s Lands in Canada. It was an area of land that had been used for decades in mono-crop agriculture. The soil was depleted and lifeless. I remember standing in the middle of the field and noticing how eerily quiet it was. Today, the biodiversity that has returned to the land is incredible.

JS + NS: What transformations do you see in the children that participate? Do these transformations affect the surrounding community in any way?

JR: The impact on the community is profound.

One little girl wanted to plant trees so that

the deer had a place to hide from the coyotes. The Grand River Conservation Authority and Trees Ontario learned of this young girl’s hope, and supported her wish for a forest. They donated and helped to plant 6,500 trees. The children spent that summer caring for their trees and, by the end of the season, their forest had an 87% survival rate, which far surpassed what the GRCA thought possible (given the conditions of the land). So the GRCA gave the children another 5,500 trees the following year. Another young boy wanted to create a “water garden.” He did research, and designed a small pond. Ducks Unlimited learned of his wish and came out to see what the children were creating. They were inspired, and sponsored the creation of a one-acre wetland on the site. We’ve had bus tours of educators come out to the land and they donated the resource library for the wetland. The community enjoys seeing the children on the land and seem eager to support the projects that the children are creating. The transformation that I see in the children is incredible. We have a lot of school groups and summer camps that come out here for the day. They come not knowing what to expect (and many of them share afterwards that they were not looking forward to spending an entire day outside), and leave asking to come back again. The teachers are always excited to return and the children leave saying it was “the best day ever!”

JS + NS: How can people get involved at Children’s Lands in Brantford?

JR: “For more information on Children’s Lands, contact Jackie at plantseedsofhope@gmail.com or visit childrenslands.ca” BIOS/ JOAQUIN SEVILLANO, IS A GRADUATE OF

GUELPH’S BLA PROGRAM AND COMBINES

HIS LOVE OF ART AND DESIGN INTO HIS

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE.

NATALIE SCHIABEL IS A GRATUATE OF U OF T’S MLA PROGRAM, AND INCORPORATES HER BACKGROUND IN FINE ART AND LOVE OF TRAVEL INTO ALL THAT SHE DOES.

Children’s Lands

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02

04 02/

Learning how to plant vegetables

03/

Child’s watercolour map of trail system

04/

Learning how to tend to the crops

IMAGE/

IMAGE/

IMAGE/

03

Courtesy of Children’s Lands

Courtesy of Children’s Lands

Courtesy of Children’s Lands

Professional Practice

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02 02/

April 2017 OALA Queen’s Park Day Reception; Former Premier Kathleen Wynne, MPP (Lib - Don Valley West) speaks with OALA members Don Naylor, Virginia Burt and Executive Director Aina Budrevics.

IMAGE/

Courtesy of the OALA

01 01/

June 10, 2019 CSLA takes Parliament Hill; Marco Mendicino, MP (Liberal - Eglinton – Lawrence), Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure (centre) attended a meeting with OALA member and CSLA President Glenn O’Connor (right) and CSLA Executive Director Michelle Legault (left).

IMAGE/

Courtesy of the OALA

03/

March 19, 2019 OALA Visit to Queen’s Park; OALA President, Jane Welsh (third from left) and Vice President, Kendall Flower (right), along with an OALA delegation, met with NDP MPPs Sol Mamakwa (Kiiwetinoong) (top left) and Wayne Gates (Niagara Falls) (top centre).

IMAGE/

Courtesy of the OALA

04/

June 10, 2019 CSLA takes Parliament Hill Day; OALA member and CSLA President Glenn O’Connor (left) met with his own MP, James Maloney (Liberal - Etobicoke – Lakeshore) (right).

IMAGE/

Courtesy of the OALA

Professional Practice

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04

TEXT BY GLENN A. O’CONNOR

In 2012, when I was the OALA President, Council endorsed me asking highly respected member Eha Naylor to assemble and chair a committee of OALA members to pursue a provincial legislation to regulate the practice of landscape architecture. (Eha accepted the challenge and we are all extremely grateful she is still the Chair of the PLC today).

Up to this point in time, OALA Council and senior practitioners had discussed the concept and pursuit of a Practice Act on many occasions. OALA Council agreed it was time to begin the process of preparing background papers and supporting documents that would be required for the future. As the process unfolded over the subsequent seven years, the list of government requirements and background supporting documents grew.

03

Professional Practice

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The Practice Legislation Committee (PLC) grew in size and diversity, engaging additional members to fulfill specific required tasks to address issues as they arose.

In the winter of 2017, the PLC provided input to the new OALA Strategic Plan (a 3-year roadmap for the association). The pursuit of a Province of Ontario Landscape Architecture (LA) Practice Act was one of the main goals.

The multi-facetted strategy involves:

05

Apprising legislators, policy makers (municipal and provincial), allied professionals and the public on the value of an updated legislation towards a LA practice act in Ontario. The OALA Strategic Plan (with specific actions/timing) provides direction to guide PLC activities and is our framework, moving forward.

In March 2018, prior to the June Ontario election, a meeting was held with Ministry of the Attorney General office to review provincial requirements and next steps. The OALA was advised to further address the ‘risk of harm’ to the public—to undertake a review and update of our current OALA Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

OALA legal counsel identified specifics of enhanced Code of Conduct regulations as part of our due diligence, and as suggested by the A.G. office.

To address the government and Attorney General’s questions, two additional subcommittees were formed. These subcommittees are The Risk of Harm SubCommittee and The OALA Code of Ethics and Standards for Professional Practice Sub-Committee. Currently, these sub-committees are nearing the end of their mandate, which will create integral components to support our Practice Act pursuit. Following the June 2018 Provincial election, the OALA executed a two-pronged approach:

30

One—meet with many of the newly elected MPPs and Ministers to bring visibility to landscape architects.

Two—update the Risk of Harm document, based on feedback from the former Attorney General’s office.

OALA also sought to increase our visibility with the new Attorney General, Caroline Mulroney, and MPPs or representatives.

OALA members, together with our government relations consultant Howard Brown of Brown and Cohen Communications and Public Affairs, have been regularly and actively connecting with sitting members and support staff of the legislature on the initiative. OALA shares monthly updates, specifically through the OALA Practice Legislation Progress Post newsletter, which demonstrates the incredible effort of so many volunteers. Over the past number of years, the OALA has learned many lessons and made valuable progress on the Practice Act, as well as raising the profile of the profession.

What have we learned so far?

Repeated lobbying and meetings build support, but it takes time to achieve our goals. We also have to keep in mind that government priorities change. The OALA (and landscape architects in general) have a compelling story to tell, and we can use that story to build up the profile of the profession.

The Big Picture - How is this going?

Our volunteer members have been steadily raising the profile of OALA and the profession through numerous meetings, discussions, events, communications/ publications, and sharing news of members’ awards and successes. All of which is increasing the municipal and provincial profile for members.

Professional Practice

06

At a national level, the CSLA is building upon the success of the OALA and the many lessons learned with the PLC. In May 2019, at the CSLA Board of directors meeting held in Vancouver, I proposed a campaign to raise the profile of the profession in Canada called the L.A.W. Campaign (Land, Air, Water).

A 60-day pilot project was approved by the Board, which commenced in May 2019, and which we hope will be the start of a multi-year strategy. To help achieve this goal, we retained Brown and Cohen Communications and Public Affairs. They organized meetings with CSLA members and MPs (targeted elected officials) in Ottawa on June 10th and 11th, 2019, while Parliament was still sitting until June 21.

Brown and Cohen arranged meetings with key MPs from across Canada. During these meetings, CSLA had the opportunity to test positioning and messaging with the MPs. The CSLA have developed excellent papers on climate change and adaptation, as well as reconciliation. As stewards of the land, our profession is ideally suited to help MPs with a clear position as we approach the fall 2019 Federal election.

Following these meetings, CSLA developed branding and consistent messaging for a social media campaign. Using consistent messaging, CSLA reached out to MPs and senior government officials during the summer and fall of 2019, contacting key MPs and Ministers.

05/

March 11, 2019 OALA members Sheila Boudreau and Bryce Miranda meet with Sara Singh, MPP (NDP - Brampton Centre).

06/

April 2017 OALA Queen’s Park Day Reception; OALA members with Gilles Bisson, MPP (NDP – Timmins) (third from left).

IMAGE/

IMAGE/

Courtesy of the OALA

Courtesy of the OALA

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This was an excellent opportunity to reach out and directly engage our members, with a specific focus, and a challenge for students, associates and younger members who are all social media experts and well connected. The campaign, with targeted messages, was prepared for CSLA members’ use, and is an excellent opportunity to directly engage members, MPs, and even MPPs.

To further demonstrate the power to influence policy, let’s look at a specific example of a success story. OALA Government Relations Consultant Howard Brown has worked on public policy initiatives for several decades and has helped to significantly influence public policy.

“It is amazing how a simple idea can come to fruition and change lives,” said Brown.

“It took us years to get it done but it made a huge difference in people’s lives!”

Two pieces of legislation that Brown helped initiate were the Canada Education Savings Grant in 1998 and the Canada Learning Bond in 2006.

Working with the Registered Education Savings Plan Dealers Association of Canada (RESPDAC), the changes grew parental savings for post-secondary education in Canada ten-fold over a ten-year period.

Savings went from $2 billion to $20 billion from 1998.

It made Canada, as of 2018, the most educated country in the world, with the highest percentage of post-secondary grads of any country on planet.

This is an excellent example of how an idea can be transformed into a major policy change that can positively influence the lives of many for years to come. In this case, the influence was felt nationally.

As landscape architects and members of the public, we do have the power to influence Public Policy changes, but they don’t happen overnight.

BIO/ GLENN A. O’CONNOR, OALA, FCSLA, IS A MEMBER

OF THE PLC, PRESIDENT OF THE CSLA AND IS A

PAST OALA PRESIDENT.

Notes

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Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

01

02

floating museum Despite its reputation for being underused, from June to October, Ontario Place was the site of Myseum and Duke Redbird’s “Wigwam Chi-Chemung.” Part art installation, part Indigenous learning centre, the pop-up museum housed by a 40-foot long pontoon houseboat, docked at the iconic provincial site, and with public hours where people engaged with, and learned from Indigenous elders.

For more information, visit: myseumoftoronto.com/exhibition/ wigwam/

03 01/

IMAGE/

A performance on the waterfront Elijah Nichols

02/

Elder Dr. Duke Redbird

03/

Floating museum

IMAGE/

IMAGE/

Elijah Nichols

Elijah Nichols

Notes

04

in memoriam Barry Hughes The OALA is saddened to announce the passing of Barry H. Hughes on February 9, 2019. Barry had been a full member of the OALA since September 1985. The Association was notified on August 6, 2019.

Barry began his journey in the landscape profession as a graduate of the Horticulture program at Niagara College School of Horticulture and fondly reminisced about his opportunities to practice what he learned at the greenhouses and gardens of Rideau Hall and at the City of Brockville where he supervised the greenhouses, floricultural design, and tree planting programs.

In 1981 Barry was hired by the newly formed City of Kanata, where for five years he supervised the growth of the parks system that formed the backbone of the community design that Kanata became nationally recognized for as a model of good urban design.

From 1986 to 1991, Barry took on the challenging position of Director of Parks for the Town of Markham, a fast growing community, where during his time, over 25 parks were designed and constructed while still responsible for overseeing the maintenance of 130 parks, three Heritage district main streets and a significant open space river corridor system which included the Don and Rouge River Valleys. Barry

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took pride in Markham’s greenhouses and participation in Communities in Bloom and enjoyed his part in creating beautiful parks, communities and historic main streets. When asked what accomplishment he was most proud of during his time at Markham he would speak about the Milne Dam Conservation Park, a 123 hectare park where Barry, as Director of Parks, collaborated with the local resident volunteers and the Conservation Authority to enhance the cold water fishery streams that were discovered in the park and which later were instrumental in helping to identify the uniqueness of the Rouge River in this area and eventually lead to its protection as the Rouge River Park system, which recently became a National Park.

In 1991 Barry and his wife Maureen moved their family back to rural Ottawa. Barry’s love of parks lead him to his next position as the Manager of Parks and Recreation and Planning for the St. Lawrence Parks Commission where he was responsible for planning development and operations for 12 provincial parks, a marina, a golf course, a bird migration sanctuary, the Thousand Island Parkway, and 4,000 hectares of provincial parkland.

Throughout his career Barry was generous with sharing his experience and knowledge and was an advisor to many organizations like the Ontario Shade Tree Council, Seneca and Fleming Colleges; mentoring students in Bridge to Work programs while also speaking at many conferences and to Horticultural Societies.

Barry was proud to be a member of the OALA, CSLA, and the Canadian and Ontario Parks Associations.

Barry passed away on February 9, 2019 from a rare form of Parkinson’s Disease called Multiple System Atrophy. Barry and Maureen’s children Arthur, Matthew and Bronwyn will miss the gentle guidance of their father, but have been inspired by their father and mother’s love of the outdoors and nature to pursue careers that allow them to carry on with the stewardship of nature that their father so valued.

new members The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects is proud to recognize and welcome the following new members to the Association: Gregory Baskin

Michelle Peeters

Eric Conway

Steven Saldanha *

Hillary Eppel

Jennifer Sisson

Kyle Foch

Nathan Torenvliet

Anna Ingebrigtsen *

Josephine Vaughn

Leah Lanteigne *

Xiaoming Liu *

Stephanie Wilson

(ne Lazarz)

Stephanie Payne *

Asterisk (*) denotes Full Members without the use of professional seal.

licensing The Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB) has helped found the Alliance for Responsible Professional Licensing (ARPL).

The goal is to continue to educate lawmakers about the need to maintain licensing standards in the landscape architect profession, in the face of what CLARB Senior Director of Strategy Veronica Meadows sees as “broad calls to reduce licensing requirements for occupations and vocations.”

You can learn more about the ARPL on their website: www.reponsiblelicensing.org

04/

IMAGE/

Barry Hughes Courtsey of OALA

Notes

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05

07

06

parks This summer saw the grand re-opening of College Park in Toronto, after nine years of construction. The park is a public square, hemmed in by tall buildings, between Bay and Yonge, College to Gerrard Street West.

The makeover was paid for by a partnership between the City, the Yonge BIA, and developers Canderel Stoneridge, for an estimated $8.2 million.

The revitalized space now includes gardens and green space, a reflecting pool, play area, and the Barbara Ann Scott Ice Trail— replacing the former skating rink.

landmarks Love it or hate it, the iconic “Toronto Sign” is here to stay.

Originally installed in front of City Hall as part of the 2015 Pan American Games, the sign quickly became a favourite selfie spot for visitors and locals alike.

While some critics argue it was not meant to be a permanent fixture, and wasn’t part of a lengthy re-imagining process for the public square, it’s largely considered a beloved addition to Nathan Phillips Square, and helps activate the space, year round.

The idea is to replace the original, temporary sign, with more permanent and durable materials. While the City will pay for the replacement with reserve funds, they are open to kindly donations.

The new Toronto Sign should be in place in time to ring in 2020.

05/

Revitalized College Park

06/

Urban frog pond

07/

Everyone’s favourite selfie sign

IMAGE/

IMAGE/

IMAGE/

Richard Rhyme, City of Toronto

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Primordia: Non-Human Collaboration Through Biosonification

01 TEXT BY ERIC KLAVER

Tosca Teran and Andrei Gravelle have been interested in collaboration with non-human organisms for several years now. Primordia, their installation for Grow Op 2019 at the Gladstone Hotel involved biosonification of a large-scale mycelium sculpture, requiring human contact to activate a powered biofeedback system that creates ethereal patterns of music.

Mycelium is the underground, non-fruiting, component of fungi. The actual fruiting component we know of as mushrooms or toad stools.

As Andrei explains, “It’s based on a galvanic response.”

unexpected! As opposed to when we did slime mould—it was just tonal clusters, it would set off a kind of ping, and then it would be silent.” The mycelium was delightfully amazing. “[It] has different notes happening so it was very melodic.”

“When we stumbled onto mycelium,” Andrei continues, “it started to produce patterns that felt intrinsically much more musical. There’s a more intrinsic sense of pattern to it because, while we mediate the biodata and how it is output to a western scale and we give it a timbral voice, all the different things we connect to still have patterns. We really hear patterns from mycelium that we don’t hear from anything else.”

“Like a lie detector,” adds Tosca.

02 01-02/

IMAGES/

Grow Op 2019 Installation Primordia Non-human collaboration through Bio-Sonification Gabby Frank and Gladstone Hotel

After “biosonifying” a number of organisms, including slime moulds, Tosca hit upon mycelium. “When I said ‘hey, let’s look at mycelium,’ and Andrei was like ‘hmmm,’ and we put electrodes on it, we set the parameters, and we had an Animoog [synthesizer] app on the iPad with whatever the default voice is on there. It was just so immediate and

“To us, it’s also interesting to use mycelium as a point of conjecture for non-human communication because it is referred to as the ‘internet of the forest,’ connecting all the roots of all the trees.”

“The wood wide web!” laughs Tosca.

BIOS/ ERIC KLAVER, OALA, IS CHAIR OF THE GROUND

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