Ground 16 – Winter 2011/2012 – Real/Artificial

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Landscape Architect Quarterly 08/

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Features A Conversation with Claude Cormier Round Table Escape to the Hyper-Real Sustaining Beauty

Publication # 40026106

Winter 2011-2012 Issue 16

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year’s experience of keeping chickens in her coop. The first change to the design involved adding insulation to keep the hens warm in Toronto’s winter weather. Indeed, one of the interesting features of May’s project is that she geared her research specifically to Toronto, creating a 40-page booklet that explores chicken-keeping issues in this particular city. For example, she compared average lot sizes to those found in other cities and explored how the typical set-backs required for coops would work in Toronto’s backyard landscapes and gardens: “Chicken-keeping is totally context specific,” says May, “yet most urban regulations try to apply universal rules to something that doesn’t have universal conditions.”

01 URBAN AGRICULTURE

backyard chickens Chicken coops have gone über-chic and up-scale. Commercial models such as The Nogg, which has made a splash in design circles for its sleek egg shape, will set you back more than $3,000. The Eglu coop, made by the pun-loving company Omelet and long favoured by urban chicken keepers for its compact, attractive design, is not as pricey but, at more than $500, is still financially out-of-reach for many.

Karen May, a recent University of Toronto Masters of Landscape Architecture graduate, has come up with an alternative that combines functional design with low cost.

For her thesis project, she set herself the 01/

Benefits of backyard chickens include pest control and soil fertility enhancement.

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Karen May

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Urban chickens confound categories: pet or farm animal, urban or rural?

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Karen May

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Karen May often participates in educational activities related to chicken-keeping.

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Karen May

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May designed and constructed a coop as her thesis project.

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Karen May

Up Front: Information on the Ground

One of the biggest barriers May encountered is that keeping chickens in Toronto is currently illegal. However, she has become an activist, working to help change Toronto’s bylaws to allow for backyard hens. She notes that people on both sides of the issue tend to feel very passionate about chickens, and speculates that “there’s something about the incongruity of a farm animal in the city” that arouses strong responses. “It’s controversial,” she admits. May herself experienced the strong emotions that chickens can evoke. “The first time I collected an egg was really momentous. In a silly way, I guess, in that it was just an egg! But so much thought and effort went into making this happen.” For the hen, of course, the event couldn’t have been more ordinary. But in a Toronto backyard, not ordinary at all.

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goal of designing a chicken coop that would work in urban backyards and could be constructed out of readily available materials for less than $150. Taking her project to its logical next step, May not only built her prototype coop but she then made the transition to urban farmer by acquiring four hens for the ultimate test of her design: “As landscape architecture students, we don’t often have opportunity to build what we design, because of the scale of our projects and the nature of the materials we use. But I could actually put my coop design into use and learn its flaws and strengths first-hand.”

Thus, along with the regular thesis review process carried out by her fellow students and professors at the University of Toronto, May also had a kind of on-the-ground thesis crit conducted by poultry. As evidenced by their daily productivity, Scruffy, Licks, Fatty Arbuckle, and Fancy all gave May’s coop the thumbs—er, wings—up.

TEXT BY LORRAINE JOHNSON, WHO HAS WRITTEN ABOUT HER EXPERIENCES OF KEEPING URBAN CHICKENS IN HER BOOK CITY FARMER: ADVENTURES IN URBAN FOOD GROWING.

May plans to make her design available for free on the Web, after making some further design refinements based on close to a 04

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05 CAREER PATHS

digital world design Andrejs Verlis is a Level Designer with Digital Extremes, a video game producer in London, Ontario. He is responsible for the conceptualization and creation of fictional 3D environments within which users can explore and play on their computer or video game console (PlayStation, X-Box, etc.). Essentially, he designs landscapes—fully conceived, three-dimensional, navigable landscapes.

Verlis was trained as a landscape architect, graduating with a BLA from Guelph in 2006.

He took his biggest step toward game design when, during his BLA, instead of an internship or studying abroad—the standard options for third-year BLA students at Guelph—he enrolled in the Game Design program at Seneca College. There, he learned to use a variety of “Game Engines,” which are purpose-built 3D modelers aimed at creating navigable environments for various types of 3D computer game play.

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Perspective rendering from a portfolio submission inspired by the fantasy game Samurfly, in which the gamer plays a samurai fly.

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Andrejs Verlis

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Introductory view of the carnival level, loosely inspired by Coney Island, in The Darkness 2.

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Courtesy 2K and Digital Extremes

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Looking into the tunnel under the boardwalk in the carnival level in The Darkness 2.

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Courtesy 2K and Digital Extremes

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A plan view of a level for a 3D action platformer for Samurfly.

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Andrejs Verlis

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A conceptual piece demonstrating spatial structure and sequence of events is combined with a concept painting and reference images for visualization purposes.

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Andrejs Verlis

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Verlis pursued his interest in game design, and has been working in the gaming industry since finishing his BLA. Digital Extremes has approximately 150 employees, and operates using a focused, project-by-project approach.

When Verlis designs his environments, he is not constrained by economic, legal, political, or even physical realities that provide the context and framework within which most landscape architects work. However, Verlis does not begin with a completely blank slate; his design context is determined by a number of game play elements that he and his team establish up front, such as player abilities, storyline, themes, and so on.

Verlis works with his colleagues to create game levels, trading off concept and massing design with others who focus on the texture or graphic elements. “Right now I am

working on ‘The Darkness 2,’” says Verlis, “which takes place in a sort of fictional New York. The levels I’m working on include a carnival level that is loosely inspired by Coney Island.” In the gaming industry, an “AAA” game (the degree of quality and detail) can take 60 to 100 people anywhere from 18 months to several years to complete, depending on the type of game.

Verlis explains that, in creating urban environments and depending on the area, he and his team must design the whole neighbourhood, detailing all sides of each building, allowing the user to explore the neighbourhood in full.

In order to create a realistic neighbourhood to this level of detail, Verlis and his team must have a certain level of understanding of architecture, landscape, and urban design. His formal training gave him this background, though at times his design

considerations must extend beyond realistic environments and into the surreal.

“In Darkness 2 you have a kind of demon paired up with you,” he says, “and being exposed to light will burn it off. So, as you are going through space, passing through light will shrivel your abilities. You need to either get away from the light or destroy the source of the illumination.”

Verlis must design his environments to create conflict, and provide areas and tools that will enable the user to resolve it: for example, creating a light, and then having a stone or gun to shoot it out, or maybe an object or wall that might create a shadow where the player can avoid it. As odd as this sort of design consideration sounds, it’s not too far off in its method or concept from the way in which a landscape architect might design a built environment to provide

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protection from the sun, wind, or rain, and considerations for safety and visibility.

Indeed, there are numerous similarities between Verlis’ design considerations and those of a landscape architect working on a more conventional project. These include things such as ensuring the space is easily navigable and clear to the user; creating elements of fun and interactivity; using colour and texture to direct or excite; using plantings to create interest, atmosphere, or barriers; and being aware of scale at all times.

When asked if he considers what he does to be landscape design, Verlis confesses that he uses a lot of what he learned during his BLA. He describes his work as being similar to that of a landscape architect in that they both must consider the tactile elements of a given environment.

One of the key differences in his work from that of a landscape architect is that, for Verlis, “if it looks good, it is good.” In other words, as long as the game’s environment appears correct, and functions as desired, he is not obligated to conform to any standards. That being said, even in his digital environments, Verlis is not free from all restrictions. He must still value-engineer his designs, albeit in a different way from landscape architects. Where a landscape architect might value-engineer a design to save

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Andrejs Verlis with video gaming gun.

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Andrejs Verlis

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on costs or minimize construction materials, Verlis must ensure that his environments can be rendered at a speed that will make navigating through the space fast and enjoyable. Instead of having a client tell him it’s too expensive, he might have a test run of the game reveal that it’s running too slow.

To address this concern, his team must create digital models that minimize the number of 3D polygons (surfaces), and use shortcuts that add detail to an object in its texture, rather than its actual shape—techniques that result in improved rendering speeds.

Also, with respect to speed, Verlis enjoys the fact that during the design development process, or at any other time, making changes to the game model is relatively easy when compared to changes in the design of a built environment. These changes are made easy thanks to the host of specialty software programs Verlis and his office use to render environments as quickly and with as much detail as possible.

Though much of the initial modeling can take place in 3D Studio Max—a program familiar to the landscape architecture industry—many of the other programs are purpose-built for gaming. These include programs such as SpeedTree®, which allows one to populate the environment with trees that will render quickly (the holy grail for landscape architects who have spent days rendering large sites with hundreds or thousands of trees).

“I’ve always been struck by the notion of real-time visualization,” says Verlis. “I can build something, put it in this engine [cryEngine, Unreal Engine, or Evolution

Engine are used to generate game play environments], and jump into it from an avatar perspective, and experience the design free-form.” After a demonstration of some of the software he uses, it was clear there are many features that could benefit a landscape architect. However, there are some barriers to entry for the landscape profession to begin using these programs.

Foremost is the high cost of these programs, followed by the fact that they are designed primarily for the gaming industry, and many of the features would not integrate smoothly with the landscape architect’s process.

However, there is movement toward making this technology user-friendly for “real-world” designers.

It will be interesting to see how the software and techniques Verlis and his colleagues use to design and render their environments will be incorporated into the landscape architecture profession in the future, and what that will mean for how the profession communicates its ideas.

For example, a day may come when development applications are submitted in the form of a fully navigable 3D environment within the context of a citywide model, allowing city planners and urban designers to review proposals in full context. Or maybe landscape architect clients or the public will be able to “test-drive” a design at their leisure by navigating through it on their computer, PlayStation, or X-Box. What if prospective condo buyers could move through and around their new condo building and see the actual views from their balcony well before construction has begun? This is a technology that has been around for some time, and simply needs to be reoriented to address the needs of the landscape architect, architect, urban planner, or urban designer.

Verlis has found a unique outlet for his interests and skills, bridging the divide between the real-world environment and the fiction or fantasy of the digital environment. His work and the advancements in his discipline give much promise for the landscape architecture profession and reveal what might be characterized as the next generation of possibility.

TEXT BY ERIC GORDON, OALA, AND MAILI SEDORE, MEMBERS OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD.

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How can landscape architects connect people emotionally to an environment?

Astorino claims that her studies in landscape architecture showed her how meaningful landscape design creates empathy in its users and a humility and respect for nature’s patterns and systems.

This respect for site and situation keeps the design connected to its users and can become an opportunity to move them emotionally, as well.

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the real deal The quest for authenticity is a shared human pursuit common to design, art, music, literature, and relationships. People want to know that their experience or object of affection is genuine, without pretense, and stemming from an honest expression.

Certainly, many of us can feel or see when this is not the case—a myriad of implicit and explicit cues can signal “real” or “artificial.”

What does an authentic landscape look like? How does it feel? Can authentic landscapes even be designed? These were questions put to Christine Astorino, founder of gofathom, a research, strategy, and design firm in Pittsburgh. The firm works with organizations to enrich the connection with their users, through the environment, product, brand, or experience at the heart of the project. For example, they have consulted on the best design approach for a new sports and community centre based on desires and ideas put forth by the immediate neighbourhood and user group; and created a landscape concept plan for a

healing garden at a children’s health centre after discussions with the kids on what they need from a garden.

Astorino spoke recently at IIDEX-NeoCon in Toronto, presenting a lecture titled “Designing for Authenticity: Creating Emotional, Cultural and Physical Spaces that Resonate with Users.” She spoke of three main spaces of design: the emotional space, where our individual needs, desires, and aspirations exist; the cultural space, where individuals act and interact within a community of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices; and the physical space, where these former spaces exist and flourish.

Astorino feels strongly that for design to create spaces of meaning and authenticity, the designer needs to know not only for whom they are designing, but also what authenticity means to this user group. Of course, this will vary widely depending on the group and the project—what is crucial is for the design team to have an initial clear notion of the user group’s values.

These values can inform design solutions that approach authenticity and provide meaning to the new space.

She talked about the role that authenticity plays in these new connections. As each individual or group will have different interpretations of what is authentic, preliminary discussions between the design team and the client and stakeholders yield valuable information about what is real for these people in this space. The values of the users can come from site knowledge and from instinct; collectivizing these values provides one authentic base from which to begin concept design.

According to Astorino, recognizing an environment or landscape as authentic is instinctual: one walks into a space and feels great or feels nothing. The attention paid to site condition and to user groups’ needs and desires encourages designing for authenticity. This fundamental human need for meaning can be answered in designed environments that combine emotional, cultural, and physical spaces.

TEXT BY TODD SMITH, PRINCIPAL OF THE TORONTOBASED FIRM TODD SMITH DESIGN.

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Constructed wetlands at the mouth of the Humber River, Toronto.

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Todd Smith

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Prairie landscape restoration at the Chicago Center for Green Technology, Chicago.

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Todd Smith

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Claude Cormier, OALA, in conversation with Nancy Chater, OALA

Artificial Man-made; of artifice. The flowers were artificial, and he thought them rather tacky.

1. False, misleading. Her manner was somewhat artificial.

2. Unnatural.

Etymology Via Old French (French: artificiel), from Latin artificialis from artificium “skill”, from artifex, from ars “skill”, and -fex, from facere “to make”.

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Nancy Chater (NC): You note on your website: “Our work celebrates manmade nature. Landscapes are constructed, and we believe they should look the part….

Our work may be artificial, it’s also anything but fake.” This is a bold claim because artificiality in landscape architecture often has a negative connotation.

“Real” is good; “artificial,” not so much. To prepare for our talk, I Googled “artificial landscape” and that took me to “built environment,” which is defined as “the human made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter and buildings to

neighbourhoods and cities.” There’s nothing negative about the built environment when we think about architecture and cities, but it can be negative for landscape.

Why do you think it’s important to foreground notions of the artificial in your philosophy of design?

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In The Lipstick Forest, Cormier makes reference to nature but within the very urban context of a building.

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Courtesy Claude Cormier

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NC: That’s an important distinction because it speaks to materials in a big way. The challenge as landscape architects is that we are working with a hybrid palette of natural materials and non-natural, but our work is strongly associated with ideas of “nature” in what can be a prescriptive way.

You don’t always work with natural materials. The Lipstick Forest is one example, the Pink Ball project in Montreal or the Blue Tree project in California are others where you are not working with natural materials, but you are creating landscapes.

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Claude Cormier (CC): I’m a big fan of [Frederick Law] Olmsted, and I think it started from there. Studying him, when I did my history and theory graduate degree, I really understood that what he was making was this kind of fabricated world, using nature as his reference, and mimicking nature.

So it is a fabricated world, it is man-made.

It’s the built environment, but it looks like nature. Nowadays, there is a lot of moving away from Olmsted. There are lots of parks, urban environments, that pretend to be real but they‘re not real and they’re not done well either, and they look badly constructed. The reference ends up being unclear—is it really natural or is it just responding to program? So early on I said let’s embrace the man-made aspect and use it as a commodity. Be honest about it.

Celebrate it. I’d rather embrace the real fake than the false truth. So I’m turning it on its head. By doing that I think it opens up amazing opportunities and possibilities.

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Georges Seurat’s painting Bathers at Asnières was an inspiration for Claude Comier’s work on HTO Park in Toronto.

Courtesy Claude Cormier

Our Lipstick Forest project is a really clear example; we are making reference to a forest but it’s not a forest because we are within a building, between concrete floors and concrete ceiling above a highway. We are embracing a reference, like Olmsted did, but here it’s much more about the city.

I think there’s room for nature in our cities.

But I think there is also room for other things. For me, nature is an element that is an inspiration, but it’s not the end result of what we as landscape architects always have to create.

CC: Yes, and it’s creating landscapes that also make reference to their context. The Blue Tree in California was making reference to the notion of light. By painting the plastic balls the colour of the sky, partly to erase the tree in the horizon, we actually did the opposite. In the end, we brought the tree to life. And then we were able to see that light fluctuates throughout the year, and we noticed that the tree doesn’t behave or have the same presence or colour from season to season. We were working with the phenomenon of light, which is much embedded in landscape but is a less common focus. Landscape is a very complex dimension and making reference only to nature is very limiting. I think that is a weakness of our profession, but in the last ten years, there’s been a lot of great work in landscape with the development of a vocabulary to address the fact of constructed landscapes. This was not present in the profession ten years ago.

NC: What do you think has brought about that change? Is it constructed ecology and the embracing of engineered systems such as water systems?

CC: Landscape architects are now developing an ability to be architects and designers. There is a kind of intention within the work which is not just about creating a landscape and making reference to a natural environment. I think we are becoming stronger designers and that is moving the profession a step ahead.

Instead of just responding to program and function, we now also talk about intention,

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NC: And we have to push to defend our position or ideas!

CC: It’s either push, or pull. I remember when I was a student at Martha Schwartz’s; one day Peter Walker came in and spent the day on the phone. He was a mad man! The entire day—cranky, difficult, very forceful on the phone. And I thought, oh my God, he’s not a nice man.

But now I get it. Because that’s me at the office! If you don’t stand your ground, you get pushed to the side and that’s it. So each project you have to really stand up and push for your conviction. And you have to demonstrate what this conviction is about because if you’re not able to, you’re done.

NC: What are your main sources of inspiration? I know you typically crystallize a central concept for each of your projects. Is it often art? Is there a particular pool you draw from?

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idea, with program and function relegated to a secondary level, which I think is great.

NC: When I did my master of landscape degree, I remember thinking, “this is a practice without a discipline.” We didn’t seem to have a strong foundation even of core texts. Architecture has a stronger sense of its own foundations and of course it’s much older as a profession, and they have a sense of their own legitimacy, credibility, and authority. So what

are the set of values and ideas from which we as landscape architects spring off of?

Whether in one period it’s art movements or McHarg’s grounding in ecology…

CC: And then after that we had Randy Hester and that movement of the social with emphasis on community and participatory design. But that was again giving it to someone else to somehow dictate what the conception would be. Once again I find it’s like “where are we?” As professionals, we have to take a position.

CC: It’s first by observation. And through observation a clear idea is generated. And then a painting, an object, a moment, or something is brought into the process. It doesn’t come from a preconceived idea.

Let’s take HTO [HTO Park in Toronto]. The experience of being beside the lake, facing Lake Ontario, at the edge of the city, brought about a moment on the quay of looking out and thinking, this is such a fantastic place.

That brought up Georges Seurat’s Bathers at

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For The Blue Tree in California, Cormier played with notions of light.

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Courtesy Claude Cormier

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Asnières, an image of bringing people next to a shoreline—in his case, Le Seine in Paris, and they are all looking out and there is a peaceful quality. This notion of an artificial or urban beach came to mind. But the first thing is observation.

NC: And some kind of sensual or physical experience? Does that often inform your process of crystallizing a central idea?

Embodied experience?

CC: Yes. And that’s why we don’t work in China. I don’t have the Chinese experience of the landscape. Why would I go there and tell them what to do and how to behave? I would not know where to start, because I think that the experience is a key thing. This goes back to Olmsted. When I studied him I realized that the personal experience within the park, a journey in the landscape, is a

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key element that we work with. If you don’t create an experience within your landscape, you miss the boat. Completely. And that experience has to be for everyone—not just for landscape or design professionals, but for everybody. At the same time, I like to challenge the preconceived idea of what a landscape should be.

It relates to agronomy and science. But I’m also very intrigued by art. In my early training I wanted to be a plant breeder. I wanted to invent a flower. But I realized that was not my cup of tea. So I guess that’s what I’m doing with landscape. I’m inventing… like the notion in science of combining two things and creating a third, a hybrid.

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NC: When you say that you embrace the real fake but not the fake real, I’m thinking of projects such as the Lipstick Forest.

While the material might be “fake,” the experience for the user is very real.

music, go see a play, a film, go to a museum; you have to create a mood and inspiration within yourself to trigger a kind of constructed experience you can project into a project.

CC: Yes! Take our Pink Balls project on St. Catherine Street in Montreal this past summer. The gay village is such a bleak environment. What do you do for one summer with not much money? This installation brought a bit of joy and a bit of fantasy and colour in a world that has no colour.

Think of doing pink for a one-mile ribbon in the city. It’s not that easy to do! We just took it down recently and people are realizing how bleak this environment is once it’s gone. With this bit of colour, we enchanted the street for one summer.

NC: Landscape is very cultural, clearly, but your approach foregrounds the cultural even more so. Nature is not the only inspiration. Cultural representation in a variety of forms has a cross-pollinating effect. That’s a very interesting angle on this topic of artificiality or artifice. If we think of artifice being embraced in theatre, for example, we know there is artificiality in the set, but what’s real is the experience of the audience encountering the actors and the play.

CC: And it comes from an idea that originates from the design problem we have to solve. That’s why a small project is as good as a big project. A small project can be even more important. I would say that my lesson as I keep doing this work is that even on big projects you don’t have to do everything. But what is the one big idea?

What’s the main driver within the design process? From there you start developing an attitude, a program, a visual language, but it goes back to what is the experience you want to create? For young professionals, each project has the capacity to be conceptually strong, but it’s how you relate to the design problem which is key.

NC: It’s like when you take down the Christmas tree. Suddenly the lights and the sparkle are gone and you are back to your boring living room…

CC: Exactly. And we have somehow a mandate to do that in our cities. It’s not an easy task. To do that we have to go outside our field to find ideas and inspiration; because it’s not from within landscape architecture that you will find it. I think you have to go one step beyond the built environment. I think you have to listen to

NC: Do you frame the problem or is it given to you from the client?

CC: We frame the problem. And that’s because we’re not artists. If you are an artist, you don’t have to solve a problem.

You express something through a tableau, sculpture, or piece of music. As professionals in landscape, architecture, and industrial design, it’s always problem-driven. Is landscape art? No, it’s not. If you asked me to do a tableau without any constraint, I’m totally unable. The element that would trigger a project is always a constraint.

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NC: Something that sets a limit.

CC: Yes, and from there I’m starting to react to that limit, and you take a position and it takes you…back to the Toronto waterfront, for example. I’m not going to do a water feature because the lake is there. The lake is the force of what the site is about. So we are going to create dunes.

The reality became a kind of constraint and the power to create something.

NC: Do you think it is useful to distinguish between the real and the artificial?

CC: As you read the definition of artificial at the beginning of our conversation, I could see the negative quality and I would say the word artificial is not right. I was trying to work with a word that evokes positiveness, that evokes optimism, something that doesn’t say “yuk” but the opposite, something you want to be part of.

NC: Something that creates desire…desire is that which we reach toward…Nicole Brossard, a Quebec poet, said that.

CC: What is another word instead of artificial?

NC: Constructed? It’s kind of dry. Artificial gives you play between artificial but not fake. Man-made is old fashioned and makes women invisible.

CC: How do you make “constructed” with a sensibility, with poetry? Maybe there is a word we could borrow from literature. A DJ friend of mine made a distinction between making and doing music which I thought was very interesting. I like that nuance. How could we bring that nuance to “artificial” in a way that evokes desire?

BIOS/ NANCY CHATER, OALA, IS CO-CHAIR OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD AND WORKS FOR THE PLANNING PARTNERSHIP. CLAUDE CORMIER, OALA, FCSLA, MAAPQ, MASLA, IS AN AWARD-WINNING LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WHOSE WORK CHALLENGES ORDINARY PERCEPTIONS OF THE WORLD, OPENING EYES TO NEW POSSIBILITIES AND GENERATING AN APPETITE FOR THE EXTRA-ORDINARY.

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For the Pink Balls project on St. Catherine Street in Montreal, Claude Cormier brought colour and fantasy to a one-mile ribbon of the city.

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Courtesy Claude Cormier

Materials Real and Artificial

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A comparison between some commonly used “natural” materials and their fabricated alternatives

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01 TEXT BY KATE NELISCHER GRASS

natural: Natural grass has been used in landscape design for centuries to create picturesque vistas, rolling parklands, and functional backyards. Although it remains a beloved staple of the suburban home, there are increasing concerns about the significant water demands of lawns.

Lawns are economical to install—either by sodding or seeding—but maintenance costs for watering, trimming, and fertilizing are much higher than for the lawn’s artificial alternative.

However, the look and feel of the real stuff is often preferred for recreational use. Even in stifling heat, the surface temperature of natural grass will not rise above 29°C, thus leaving an optimal surface on which to sit and relax—unless, of course, the lawn is muddy or wet from a previous rain. The soil under grass allows leaves and animal droppings to decompose naturally and encourages rainwater to percolate, deterring runoff.

artificial: Although many of us have sour memories of the scrapes and bruises that early versions of artificial grasses left on our knees as children, the most recent iterations of the product have come a long way.

Originally invented in 1965 under the direction of The Ford Foundation (the charitable organization of Ford Motors) to create the ideal urban sports fields, AstroTurf earned its name upon its initial use as the playing surface for the Houston Astros in 1966 (the stadium was later renamed the AstroDome). Sports players now largely favour artificial turf over natural grass.

FieldTurf, the most widely distributed brand of artificial turf in North America, manufactures a product that can drain water at a rate of 14 inches per hour, making it ideal for use as sports fields. Many sports field managers have opted for the substantially higher installation costs of artificial turf in exchange for the assurances of more

Materials Real and Artificial

games per year. The City of Richmond, B.C., estimates that 2,080 games can be played on their new artificial turf fields annually, compared to 360 on natural grass. Although the start-up fees are higher, the ongoing maintenance costs are lower.

Mountainview, Colorado, estimates that their artificial turf costs $22/hour to maintain, while the rate for natural grass is $25/hour.

However, the eight- to ten-year lifespan of artificial turf requires considerable investment, and many dismiss this short cycle as an unsustainable solution. The City of South Perth, in Australia, has announced that it does not support the use of artificial turf, and any residents wishing to install the product on their property must go through a screening and permitting process. Mayor James Best references the high temperatures that turf can reach as a risk factor for users, and cites a reduction in soil health and biodiversity as consequences of using the product in place of natural grass.

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DECKING

natural wood: This low-cost staple of suburban backyards is aesthetically appealing and relatively easy to install. However, the constant maintenance required can deter some designers and homeowners from using the product. Not only do wooden decks need to be cleaned regularly to avoid mold and rotting, they also need to be stained and/or painted to retain colour and sheen.

artificial composite: Although initially a higher-cost product, composite decking is often chosen for the promise of lower maintenance costs; no painting or staining required. It is also made of 95 percent recycled materials, which is a selling point for many environmentally conscious homeowners.

Composite decking first came on the market in the early 1990s as an environmentally friendly alternative to natural wood decking. It was originally cast from mainly discarded plastic packaging, but most still contain natural wood fibers— which accounts for its susceptibility to mold. Composite decking still requires cleaning, as has been evidenced in a recent swath of lawsuits against major manufacturers on claims of fungus growth due to moisture retention. A class-action lawsuit was recently settled with the brand Choicdek, while a 2004 case against the largest manufacturer (Trex) was settled once the company agreed to stop marketing their products as “maintenance free.”

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Grass has long been used in landscape design as a hardy, walkable surface.

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Forest and Kim Starr

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Artifical turf is often favoured for use in sports fields.

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Nattawut Panyosaeng

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Wood decking is a staple of residential design.

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Robert Michie

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Composite decking requires no painting or staining.

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Dura Composites

Materials Real and Artificial

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05 STONE

natural: Used to create walkways, driveways, patios, and water features, natural stone is a popular material—especially in residential design. Although the product can be expensive, it is often chosen for its durability and long lifespan. Furthermore, natural stone can be used successfully within permeable paving systems. The original and irregular patterns, shapes, and feel of this natural product are difficult to replicate.

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artificial pavers: With a storied past dating as far back as the 12th century, cast stone was originally used in Europe to fortify castle walls in medieval times. It made its first appearance in North America in the 1920s and has since been widely used within architectural and landscape projects. At a considerably lower price than natural stone, manufactured pavers can be a saving grace for some budgets. This lightweight product is easy to install as it can be ordered in interlocking patterns. The extensive range of colours, textures, sizes, and shapes on catalogue is appealing— as is the uniform look of the finished landscape. Depending on the installation methods, manufactured stone can also be used successfully within permeable paving systems.

Materials Real and Artificial

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Natural stone has a long lifespan.

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Ula Kapala

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Manufactured pavers are less expensive than natural stone.

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Courtesy Kate Nelischer

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Boxwood is an extremely popular evergreen.

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Forest and Kim Starr

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Artifical boxwood is pricier than living boxwood but does not require maintenance.

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Nina Del Rio

07 PLANTS—BOXWOOD

natural: At roughly $35 each (depending on size), boxwoods are an accessible and often-used evergreen. The slow rate of growth and dense form are appealing for hedging and topiary design, as is the rich and glossy look of their leaves. However, these plants do require considerable maintenance; the regular trimming and pruning is seen as a nuisance to some. Others avoid boxwood for the rather unpleasant odour that the plant omits when warmed by the sun.

artificial: At an average cost of $70 each, artificial boxwoods can substantially raise the budget of any project. However, once installed these “plants” do not require any watering, pruning, or fertilizing. They are lightweight when compared to their natural counterparts, and UV-protected so there is no risk of their colour fading. They can withstand harsh weather conditions and do not take time to grow to maturity— which can be both beneficial and limiting in terms of creating a congruent hedge or garden trim. These new, weather-resistant materials are a substantial improvement from widely used silk artificial plants.

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BIO/ KATE NELISCHER HOLDS A BLA FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH AND RECENTLY COMPLETED A MASTER’S DEGREE IN DESIGN WRITING AT UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS IN LONDON, U.K. SHE CURRENTLY WORKS AT THE PLANNING PARTNERSHIP IN TORONTO.

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Rob Walkowiak (RW): I’d like to draw on your wide-ranging perspectives on this industry. Our panel consists of designers, planners, fabricators, operators, and feasibility experts, all with a specific understanding of recreation and entertainment landscapes.

Recreation and leisure environments such as theme parks and water parks, resorts and casinos are dramatic landscapes that offer a promise of escape from the everyday. They often mimic or represent nature, sometimes on a super-sized scale, and speak to the desire for adventure and connecting with nature, even if it’s in a controlled environment. Often geared to families, the design of these recreational environments is responding to demographic changes and increasingly culturally diverse end users. Deeply entwined with the tourism industry, and often built as the generators of tourism development, recreation and leisure landscapes are a niche field of landscape architectural practice that crosses both public- and privatesector work. Our Round Table participants offer a range of perspectives on the evolving social, cultural, economic, and practical issues of designing and building hyper-real versions of constructed nature.

MODERATED BY ROBERT WALKOWIAK BIOS/

GORDON DORRETT, OALA, IS PRESIDENT AND CEO OF FORREC LTD. FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS, HE HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE ENTERTAINMENT AND LEISURE INDUSTRY, WORKING IN ALL ASPECTS OF THE PLANNING AND DESIGN PROCESS. HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR OPERATING FORREC’S UK OFFICE (1987-1991). GORDON HAS LED DESIGN TEAMS AND COORDINATES FORREC’S PORTFOLIO OF CLIENTS INCLUDING UNIVERSAL STUDIOS, EVERLAND, LOTTE WORLD, AND THE SHANGHAI SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM. ERIKS EGLITE IS DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PLANNING AND CORPORATE SERVICES, ONTARIO PLACE. LINDA HUNG JOINED FORREC LTD. MORE THAN 15 YEARS AGO, AND HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN A FULL SPECTRUM OF PLANNING AND DESIGN WORK INCLUDING NUMEROUS LARGE-SCALE INTERNATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT DEVELOPMENTS. HER EXPERIENCE INCLUDES A BROAD RANGE OF PROJECT DEVELOPMENT, FROM CONCEPTUAL MASTER PLANNING THROUGH TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT. HER PROJECTS AT FORREC INCLUDE VARIOUS LEGOLAND THEME PARKS INCLUDING THE MOST RECENT PARKS IN FLORIDA AND MALAYSIA, MASTER PLAN FOR RESORTS WORLD, SINGAPORE, AND WANDA XISHUANGBANNA THEME PARK. BOB MONTGOMERY IS GENERAL MANAGER, DARIEN LAKE THEME PARK AND RESORT, IN NEW YORK STATE, LOCATED BETWEEN BUFFALO AND ROCHESTER.

GRAHAM O'BRIEN IS THE LEAD DESIGNER FOR PROJECT DEVELOPMENT AT EVENTSCAPE INC., A CUSTOM ARCHITECTURAL FABRICATION STUDIO BASED IN TORONTO. HE BEGAN DESIGNING CUSTOM FEATURES AT EVENTSCAPE IN 1999 AFTER RECEIVING HIS BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE DEGREE FROM CARLETON UNIVERSITY IN OTTAWA. SINCE THEN HE HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION OF HUNDREDS OF MAJOR PROJECTS AROUND THE WORLD, MOST RECENTLY COMPLETING THE INTERIOR SHADE STRUCTURES FOR LOUIS VUITTON AT MARINA BAY SANDS RESORT IN SINGAPORE. JILL VANDAL IS A PARTNER IN THE TOURISM COMPANY, A PRIVATE CANADIAN MANAGEMENT TOURISM CONSULTING FIRM. JILL ASSISTS PUBLIC- AND PRIVATE-SECTOR CLIENTS WITH STRATEGIC PLANS, MARKETING STRATEGIES, BUSINESS PLANS, AND INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES. SHE HAS WORKED IN MANY PARTS OF CANADA INCLUDING THE WESTERN ARCTIC, CHURCHILL, MANITOBA, THE NORTHERN COAST OF NEWFOUNDLAND, AND INTERNATIONAL DESTINATIONS INCLUDING SCOTLAND, BOLIVIA, AND JAMAICA. ROBERT WALKOWIAK IS CO-CHAIR OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD AND A PROJECT MANAGER AT FORREC LTD. HIS DESIGN WORK FOCUSES ON THE LEISURE AND ENTERTAINMENT MARKET, COVERING A NUMBER OF UNIQUE PROJECTS INCLUDING ENTERTAINMENT CENTRES, THEME PARKS, WATER PARKS, AND RESORTS AROUND THE WORLD.

Let’s begin by discussing changes in the industry. Have you seen any significant changes since the recession five years ago—for example, on the design approaches and materials, attitude toward sustainability, changes in economic feasibility, how people are using these spaces, or on the operations side of things?

Linda Hung (LH): I have seen a shift away from the standard or stand-alone water park and a move towards a more integrated model for resorts. Families can go to a place where everyone has something that interests them and where they can stay for multiple days rather than just for one day. There is added value in providing more for people to do and drawing that “critical mass.”

Graham O’Brien (GO): We have seen a lot of projects expanding their properties—repurchasing properties that are single-function destinations and doing large renovations or large changes that fit a more current model of what people want to see and do.

Eriks Eglite (EE): I think the leisure industry is heading to a more social environment where families are travelling together. You can see that in the movie industry. It’s not about the movie; it’s about going out and being among people and seeing things in the larger group environment. I think that’s a resurgence of a very basic human principle of being in a social place.

Jill Vandal (JV): In terms of the demographics and particularly in the Toronto context, there’s the whole multicultural mix and how you address people’s definition of entertainment. The other shift is from a demand perspective and how it relates to economics. People are discovering the value of their own regions, their own backyards. More and more people tend to say, yes, I am going to stay in my region, but I also look forward to going away, which

Round Table

means I am travelling closer to home but I still want to go and climb Everest.

Constructed environments can satisfy both demands. What we are also seeing in leisure and entertainment is a focus on the outdoors, the natural world around us.

Bob Montgomery (BM): What has changed for us, and this is across all of our businesses, is increasing yield rather than volume of users. To do this, we’re focusing on upgrading an experience. For example, people don’t want to stay just in a campsite, they want to stay in a log cabin. So we are adding log cabins to all of our campsite accommodations because people are willing to pay for them. The volume hasn’t necessarily gotten bigger in the past few years but the yield has been much better because we are moving into higherpriced experiences. There is a certain segment of the population who’s willing to pay a little bit more for things, and that’s where we have seen our growth.

RW: Do you think the desire to spend time outdoors and connect with nature changes depending on the age group we are dealing with? It seems that younger people are less likely to want to go outside. There is a lot of indoor demand for a younger generation as opposed to the older generation who would like to have more of a resorttype experience.

pinpoint a lot more of what you are designing for because there are so many slices and dices now of great information—some very good information both for origin country, income level, so many different factors.

EE: The age-level segregation can’t be underestimated. What could be valid for an eight-year-old might not be valid for a tenyear-old or a twelve-year-old. What you need to offer changes drastically as you consider the range of users.

RW: Who are the big players in this market, developing these hyper-designed entertainment theme parks, water parks, casinos, entertainment destinations—is it government direction or is it private money? Who wants to build these entertainment destinations?

JV: We’re getting more demand from governments who are looking to stimulate investments through their built destinations, which are meant to be the catalyst for further development. So they see it as a silver bullet to kickstart regeneration or more activities. We are seeing governments acting as the catalyst and they bring in folks like us to do the feasibility studies.

BM: But governments aren’t doing the construction.

JV: Right, they are managing process.

BM: I think people want to have all those experiences, but they don’t necessarily want inconvenience. If we are talking about camping, they don’t want to sleep on the ground in a tent; they want to camp, but they want it on their terms. They want a controlled environment.

Gordon Dorrett (GD): One thing I think is really interesting: I don’t know if you have been to a provincial campground recently, but it’s very diverse, with probably 60 percent newer Canadians. It’s amazing and wonderful to see that there is a whole new group of people enjoying or finding the great Canadian outdoors. You don’t see that around the world, but certainly in Canada you do.

JV: We have so much more information now in terms of market segments. You can

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BM: They are paving the way. I think of Sentosa, Singapore, as a great example, where in order to build the casino, the government required the developer to add the attraction component in order to generate interest and revenue.

GD: You can have a casino, but you have to add all these other pieces that will make it an international destination. The government funding or program is in place to help the developer build an anchor—an entertainment anchor that will be the pump primer to make other elements take off.

BM: This is changing in the United States, where there used to be a tax incentive.

Those are drying up as the debt crisis becomes tougher and tougher for municipal and state governments.

GD: Right now, for our work in China, almost every entertainment project is done on the exact same basis. They are doing the entertainment piece of the project because it allows them access to greater land, more development, commercial, residential, condominiums, all the other aspects that they have to build on behalf of the region they are working in. It’s not to say leisure projects are not financially viable; it’s that they are making a much smaller return on those pieces than on the other pieces.

But you asked earlier about the change in economics. All of our major clients who are branded entertainment companies are not doing developments with their own money invested. Ninety percent of them are doing licensed programs where they are bringing their brand, their expertise with a financial partner who often has other developments.

RW: Is the market revenue-generating or is it stagnant, is it declining?

EE: It has to reinvent itself. It’s not a one-shot deal. We need longer-term approaches. It’s difficult to say if there are hot spots because everyone is reliant on tourism attracting dollars to them. If they are not re-inventing themselves, it dries up fairly quickly.

LH: Basically every park is at a different stage in its life cycle, whether it’s an emerging market or if it’s stabilized. But you need the constant reinvestment. Going back to that initial question about whether or not leisure and entertainment projects are financially viable: I think they are a piece in the puzzle. It might not be the largest piece but it’s a draw. It’s what entices the investment into the surrounding properties, so it’s a driver.

BM: When I was with the LEGO group, the first thing we did to secure a site was that we planted a story in the Wall Street Journal and said that LEGO would like to build a theme park. We just sat back and waited for all the developers to offer us their land in order to get the shopping mall approved or whatever it is they were looking to do. And that’s exactly what happened. So we built in Carlsbad, California. We would not have

Round Table

gone to Carlsbad without that incentive, and the developer parlayed that with the city. It drove the business that they wanted to be in and they developed around that so the park was a success. Our approach was to sit back and let it all come back to us; it is a driver and it does activate a lot of other things that spin off of the traffic it generates.

GD: The ones suffering the most are developments that are owned and operated by governments. Nobody has two sticks to rub together, so nobody is getting funding. But they are probably in the biggest need to reinvent themselves. What’s really hurting us is that there just isn’t money available.

JV: I have to agree on the challenges Gord just talked about. We work with some clients who want a magic bullet. They don’t always get that they are competing with the rest of the world for investment development. They think, why wouldn’t you come to my community—we have a great site. I am being a bit facetious, but to get the local folks to understand the global competitive marketplace for the development dollars and investment dollars and to also have the political side understand…well, it is very difficult to get municipal politicians to pay attention to this.

GD: I think a really interesting new model is what the Sony Centre [in Toronto] has gone through. They lost their two biggest tenants—the symphony and the opera—and had to reinvent themselves. But they didn’t have a penny and the building was falling down all around them. The CEO’s first idea was to create a new multicultural centre; he wanted to create what he called a living art museum. And he did that by selling off his land for commercial development. They did some really interesting financing by selling off the land and the rights beside them to generate a big chunk of revenue.

BM: The challenge with that is that it’s tough to do a longer-range plan when it’s a one-shot deal. You can’t necessarily do that annually.

RW: Do you see Ontario as a feasible place to develop these hyper-designed entertainment experiences on the scale of a

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Wonderland or an Ontario Place? It seems as if they are few and far between. Is Ontario growing or stagnant?

EE: It depends. There is a whole market trend of bigger, faster, more thrill, more extreme, and that is going to be hard to sustain. The market will just dry up. But on the other hand, there could be another market response. There is quality of experience or diversity of experience that is very context-specific or location-specific—that is, uniquely derived from the roots of Ontario, its site, its vernacular context.

GD: Let’s use a Toronto example. There are very few things you can pinpoint and say, here are five must-see attractions in Toronto. Is there room for an iconic mustsee in the GTA and Southern Ontario?

Absolutely. Look at the various places that have been out there for so many years.

The Ontario Place RFP has come and gone many times; the amalgamation of the CNE and Ontario Place is probably the biggest single prime piece of real estate in North America available to do a hyper-something on. But it has to be about Ontario.

I don’t want to have an experience here that I can do in Boston or New York. I need something specific to here. The opportunity is tremendous.

RW: So what is holding us back? Is it governments or is it the big idea or money?

JV: All of the above. The Feds have just launched—finally, after years—a tourism strategy. The environment is not conducive to investors, if we look at the Ontario context versus other places in the world that have incentives that are easy to get.

GD: I think what’s missing are champions.

I am not sure how many people truly understand the potential or have seen enough around the world to understand what’s out there. There is an awful lot of lip service, there are agendas, there’s mixing and matching of various government levels, there’s gnashing of teeth. But there is no champion that wants to drive it.

RW: I am going to switch gears to the operations side of things. There is a view that these developments are heavy resourceusers. Is that a fair statement?

BM: They do create demand on the resources—for example, on infrastructure.

RW: Is there a mandate from the client or the user to be more sustainable?

BM: I don’t think that’s a big trend. But I do think it’s about being a responsible citizen.

We want people to think about us in that context. We had a waterfront park planned in Atlanta to go into a state park that we managed. Just a couple of years ago Atlanta had a drought; some of the bigger lake levels had gotten low. That particular state park has tons of water and lakes all around it. It was really not so much that the park was consuming the water (anything that was consumed was flowing back into the lake) but there was a perception that all this water was being consumed as part of that experience. So we didn’t go forward. It was much more about public relations.

EE: The energy and resources required to put on the show far exceeds what is normally seen in an operating commercial environment. It’s just the nature of the business—to inspire, to delight—and it requires energy. The issue is how you can get that sustainably. We are always looking for efficiencies in operation. Sustainability is well perceived by the marketplace.

JV: Sometimes sustainability becomes part of the story. It can become the background or stage for the experience and for its delivery—part of the attraction, a product on its own.

GD: Probably the best example in North America is the Brick Works [an environmental learning attraction in Toronto]. It is the ultimate in sustainability and green. But it’s a different experience from a water park or a theme park. It’s actually surprising how little water a water park consumes. We are dealing with a client in Mexico and that was one of his biggest concerns. We had to explain this by crunching the numbers and showing that the only water loss is in terms of evaporation.

RW: This question is specifically for the designers in the room. What is the most common request from clients?

Round Table

GO: All I see all day long are dreams. These beautiful sketches come through all day long. The question is always: can you do it and how much will it cost and how is it going to work? It’s always about creating that singular space or object. It’s always about looking for the attraction to get people in. Our biggest problem is that no one wants to pay for the upfront side. So a lot of the dreams get scaled down.

RW: People want the newest, the best. Is that always the right choice for a client?

GO: No. Eighty percent of the time we are guiding people in ways which we think from our experience can help satisfy their desires without necessarily using NASA materials.

It’s a process. The process starts with the concept and hopefully the end result is that something spectacular gets built, but there are many different ways to get between those two points.

GD: It’s about managing expectations.

We’ve survived in this long enough because we try to manage clients’ expectations and help them understand what a real warranted investment is. How much should you be spending on this? We have clients who say, I want one of those. We say, A, you can’t afford one, and B, you don’t need one.

It’s an emerging market and you don’t have to be the best of the best. We just need a quality, well-done piece at the right budget.

Over time, as your population becomes more educated, more diverse, and more experienced, we’ll have to start pushing the envelope further. But initially you don’t. We often say, they want a Rolls Royce and have a Volkswagen budget. The worst thing you can try to do is build a Rolls Royce on a Volkswagen budget. We say, we’ll build you the best damn Volkswagen you’ve ever seen in your life and it’ll work really well.

LH: That’s exactly the type of thing we have learned from the LEGOLAND parks we have worked on. They don’t have the fastest, or the tallest, or the biggest of rides, but what they do have, they do really well.

RW: From a client-demand perspective, what is the most outrageous request you have had?

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LH: About two months ago we were working on a project for a client in China, and they wanted a really grand waterfall. That’s pretty typical. We proposed one that was 15to 20-metres tall. It was very grand, with a scale of about 40- to 50-metres wide. We submitted sketches, and it came back to us that they expected Niagara Falls. They were being serious.

GD: I have a client who will remain nameless—a very sophisticated client who is developing a new concept. They created a waterfall as a background component.

When we measured up, I said, do you guys realize that it’s taller and three times as wide as Niagara Falls? They said yes, and what’s your issue? They wanted to go for it.

We said we couldn’t. This week we had a client who wanted a central icon for a park to be almost 90-metres tall.

RW: In the entertainment industry market, what are the future challenges?

JV: I think it’s the word “sustainable” and what that’s going to mean. It keeps shifting as the world around us keeps shifting. So I think understanding what that is and being flexible enough, and responsive enough, and nimble enough to respond to that.

GD: The challenge is keeping up with technology. How do you take the newest technology and combine its use to create a place that is shared by the masses? It’s always moving so fast.

BM: There’s the business pressure of trying to get a short-term result but you are not able to do the research or invest in the technology to stay current and figure out how to use them in mass-market applications.

EE: Some of the technology that we take for granted today will be seen in new applications. You are seeing that what was once new is now being mass marketed, so the original purveyors and designers and pioneers need to constantly be ahead of the curve. You always have to keep fresh knowing that there is someone nipping at you heels.

GD: Ontario Place is an incredible example of that. The original splash-pad water park was the newest and greatest thing in the

world and now municipalities all have their own splash pads. So the things that were experimental and frontrunners are now being reproduced.

GO: In the future, I can see more and more blending of what would classically be thought of as attraction design infiltrating all aspects of architecture or design. These features are being inserted into spaces such as office buildings. If you are used to designing or working in the realm of attraction design, there is a big opportunity.

RW: What’s the most rewarding aspect of your work?

GO: Seeing it built, that’s the most rewarding. Because it doesn’t always happen.

EE: We are in the fun industry, so it’s neat to see people enjoying themselves in an environment that you had a hand in.

GD: For me, there is nothing better than when you walk through a LEGO park and see a bunch of families or kids smiling. But on top of that, at my stage in my career, it’s rewarding to come up with new mixes and new ideas that haven’t been done before.

JV: I’m excited by what we can add to the mix that’s going to move the industry further along and change some thinking.

LH: Seeing the end result is certainly impressive, but for me I still think it’s incredible that you start with a blank piece of trace, and twelve or sixteen weeks down the road you have this entire masterplan.

There’s a huge pool of talent and all these pieces come together and you have a vision and it’s the start of something exciting and dynamic.

BM: For me, it’s the variety in what we do.

It’s not the same thing every day; it’s not the same thing every season. It would be tough to go to another industry and not have that sense of adventure.

JV: Well, the travel can be lousy at times, but there are places we wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise…

WITH THANKS TO CHRIS CANNING FOR TRANSCRIBING THIS ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION

Sustaining Beauty

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Passive treatment basins (shown here under construction) in Vitondale Reclamation Park, in Vitondale, Pennsylvania, treat acid mine drainage with constructed wetlands in a former coal mine.

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Courtesy DIRT Studio

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Vitondale Reclamation Park (site plan shown here) was designed by DIRT Studio, a landscape architecture firm founded by principal Julie Bargmann.

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Courtesy DIRT Studio

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Elizabeth Meyer in conversation with Nancy Chater, OALA

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Nancy Chater (NC): In your article “Sustaining Beauty: the performance of appearance,” you emphasize the need to refocus on the aesthetic and specifically on the sensory, poly-sensual experience of designed landscapes. You propose that the appearance of landscape, or visual pleasure, is performative and creates the opportunity for people to care about sustainability through their embodied interaction with the landscape. What is the relationship between an individual’s engagement with the landscape and a collective shift, “transforming them into a new generation of environmentalist citizens” as you put it, which suggests a more social project?

Elizabeth Meyer (EM): I think it has to happen in both ways. If you are concerned with public space and civic space you want to find ways that the practice of everyday life that involves more than a singular person might actually be connected to new ways of envisioning sustainable landscape at the neighbourhood, city, or regional scale. So I think it has to start with realizing that the experience of the landscape is vitally connected to both how that space is operating ecologically and how it is affecting you emotionally and physically. The aggregate of those experiences might be a bottom-up way of changing values and constituting a new sense of identity versus a top-down approach. The bottom-up process is really key for me. We were talking about the relationship between pleasure and sustainability when you arrived by bike, and I think that is a good example of the way in which an array of individuals in the city cycling to work not only affects individually someone’s sense of health, strength, independence, not having to find a parking garage, but it also reduces the number of cars on the street for everybody, it eventually ends up altering how people think about the deployment of the right-of-way of the street and improves conditions for walkers and motorists as well as cyclists.

The city helps with institutional things, like bike lanes, places to store bikes, but it really starts with this individual experience of the city.

NC: There’s an interesting combination of discourses in your thesis.

One frames a kind of utopic experience, or vision of the transformative potential of landscape, and the other a more political aspect in which the utopic experience galvanizes people “out of their complacency and inaction,” as you put it.

EM: I don’t think what I’m proposing is utopic. There are already existing spatial practices, whether it’s an interest in slow food, or slow landscapes. I’m not talking about an idealized condition that can’t be realized.

NC: The reason I’m suggesting utopic is that it’s a very optimistic view. To talk about the power of something to transform is a bold claim, a big claim.

EM: I can’t imagine being a designer and not being an optimist, when you actually put that amount of energy and labour, not just yours, but your clients’, the contractors’, into the construction of something. But the optimism is not the outgrowth of hubris, rather it is coming out of an appreciation of how other disciplines write about the agency of landscape and the potential to actually harness that. A lot of the insights from Catherine Howett, or Anne Spirn, or recently in

my writing, come out of reading anthropologists, philosophers, and environmental psychologists. It comes out of a body of literature, not just out of a designer’s ego.

NC: Your idea of the performativity and agency of landscape recasts landscape as a subject in a way, playing an active role with which we engage in a way that changes us, rather than as an object that is viewed. Is this how landscape has agency?

EM: I’m building on and also trying to redirect the way that James Corner talks about the agency of landscape. I want to talk about that agency not only in terms of its ecological performance, its infrastructural performance, but to actually engage its social and cultural performance. I want us to appreciate the agency of landscape beyond ecological performance, which I think can be quite narrow and limiting, and instead to recognize the varied ways that landscape acts not only as a subject but as a medium, and can alter places and people.

In the literature of landscape urbanism, appearance is often seen as “that retrograde visual thing.” I want to reclaim it! The visual is not synonymous with the view or the gaze but the visual is actually connected to all of our other senses, to our movement, it is kinesthetic, and it’s connected to what we’ve known before. As designers I’m interested in us thinking about appearance as something that performs, not something that is the result of process.

Designers make judgments. I think there’s an important role for designers to play in claiming the form and appearance of things not because they look cool but because they actually affect a certain client or community in different ways.

Beauty and Representation NC: Beauty is, of course, culturally specific, and changes over time.

How do you relate to the cultural context of the term beauty?

EM: That’s why I talk about the importance of stretching categories of beauty and understanding a range of aesthetic experiences. In the next version of my manifesto, I would probably be more explicit about the plurals. I’ve also written about the post-modern sublime, which was understood as a form of beauty. Sublime beauty is different from picturesque beauty. There were public debates about categories of beauty in the 18th century and those are things we should be engaged in today. There are so few design critics anymore. That’s an area that increasingly we are going to have to move into, if we are serious about trying to overcome the platitudes of design.

NC: Landscape architecture is weaker than some other disciplines, in terms of not having a proliferation of critics and a strong critical discourse, a way of speaking about the field and what we do.

EM: Architecture, for example, has benefited from writing about it by other people who are not architects, by art and architectural historians. The generation now of young scholars in art, architecture, garden and landscape history, and cultural geography is very different. They stretch and deal with buildings, environments, and

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infrastructure. In the past, critics often didn’t recognize landscape because it didn’t fit into the criteria of what they were taught constituted legitimate modern art and architecture. So we can’t beat up the profession.

NC: When you advocate for the performative aspect of landscape design as a transformative force and as a catalyst for cultural change, you are also, by extension, elevating the work of landscape architects, and the role of landscape architecture. We are so often in this catch-up position of needing to legitimize the cultural productivity of landscape architecture.

EM: Because we are a tiny group, and that’s what you do when you are a tiny group. When you are small that is the role, even if you don’t want to be an advocate. Even if the profession were larger you would have to do that because, let’s face it, in a lot of projects that landscape architects get, what the client wants or needs isn’t the only thing that’s important. Who’s speaking for the site? Who’s speaking for the ecosystem that transgresses and moves through the parcel?

It’s not always the landowner. We are always going to need to be advocates for that which can’t speak, which is the site itself, and for understanding that the construction of the site, not building it literally, but where are the boundaries of the thing that influence what we do on a small parcel—that’s always going to have to be argued for.

NC: The role that language and discourse plays is also paramount, in conditioning what we see and what we don’t see as beautiful.

You’ve foregrounded the experiential, phenomenological aspect, but what about the role of language and cultural consciousness?

EM: Absolutely. Changing paradigms in ecology or appreciation of sustainability are not issues that are just coming to a head now. You could see that in the writings of people like Else Ryman in the 1920s.

She was a landscape architect and worked with Edith Roberts, a professor at Vassar. They wrote a book on American plants for American gardens. It uses beautiful photography to look at thirteen plant habitats on the east coast, to describe a new kind of beauty in those native plant communities. So they were entering a discourse about what was perceived to be beautiful with the tastemakers of their time, making a case for new forms of beauty. Helping to build a constituency for new forms of beauty does require an array of techniques, including drawing and representation and analysis, cajoling and persuading, modest demonstration projects, and even at times—I’m not so snobby about this any more—interpretive signs, which can provide a way to help the community to learn how to love it.

NC: Generating those narratives and getting the narratives out there circulating is so important. Whether it’s through signage or critical writing, interpretation of a site by someone becomes a narrative through which others gain an understanding.

EM: And another issue of representation within practice is the question of how are we communicating through our drawings and diagrams the things we find, so that the complexity and possibilities are

also appreciated. I just came out of a seminar that was looking at the ravines in Toronto, and students are finding out incredible things about the intersection between energy, water, transportation infrastructure, and the ravines. You can map them as green space with infrastructure running through them, or appreciate that the ravine is a form of infrastructure. Then you diagram them differently because they have multiple infrastructures.

I was asked at the ASLA annual meeting to join in on a session on ecosystem services that the Landscape Architecture Foundation sponsored. They are assembling case studies that designers can go to with their clients and say, look, here is the range of ecosystem services being provided by this project so it’s a good investment. I was there to talk about the cultural services aspect and through my preparation research I found that aesthetics is a big one of the services. But here’s the rub: generally, when scientist are talking about the aesthetic services that ecosystems provide they are thinking about our reaction to the wild—some big patch somewhere, maybe a remnant patch. Clearly, though, there are also aesthetic services provided by constructed nature that hasn’t gotten into the framework, and it’s where I think there is so much we can contribute because it’s not just on some seasonal holiday where we go to a regional or national park, it’s in our day-to-day experience of whatever is growing in the cracks that we happen to we see as we walk by. Those are part of the cultural aesthetic services that ecosystems provide.

Toxic Beauty NC: Are there contemporary notions of beauty that you find useful that would add to the earlier 19th-century ideas about the picturesque and the sublime?

EM: Yes, there is, for example, the relatively untapped potential of surrealist conceptions of beauty. That’s a 20th-century conception of beauty which is an outgrowth of what we would think of as cognitive dissonance. It’s the idea that something that appears to be ugly is beautiful or beautiful is ugly, and recognizing there is not only a gradient from the picturesque to the sublime, but a gradient between ugly and beautiful. Julie Bargmanns’s work really taps into the difference between what you see and what you know in that regard. I think that Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics work is also significant.

NC: And that’s a real break from the notions of detachment in the picturesque, in direct contrast to what you are advocating for, which is attachment through engagement. To pick up on Julie Bargmann’s work and stretching categories of beauty, you discuss her incorporation of the “strange beauty of toxic landscapes” in her projects and writing. What is your view about the danger of aesthetisizing toxicity and overlooking some of the violent practices that are creating toxic sites in the first place? Edward Burtynsky’s photographs were critiqued in that way, for example, and he has spoken publicly about later developing a stand on what he was representing.

EM: To couch this reference to disturbed sites in a larger framework, there are two things I want to add. One is that so many of the

Sustaining Beauty

early strategies for reclaiming these sites were the “lipstick on the pig,” covering them up with pastoral landscapes. First and foremost, disturbed sites need to be appreciated on their own terms. And yes, they are the results of bottom-line capitalism; but they are also the places of labour.

I really picked up from Julie Bargmann and her collaborations with Daniel Bluestone, an architectural historian from UVA, on the importance of appreciating disturbed sites in terms of the history of community and labour, and recognizing that there is something powerful in that. They were places of everyday life and work. So one issue is how you find a way to accept that without what you have rightly identified as the danger of fetishizing the toxicity. We’ve seen a lot of post-industrial landscapes where there are remnants, fragments and ruins of the past site and a kind of rough-and-tumble acceptance of found materials that are repurposed with great potential. That’s where you start to see this issue of relational aesthetics. It is often a part of a larger network of material flows, financial flows. When communities and individuals know about the flows, it gives them an appreciation of a place that may not be shared by someone from the outside. So I think it’s a very complex issue.

NC: I read an article about managers of a closed Pittsburgh industrial site looking at Deusberg Nord in Germany as an example of what they might do, and one man who worked there for decades broke down in

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tears at the idea of keeping and valuing certain aspects of the site rather than destroying it all.

EM: I remember seeing the documentary Manufactured Landscapes and wanting to shake Burtynsky because of his detachment. For me, those photographs made me want to know more, not just to say “I love that photo.”

NC: Notions of beauty in landscapes can be oppressive in terms of what or who they render invisible or not beautiful. In Canada, for example, the history of colonization of First Nations is very much tied to representations of landscapes of the “wilderness” and the North, which often render First Nations people invisible and sanitize the violence of the colonial process. Landscapes are also about land that is property and possession.

What about the power relations that get called up in the term beauty?

EM: I’m interested in a broad array of appearances and their agency. I use beauty as shorthand because the term “aesthetic” is often used in an even more derogatory way than beauty. But I’m amazed by the reactions to the word. So many people see the word and they can’t get over it being synonymous with the pastoral, a particular

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kind of beauty. I think it’s fascinating that we have such a limited sense of landscape beauties. We have gotten locked into a singular definition without understanding that it’s malleable and how it then connects to us, our bodies, our connections with others, our connections to the land. I’m interested in landscape architects making sure that as we become more proficient in the representation and manipulation of processes that we don’t forget that processes meet the ground. They meet the ground in material, physical ways that we see and touch and experience. And from that acceptance of what a designer does versus a restoration ecologist or conservation biologist, to begin to name and claim and expand our appreciation for the range of aesthetic possibilities that are out there, maybe we need a new term to describe the intersection of aesthetics with these other things.

NC: Could it be false modesty that people don’t want to talk about beauty in relation to their own work because that is making a claim about the success of their work aesthetically?

EM: I was in design school for eight years and I could count on one hand the number of times beauty and aesthetics were mentioned. It was taboo. It could be modesty but it’s also a lack of vocabulary. And a concern that if you mentioned the word, someone might slap you around for being a “silly girl.”

BIOS/ NANCY CHATER, OALA, WORKS FOR THE PLANNING PARTNERSHIP AND IS CO-CHAIR OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD. ELIZABETH MEYER, FASLA, IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. A LEADING, PROVOCATIVE CRITIC OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL THEORIES AND PRACTICE, HER PUBLISHED WORKS INCLUDE “UNCERTAIN PARKS: DISTURBED SITES, CITIZENS, AND RISK SOCIETY,” “SUSTAINING BEAUTY,” AND “SLOW LANDSCAPES: A NEW EROTICS OF SUSTAINABILITY.”

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The devastation wrought by acid mine drainage is often extreme.

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Coutesy DIRT Studio

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The view of the Black Lick Creek floodplain from a mountain of coal mine refuse.

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Coutesy DIRT Studio

Behind the Lens

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The OALA’s Social Committee recently held a photography competition, open to all OALA members, associates, and landscape architecture students, inviting submissions of images on two themes: Habitat and Lines. Congratulations to the winners!

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Behind the Lens

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01—Habitat Best in Show: Alexander Bell, Hamilton Conservation Authority 02—Habitat Best Place to Live: Alexander Bell, Hamilton Conservation Authority

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Behind the Lens

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03—Habitat Best Vantage Point: Jonathan Epp, University of Guelph MLA 04—Habitat Best Thinking Outside the Box: Tom Ridout, Fleisher Ridout Partnership Inc. 05—Lines Best Innovative Moment: Alexander Bell, Hamilton Conservation Authority

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Behind the Lens

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06—Lines Best Reflection: Jenny Hill, MOP Landscape 07—Lines Best Tree Hugger: Terry Wilk, Wilk Associates 08—Lines Best Engineered Photo: Jonathan Epp, University of Guelph MLA

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Plant Corner

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Underused perennials that deserve a second look

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY TODD SMITH

AGASTACHE FOENICULUM COMMON NAME: Giant Hyssop HEIGHT: 60-90 cm SPACING: 45-60 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Sun to partial shade SOIL: Clay loam to sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: Purple BLOOM TIME: Mid-summer to early autumn DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario; attractive to bees, butterflies, birds; flowers are fragrant and leaves are edible and have a licorice-like taste; average water needs

ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA COMMON NAME: Butterfly milkweed HEIGHT: 60-90 cm SPACING: 35-45 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Full sun SOIL: Clay to sandy loam; all soils BLOOM COLOUR: Orange BLOOM TIME: Mid- to late summer DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario; attractive to bees, butterflies, birds; roots and plant sap poisonous if ingested; xeriscape plant with great drought tolerance; does well in clay soils; deep taproot and not invasive like regular milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

EURYBIA DIVARICATA [FORMERLY Aster divaricatus] COMMON NAME: White wood aster HEIGHT: 30-45 cm SPACING: 22-30 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Light shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: White BLOOM TIME: Mid-summer to early autumn DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario; attractive to bees, butterflies, birds; durable groundcover; suitable for green roofs (author experience); vigorous spreader

SYMPHOTRICHUM LAEVE ‘Blue Autumn’ [FORMERLY Aster laevis] COMMON NAME: Smooth aster HEIGHT: 30-45 cm SPACING: 22-30 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Full sun to partial shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy to clay loam BLOOM COLOUR: Lavender blue BLOOM TIME: Late summer to frost DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario; attractive to bees, butterflies, birds; xeriscape plant with good drought tolerance; late-season colour

DESCHAMPSIA CAESPITOSA COMMON NAME: Tufted hairgrass HEIGHT: 90-150 cm SPACING: 100 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Full sun to partial shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: Light purple inflorescence BLOOM TIME: Late spring to early autumn DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario; cool-season grass; self-seeding if allowed for coverage; xeriscape plant; great winter interest

DIGITALIS MERTONENSIS COMMON NAME: Foxglove HEIGHT: 60-90 cm SPACING: 22-30 cm HARDINESS: Zone 5a SUN EXPOSURE: Full sun to partial shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: Light pink/mauve BLOOM TIME: Late spring to early summer; repeat bloom biennial

Plant Corner

Attractive to bees, butterflies, birds; all parts of plant poisonous if ingested; good choice as tall elegant biennial; heart medicine made from digitalis

Late winter to early spring; bloom interest through to November DESCRIPTION: Semi-evergreen in winter; early bloom in late winter even with snow; great choice for woodland gardens; entire plant poisonous if ingested

DESCRIPTION:

GALIUM ODORATUM COMMON NAME: Sweet woodruff HEIGHT: 10-25 cm SPACING: 25 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Partial to full shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: White BLOOM TIME: Late spring to early summer DESCRIPTION: Reliable drought-tolerant groundcover for shade; leaves have hay-like scent; semi-evergreen; suitable for green roofs; formerly used as mattress stuffing

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BLOOM TIME:

GERANIUM MACRORRHIZUM COMMON NAME: Bigroot geranium HEIGHT: 25-40 cm SPACING: 30-50 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Partial sun to full shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: Pink BLOOM TIME: Late spring to mid-summer; DESCRIPTION: Reliable drought-tolerant groundcover for shade; leaves have strong apple-like scent; semi-evergreen; suitable for green roofs

LIATRIS SPICATA COMMON NAME: Gayfeather, Blazing star HEIGHT: 75-90 cm SPACING: 30-50 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Full sun SOIL: Well-drained sandy to clay loam BLOOM COLOUR: Deep pink to purple BLOOM TIME: Mid-summer DESCRIPTION: Clumps of grassy-looking leaves topped with bottlebrush flower spikes; useful in large-scale meadow or restoration plantings; attractive to bees and butterflies

GILLENIA TRIFOLIATA COMMON NAME: Bowman’s root HEIGHT: 60-90 cm SPACING: 30-50 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Partial sun to full shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: White to pink BLOOM TIME: Late spring to mid-summer; DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario; great standout choice for woodland gardens; used

by Native communities as laxative and emetic

GENTIANA ANDREWSII COMMON NAME: Bottle gentian HEIGHT: 25-50 cm SPACING: 40 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Part sun to full shade SOIL: Well-drained sandy to clay loam BLOOM COLOUR: Blue BLOOM TIME: Late summer to frost DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario; lovely blue petals in a closed bottle shape; attractive to bees; great late-season colour

HELLEBORUS ‘Ivory Prince’ COMMON NAME: Lenten rose HEIGHT: 30-50 cm SPACING: 30 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Full to partial shade SOIL: Well-drained clay to sandy loam BLOOM COLOUR: Pink to green

PANICUM VIRGATUM ‘Shenandoah’ COMMON NAME: Switch grass HEIGHT: 100-150 cm SPACING: 60-100 cm HARDINESS: Zone 4a SUN EXPOSURE: Full sun SOIL: Moderately drained clay loam BLOOM COLOUR: Light pink inflorescence BLOOM TIME: Mid-summer to winter DESCRIPTION: Native to SW Ontario tallgrass prairie; warm-season grass; great winter interest; very useful for large-scale meadow or restoration plantings BIOS/ TODD SMITH, MLA, IS THE PRINCIPAL OF TODD SMITH DESIGN, A TORONTO-BASED COMPANY.

Professional Practice

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Creating inventive spaces for micro-enterprises Yet the average suburban landscape has few such amenities for small businesses. Donahue suggests that a lack of similar opportunities among suburban styles of development is because rental opportunities for retail or warehouse locations tend to be too large to be affordable for small businesses. For Jeb Brugmann, a Toronto-based urban consultant and the author of Welcome to the Urban Revolution, this is the jumping-off point of a real opportunity for designers.

TEXT BY JON WOODSIDE

The gradual decline of the inner-suburbs in Toronto has generated a lot of discussion in recent years. In 2010 the University of Toronto’s City Centre re-released a report called “The Three Cities within Toronto,” which focused attention on the economic disparity between different areas of the city. It is the inner-suburbs that have fared the worst, often physically cut off from economic opportunities by poor transportation infrastructure and a lack of services.

However, my own experience in the Markham and Eglinton community, one of the “priority neighbourhoods” that are common in the inner suburbs, revealed a community that, while frustrated, is still vigorous, energized by diversity, and full of entrepreneurial spirit.

Tapping in to that spirit has inspired several people around the city to execute a new approach to community development. Many of these experiences reveal that landscape architecture can play a critical role in the renewal of inner-suburban communities. In particular, landscape architecture with a focus on growing small business can help to enhance economic resiliency.

Michael Donahue, the director of the Toronto Business Development Centre, explains that the vast majority of new businesses begin in the home using the intellectual capital of the entrepreneur. But the challenges come quickly once these businesses try to expand outside the home. Donahue asks us to consider the ideal context for such a transition. He points to the Wychwood Barns in Toronto as a model of a highly successful transition. This old, decommissioned TTC transit yard has been repurposed into a live/work space featuring a farmers’ market—a great venue for small businesses to “launch an item, test that market, and generate revenue.”

Brugmann’s solution is to create an infrastructure ladder for microentrepreneurs, leading step-by-step from informal home-based businesses towards more formal businesses with employees, which benefits the entire community. For example, a business currently advertising catering or laundry services with a sign in an apartment window could expand by finding “a place to [work] two days a week like a market” before becoming full time from a “little hole in the wall or a sidewalk in front of someone else’s store,” and then finally to a location in a strip mall or integrated into the business of another retail outfit.

In this vision, what emerges is a “high density of compatible economic uses” that lets businesses build on their neighbours’ efforts and provide complementary services which circulate money through the community and multiply the value of each local success.

At Scadding Court Community Centre, at the corner of Bathurst and Dundas in Toronto, a striking line of orange shipping containers is an example of how this approach might work. Remodeled as small shops or food vending outlets and assembled along the Dundas Street sidewalk next to the community centre, these repurposed shipping containers create a low-cost yet engaging marketplace that has become a lunchtime hot spot.

According to architect and lead consultant on the Scadding Court project, Janna Levitt, of Levitt Goodman Architects, creating a welcoming face from a shoestring budget is the ultimate balancing act when working on this type of project. The budget must be geared to a frugal micro-entrepreneurial class.

Professional Practice

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Could the same treatment be successful on the underused lawns along sidewalks in the shadow of Toronto’s suburban concrete towers? The people at Scadding Court think so, and have just received a grant to help encourage these projects throughout suburban locations across the city.

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Or, perhaps these projects will have to start even smaller, with even more temporary structures being used to minimize costs.

Thinking through these stages of growth, surveying the existing small and mediumsized business community, and integrating the necessary infrastructure into a landscape currently dominated by large-scale land uses is what landscape architects will have to work through if they are to take advantage of these opportunities. As Brugmann sees it, landscape architects have a terrific understanding of how to mold physical density to create vibrant spaces, “and must bring that same craft and sensitivity to economic density.”

BIO/ JON WOODSIDE IS AN ENVIRONMENTAL REHABILITATION PLANNER FOR URBAN FOREST ASSOCIATES IN TORONTO AND THE JUNIOR ASSOCIATE REPRESENTATIVE ON THE OALA GOVERNING COUNCIL.

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Repurposed shipping containers on a sidewalk in Toronto have revitalized the area with entrepreneurial economic activity.

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Courtesy Scadding Court Community Centre

Notes

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Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events publications If you’re interested in butterflies, you’ll want a copy of a recently published 65page booklet called Butterflies of Toronto: A Guide to their Remarkable World. This free booklet (the second in the City of Toronto Biodiversity Series) was developed by a working group of volunteers and represents an extraordinary accomplishment—it is packed with information, colour photographs, illustrations, and references covering all aspects of butterfly ecology and diversity. Of particular interest to landscape architects is the extensive list of plants used by butterflies and caterpillars, and the information related to designing habitats for butterflies. The booklet is available from Toronto public library branches.

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An award of excellence went to Feed Toronto: Growing the Hydrofields.

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Courtesy City of Toronto

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An honourable mention went to Parkway Forest Reurbanization.

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Courtesy City of Toronto

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An award of excellence went to the Fort York Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge.

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Courtesy City of Toronto

Award of Excellence went to Feed Toronto: Growing the Hydrofields and an Honourable Mention to MaMmaL: A Mobile Media Lab for Regent Park Focus.

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

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urban design Every second year, the City of Toronto holds Urban Design Awards to acknowledge the significant contribution that architects, landscape architects, urban designers, artists, design students, and city builders make to the look and livability of the city. From 129 submissions containing a variety of built projects, visions, and master plans, as well as student works, the jury selected 23 projects for Awards of Excellence and Honourable Mentions.

In the SMALL OPEN SPACES Category, an Award of Excellence went to West Toronto Railpath and an Honourable Mention to Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization – Podium Roof Garden. In the LARGE PLACES OR NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGNS Category, an Award of Excellence went to Canada’s Sugar Beach. In the VISIONS AND MASTER PLANS Category, an Award of Excellence went toThe Fort York Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge and also to Toronto’s Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study, and an Honourable Mention went to OCAD University Capital Master Plan, and also to Parkway Forest Reurbanization. In the STUDENT PROJECTS Category, an

Socorro Alatorre Amanda Berry Bhavana Bonde Jae-Hyun Cheon * Kendall Flower Pauline Ho * Matthew Hooker Sandra Neal * Carolyn Neubauer * Kevin Post Brendan Stewart Zhenguo Sun Victoria Taylor * Jessica Tivy * Asterisk (*) denotes a Full Member not having custody and use of the Association Seal.

As at November 15, 2011, the following persons are no longer landscape architects nor members of the OALA due to their non-payment of dues: Robert Chan Sander Freedman Gillian Jurkow Grant Nixon Eric Pedersen Jill Yuzwa

Artifact

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01 TEXT BY LORRAINE JOHNSON

What would you do if the word NATURE, spelled out in large cardboard letters, appeared on the sidewalk in front of your house?

If you were operating the garbage truck that day—recycling day, as it happens—would you throw NATURE into the maw of the machine and let it be compacted along with all the other bottles, cans, newspapers, and cardboard? Artist Sean Martindale, the perpetrator of this public intervention, wasn’t sure what would happen to his ephemeral sculpture when he placed it on a Toronto sidewalk.

Visit www.harthouse.ca/student-engagement/hancocklecture to see a video of NATURE’s fate.

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BIO/ LORRAINE JOHNSON IS THE EDITOR OF GROUND.

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Artist Sean Martindale’s ephemeral sculpture graced a Toronto street for just one day, and met its end in the back of a recycling truck.

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Sean Martindale