The ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture will take place November 15-18, 2019, in San Diego.
With several important deadlines in the next few weeks, here is a roundup of American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) opportunities closing soon. Help to ensure your voice is heard, that you and your colleagues are recognized for your work and leadership, and that your practice area is represented by taking part in one or more of these open calls—for participants, nominations, presentations, and exemplary projects.
Professional Awards Call for Entries
Deadline for entry fees: Friday, February 15, 2019
Deadline for submissions: Friday, March 1, 2019, 11:59 p.m. PST
Student Awards Call for Entries
Deadline for entry fees: Friday, May 10, 2019
Deadline for submissions: Friday, May 17, 2019, 11:59 p.m. PST
Click the links above or keep reading for more information on each of these opportunities.
The physical edge between a higher education campus and its neighboring community often serves as a place for tradition, celebration, and the joining of town and gown. However, this is not always the case. Edges can also create a wedge between these two entities through issues such as traffic and parking changes, unsightly views, and changes in the socio-economic structure of the campus surrounds. In recent years American colleges and universities have seen rising student enrollments, exacerbating these issues as the campus built environment rapidly changes and even expands. In response to these forces there has been a proliferated call for collaboration between campus and community, particularly related to the built environment design and planning process.
One obvious place for campus and municipal designers to join efforts is at the campus-community edge, where changes often significantly influence both sides. However, researchers describe that when town and gown work together, there are often dichotomous collaborative efforts where the university is in control. This is especially the case in American college towns, where the physical, economic, and social structure is by nature heavily influenced by the institution. A recent study out of Clemson University explores how collaborative efforts in the built environment design process might serve to make a more even playing field.
Left to right: HABS LA-1319-26; HABS GA,123-AUG,56–1; HABS ARIZ,10-TUCSO,30–1; and HALS MD-1-19 / image: National Park Service 2019 HALS Challenge Banner
For the tenth annual HALS Challenge, the Historic American Landscapes Survey invites you to document historic streetscapes. Many cities have come to appreciate the cultural and commercial value of their historic streets. Disneyland and Walt Disney World have welcomed arriving visitors with an idealized, nostalgic representation of Main Street U.S.A. since their inception. Main Street programs across the nation have encouraged the revitalization of commercial historic districts, and now the Complete Streets movement is sweeping the design world.
What makes your favorite historic street(s) unique? Does your local Historic Preservation Commission protect the streetscape characteristics and features of historic districts along with the contributing buildings? You may increase historic landscape awareness with your local governments and preservation commissions by documenting historic streetscapes for HALS and illuminating these significant pieces of America’s circulatory system.
Please choose an individual street or a contiguous network or grid of streets to document and pay particular attention to the landscape features, including: benches, bollards, bus stops, circles, context, crosswalks, curbing, drainage, facades, fencing, festivals, fountains, gutters, islands, lampposts, medians, meters, monuments, paving, pedestrian malls, parades, parking, planters, plazas, porches, public art, ramps, setbacks, sidewalks, signage, significance, squares, steps, stoops, street trees, traffic lights, trolley tracks, and utilities.
Houtan Park Shanghai, June 2017. / Image: George Frantz
Stormwater management approaches in the US are evolving dramatically. For most of the past three decades, the standard approach was to store water and control its rate of runoff into the environment. In the past decade, the treatment of stormwater for urban runoff pollutants has gained traction as the impact of such pollutants has become apparent. Throughout the country, developing green infrastructure to treat stormwater pollution is moving from the fringe of the practice to mainstream acceptance.
New York strongly encourages the adoption of green infrastructure approaches to stormwater management to reduce urban runoff pollutants. The New York State Stormwater Management Design Manual released in 2015 sets as design objectives (1) the capture and treatment the full water quality volume of runoff; ( 2) the capacity to remove 80 percent of total suspended solids (TSS) and 40 percent of total phosphorous (TP); (3) mechanisms for the pre-treatment of stormwater; and (4) an acceptable operational lifespan for stormwater systems.
One issue that New York and other states and municipalities fail to address, however, are regulations that dictate a hodge-podge of small, privately owned and maintained (or not) stormwater management systems. General regulatory practice is that stormwater must be managed and treated on the parcel that generates it. This has resulted in a landscape of single-function detention or retention “craters” in developed areas, with little aesthetic appeal or function beyond stormwater management.
The Ecology & Restoration PPN Meeting featured presentations by Michael Sprague, President and Founder of Trout Headwaters, Inc., and Damian Holynskyj, M.C.P., Director of the Eastern Region for Great Ecology, hosted by Daniel Martin, Associate ASLA, PPN Co-Chair (2016-2018). / Image: EPNAC
ECOLOGY & RESTORATION PPN MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA
For the annual Ecology & Restoration PPN meeting in October 2018, we were joined by Michael Sprague, President and Founder of Trout Headwaters, Inc., and founding Board Member of the National Environmental Banking Association, as well as Damian Holynskyj, M.C.P., Director of the Eastern Region for Great Ecology. Our discussion covered the big picture of what conservation finance is, how it is situated within the larger economy, and the role landscape architecture fills within the industry.
The conversation that was had between Mr. Sprague, Mr. Holynskyj, and Ecology & Restoration PPN leadership and members is summarized in this document, to serve as a reference for those who were not able to attend, and a jumping-off point for those landscape architects who would like to pursue this topic further.
WHAT IS CONSERVATION FINANCE?
Conservation finance takes many forms, but in the simplest sense it is a way to create economic incentives for conservation and restoration projects. When an economic incentive exists, it opens the door for many different people and organizations to become involved with environmental projects who otherwise might not be. This increases the amount of work that can be done and leverages the specialties of a broad range of professions towards shared goals.
Shared goals; it has become so common to view economy and ecology as two separate entities, related in a fashion which necessitates the degradation of one for the benefit of the other. This is an unfortunate misconception, which Mr. Sprague discussed at length. Looking at the root meanings of ecology and economy, a truer relationship begins to show. Ecology means study of the house and economy means management of the house, so in that sense it can be understood that what is truly good for one ought to be good for the other. In other words, you can’t understand what you don’t study, and you can’t manage what you don’t understand.
ASLA’s Professional Practice Networks (PPNs) provide opportunities for professionals interested in the same areas of practice to exchange information, learn about current practices and research, and network with each other—both online and in person at the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture.
In 2018, the PPNs published 103 posts for The Field and organized 14 live Online Learning presentations. Thank you to those who shared experiences on The Field and shared their expertise as Online Learning presenters! These opportunities are open to all ASLA members, and we hope to grow our group of PPN contributors in 2019.
Below, we highlight the top five Field posts and best-attended live Online Learning presentations of the year, but be sure to check out the full PPN 2018 IN REVIEW for additional information, including recaps of:
PPN Live at the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Philadelphia,
the ASLA Online Learning Student & Emerging Professional SPOTLIGHT mini-series, and
how all ASLA members can contribute and participate on a national level through ASLA’s PPNs.
An aerial view of the veggie labyrinth and surrounding garden treasures. / image: PAPPHOTO
Over a year ago, I heard that one of the 2017 ASLA Florida annual meeting tours was to the Delray Beach Children’s Garden. While I was unable to attend the tour, I did have the good fortune of running into Jeannie Fernsworth at the 2018 American Horticultural Society National Children & Youth Garden Symposium. Jeannie Fernsworth, Co-Founder and Horticulturalist at the Delray Beach Children’s Garden, was kind enough to invite me to the garden and to share some thoughts about this magical place. Thank you, Jeannie!
– Amy Wagenfeld, Affil. ASLA, Children’s Outdoor Environments Professional Practice Network Co-Communications Director
Keeping nature and children wild is a challenge in the midst of urbanity. Parental instincts are to tame wild children and urban sprawl is about beating back wildness so that a townhouse can live there. For the sake of our health and wellness, the look and feel of nature needs to be maintained. This involves careful observation of what nature looks like and also encompasses deep understanding of the needs of people and children of varying ages, abilities, and preferences in a wildscape. The Delray Beach (Florida) Children’s Garden (DBCG)‘s mission is to promote eco-consciousness in all children through nature education and play experiences. Located just south of the downtown area, being immersed in the garden feels like you are miles away from the bustle of this South Florida beach town. The DBCG boasts innovative features, many involving repurposing materials otherwise destined for the scrap heap or recycling bin.
Students measure the infiltration rate of a rain garden soil on NC State University’s campus. / Image: Emily McCoy
The American Society of Landscape Architects publishes the Landscape Architecture Technical Information Series (LATIS) to encourage professionals to share specialized expertise relating to landscape architecture. ASLA considers LATIS papers to be important contributions to a necessary and ongoing dialogue within a large and diverse community of landscape architecture researchers and practitioners. ASLA oversees a rigorous peer review process for all LATIS papers to ensure accuracy of content. Each author offers a unique perspective on the practice area covered, reflecting his or her portfolio of professional experiences
ASLA published the latest LATIS, A Landscape Performance + Metrics Primer for Landscape Architects: Measuring Landscape Performance on the Ground, authored by Emily McCoy, PLA, ASLA, SITES AP with contributions by Marin Braco, ASLA, and Lauren Mandel, PLA, ASLA.
ABSTRACT Landscape architecture is at a pivotal moment in its history as a discipline, where design practice is becoming more reflective, adaptive, and scholarly. As the need for sustainable design grows, it has become imperative that professionals put their work under analytical review and set higher standards for their work to perform environmentally, socially, and economically. The field looks more to the integration of research and scholarly inquiry in design as a solution to this growing need for high-performance landscapes.
While the concept of landscape performance assessment is gaining attention within the field, the availability of time, resources, and technical expertise remains an obstacle for many designers in evaluating built work. More in-depth research investigations are best left to academics and scientists, but methods exist that every landscape architect can use to assess the performance of their own work for use throughout the planning, design, construction, and post-occupancy phases. This paper aims to provide an introduction to these metrics and methods that can be applied in the field.
These peer-reviewed papers are a key vehicle for members to share their expertise. Each LATIS paper enables landscape architects to earn PDH needed to meet state licensure requirements by completing and passing a self-study exam.
ASLA members can download A Landscape Performance + Metrics Primer for Landscape Architects: Measuring Landscape Performance on the Ground for FREE and can purchase and pass a self-study exam to earn 3.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW) / 3.0 SITES-specific GBCI CE hours (GBCI course ID 0920018252).
by Gina Ford, FASLA, Cinda Gilliland, ASLA, Rebecca Leonard, Jamie Maslyn Larson, ASLA, and Steven Spears, FASLA
Gina Ford, FASLA, presenting during the 2018 ASLA Annual Meeting / image: EPNAC
Regardless of your political perspective, we can all agree that 2016 was an interesting year for our nation. Since, we have seen women, in particular, participating in civic action and protest in record numbers. Accordingly, last fall, the midterm election of 2018 resulted in a wave of “firsts”—with a history-making number of women, people of color, LBGTQ leaders, and women of color breaking onto the national scene in politics not just as candidates, but being voted in as representatives of their constituents.
A similar shift is happening in the practice of landscape architecture. In the years of 2016 and 2017, we—Gina Ford, Cinda Gilliland, Rebecca Leonard, and Jamie Maslyn Larson—all highly recognized, talented female landscape architects and planners—broke away from our signature roles in traditional national award-winning firms—Sasaki, SWA, Design Workshop, and West 8, respectively—to lead or start new practices, some after decades of practice in those offices. In October of 2018, concurrent with our panel discussion on the challenges and opportunities of female leadership at the national ASLA conference, moderated by Steven Spears, we published the Women’s Landscape Equality (re)Solution online at www.change.org, outlining actions for leveling the playing field for women in our profession.
The Resolution provides some context about the state of the profession as it relates to gender equality, a charge for change and a specific set of commitments to be made by signatories. We are asking supporters of it and its recommended commitments for the following:
Share your commitment to the (re)Solution by posting it on your firm’s website and on social media with the hashtag #landscapeequalitysolution and other relevant hashtags;
Review your firm’s policies and salaries for opportunities to make positive change right away; and
Engage in conversations with your colleagues on how to more actively enlist women and minorities into your firm’s work, culture and leadership.
San Diego’s Waterfront Park, by Hargreaves Associates. The 2019 ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture will take place November 15-18 in San Diego, CA. / image: Ron Thomas and Patty Thomas, iStock
The conference education program provides professional development opportunities that address the diversity of practice types and cross-sector collaborations most relevant to the practice of landscape architecture today. If you are interested in presenting and sharing your knowledge with the landscape architecture profession, please submit a proposal through our online system. Proposals must be submitted by Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. PST.
New Session Formats for 2019
60- or 75-Minute Education Session
The standard education session with 50/60 minutes of presentation followed by 10/15 minutes of Q&A, maximum three speakers.
90-Minute Education Session
Education session with 60 minutes of presentation followed by 30 minutes of Q&A, maximum three speakers.
Professional Practice Network (PPN) Education Session
PPNs represent the major practice areas within the landscape architecture profession and provide networking and mentorship opportunities. A PPN session is a 60- or 75-minute session with 50/60 minutes of presentation followed by 10/15 minutes of Q&A. Up to four sessions will be selected. PPN sessions must be submitted and delivered by at least one member of the selected PPN. See more information on PPN sessions below.
Deep Dive Session
In-depth, three-hour technical programs that dig deep into specific landscape architecture topics.
Field Session
Education combined with a field experience. Field sessions are organized through the host chapter. Please contact the host chapter committee leaders at asla2019fieldsessions@gmail.com.
Introducing Professional Practice Network (PPN) Education Sessions
New for 2019: members of ASLA’s PPNs are invited to submit a proposal for a PPN education session, emphasizing your particular practice area within the landscape architecture profession, and providing a forum to make connections outside your market. Up to four proposals will be selected for one-hour sessions with a maximum of three speakers. At least one member of the selected PPN must be included in the proposal.
We encourage you to submit a presentation of your own and to reach out to members of your PPN to develop a presentation proposal. Consider the unique view on the profession your fellow PPN members have to offer!
With the holiday season in full swing, what could be a better gift than a book authored by one of ASLA’s members? At one time, ASLA operated a brick-and-mortar bookstore out of our national headquarters, but these days we leave it to the professionals at Amazon to handle the ordering and fulfillment. ASLA does receive money from customers that we direct to books on Amazon, but only when people use the special URLs on the ASLA website.
From the Books by ASLA Members landing page, the books are divided into seven categories:
Landscape Architecture: Landscape architecture design and coffee table books, histories, and analyses
Sustainability: The Sustainable SITES Initiative® (SITES®) and sustainable design planning, design, implementation, and maintenance how-to books
Gardens and Gardening: Garden design and coffee table books, histories, and analyses
Plants, Trees, and Flowers: Guides for how to plant and maintain plants, trees, and flowers in different landscapes
Biographies: Histories and visual records of works by living and deceased landscape architects
Urban Planning and Design: Planning and design and how-to books related to climate change, sustainable urban development, sustainable transportation, community involvement, and other urban topics
Drawing and Design: Drawing and software modeling how-to books by expert landscape architect practitioners
ASLA Honors are prestigious awards that recognize individuals and organizations for their lifetime achievements and notable contributions to the profession of landscape architecture.
The deadline for all 2019 ASLA Honors nominations is February 1, 2019.
The ASLA Medal is ASLA’s highest honor, bestowed upon a landscape architect whose lifetime achievements and contributions to the profession have had a unique and lasting impact on the welfare of the public and the environment.
Recent ASLA Medal winners: Linda Jewell, FASLA; Charles Birnbaum, FASLA; Kurt Culbertson, FASLA; M. Paul Friedberg, FASLA; Richard Bell, FASLA
The latest Shanghai Landscape Forum, focused on Landscape and Infrastructure, took place September 20, 2018. / image: Sasaki
Initiated by Sasaki, AECOM, and SWA, and joined by other leading international landscape architecture practices such as ASPECT Studios and SOM, Shanghai Landscape Forum is now a summit for the international design community in Shanghai, China.
On September 20, 2018, Shanghai Landscape Forum hosted its fourth event at Shanghai AIO Space. Hosted by ASPECT Studios, designers from SOM, ATKINS, Sasaki, SWA, AECOM, and HASSELL presented on and discussed the theme “Landscape and Infrastructure.” The presentations explored topics such as how to integrate infrastructure harmoniously with nature and site, how to make infrastructure work efficiently, and how to improve and bring new life to old infrastructures via creative design principles and pioneering design approaches.
The mission of the Forum is to pioneer new practices that result in design innovation and influence policy transformation, raise public awareness of landscape architecture’s vital contributions, and bring landscape architecture into the mainstream by advocating for the profession as a driving force for social progress.
by Christine Colley, ASLA, RLA, and the Transportation PPN Leadership Team
The view toward the Philadelphia Museum of Art down Benjamin Franklin Parkway / image: EPNAC
The Transportation Professional Practice Network (PPN) meeting at the 2018 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Philadelphia last month was well attended and chock-full of content. Incoming PPN Co-Chair Jean Senechal Biggs, ASLA, opened the session by introducing the PPN leadership team (read more about the team here). She described the PPN’s mission and referenced associated practice networks and ASLA initiatives, including the New Mobility and Emerging Technologies Subcommittee (previously Autonomous Vehicles) of ASLA’s Professional Practice Committee. The PPN’s Online Learning sessions, newsletter, and website were also discussed.
In keeping with the Transportation PPN’s annual tradition, ASLA’s Director of Federal Government Affairs, Roxanne Blackwell, Esq., Hon. ASLA, provided a legislation update. Roxanne was pleased to report no threats to funding for major federal programs relevant to landscape architects at this time. She noted that the very popular TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) program had been renamed. The new BUILD (Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development) Transportation Discretionary Grants program maintains the TIGER program’s singular focus on surface transportation infrastructure investments by offering competitive grants that favor projects with significant local or regional impacts. The funding level for the BUILD grants has been set at $1.5 billion dollars.
Another promising legislative action is H.R. 5158. This bill was unanimously approved by the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in September. The bi-partisan bill directs the Secretary of Transportation to reopen the nomination process for National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads. Roxanne reminded those in attendance that live social media alerts on H.R. 5158 had been sent out to members. She urged everyone to contact their Representative(s) to express support for the bill. The goal is to get as many co-sponsors in this Congress as possible—a show of bipartisan support—before Congress transitions in 2019. ASLA members continue to report using funds from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Scenic Byway program. ASLA would consider it an incredible coup if program funding was re-established.
Proposed bird watching overlook and platform community amenity / Image: Kounkuey Design Initiative
The ASLA Environmental Justice PPN provides a forum for ASLA members involved in, inspired by, and interested in pursuing environmental justice through education, research, and practice. Throughout 2018, the Environmental Justice PPN has hosted virtual presentations with live Q&A, focused on issues most important to its members. All Environmental Justice PPN members are invited to participate in these monthly events, allowing members to expand their networks, and hear from design professionals who are playing an important role in addressing environmental justice. On November 8, Christian Rodriguez, Community Associate at Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), joined the conversation on KDI’s work in the Eastern Coachella Valley of southern California.
About KDI is a non-profit design and community development organization with teams in Los Angeles, CA, and Nairobi, Kenya. KDI partners with under-resourced communities to advance equity and activate the unrealized potential in their neighborhoods and cities through advocacy, research, planning, and built works. KDI realizes this mission through advocacy, research, planning, and built works.
Context The Eastern Coachella Valley (ECV), located 2.5 hours east of Los Angeles, CA, is a cluster of unincorporated communities just minutes away from Palm Springs and some of the most expensive zip codes in the country. The ECV is a historically under resourced region and its communities, composed of agricultural workers and a migrant population, face environmental injustices such as poor air quality, substandard housing, lack of clean water, and basic infrastructure. The residents of these communities live along the shoreline of the rapidly drying Salton Sea, California’s largest lake.
For over a century, the Salton Sea water levels were maintained through surrounding agricultural runoff. In 2003, the primary water source for the surrounding agricultural lands was affected by the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), created to reduce California’s over-dependence on Colorado River water while also making more water available for urban use in San Diego County. This diversion of water and reduction of agricultural runoff has caused the Salton Sea waterline to recede. In the coming decades, more of the contaminated lake bed will become exposed, spreading harmful dust and fine particles, and exacerbating the already poor air quality in the region. KDI, in partnership with a larger NGO network, is part of an Environmental Justice Campaign that seeks to inform the government efforts to mitigate these environmental and health impacts with the voices and needs of the immediate community.
We measure success at our events when we have a great turnout of people interested in our topics—and indeed we had standing room only during our joint event in Philadelphia! Children’s Outdoor Environments PPN leadership was well represented among the 70+ attendees (and several attendees also signed up to join the PPN leadership team!). Here is a summary of the three presentations that took place.
Diane Jones Allen spoke about “The Challenge of Park Equity in Communities with Environmental Challenges,” including Sankofa Wetland Park in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. Diane explained the technique “Mining the Indigenous” as described in Design as Democracy to bring together community knowledge typically overlooked and left unmined, to the detriment of projects. For example, local residents shared extensive knowledge of the Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle from childhoods spent in these wetlands. Contributions from locals provided a better understanding of the fauna, including alligators, snakes, and insects, and flora, such as edible plants and the historical uses of existing vegetation. Diane described examples of bio-retention facilities designed to alleviate neighborhood flooding during heavy rainfall, with native vegetation and walking paths to promote educational and recreational opportunities for community residents and other users.
Golden Gate Park, Heroes’ Grove and Gold Star Mothers’ Memorial Boulder, HALS CA-49-B, San Francisco, California / image: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Results of the ninth annual Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) Challenge, Memorialization, Commemorating the Great War, were announced at the HALS Meeting in Philadelphia during the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO on Saturday, October 20, 2018. Congratulations to the winners! Sponsored by the National Park Service, cash prizes were awarded to the top three submissions. This challenge resulted in the donation of 17 impressive HALS short format historical reports and a few measured drawings and large format photographs to the HALS collection. This competition marks the 100th Anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, on November 11, 1918.
2018 HALS Challenge: Memorialization, Commemorating the Great War Sponsored by HALS-National Park Service
First Place: Golden Gate Park, Heroes’ Grove and Gold Star Mothers’ Memorial Boulder, HALS CA-49-B
San Francisco, San Francisco County, California
by Cate Bainton with large format photographs by Les Tabata and Cate Bainton
Second Place: American Academy in Rome, Thrasher-Ward Memorial, HALS US-10-A
Rome, Italy (Please check with the NPS HALS Office before documenting foreign sites to make sure they meet the criteria to be considered a Historic American Landscape.)
by James O’Day, ASLA
Third Place: Monument Terrace, HALS VA-79
Lynchburg, Campbell County, Virginia
by Laura Knott, ASLA, RLA, MSHP
Honorable Mention: Liberty Row, HALS OH-13
Passing through Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, and Shaker Heights, Cuyahoga County, Ohio
by P. Jeffrey Knopp, ASLA
ASLA 2018 Professional Analysis and Planning Honor Award. Extending Our History, Embracing Our Future, Madison, WI. SmithGroup + Hoerr Schaudt. / Image: University of Wisconsin-Madison
The ASLA Education & Practice Professional Practice Network (PPN) exists to promote communication between education and practice. We have developed a philosophy statement: Education and practice mutually need each other and should respect each other. They should reciprocate and participate between themselves and most importantly should communicate regularly. In many cases, these relationships are already in place and functioning. In others, there may be disconnects, real or perceived. The PPN seeks to engage both practitioners and educators on how we can promote and enhance the dialog.
We would like to ask members of the PPN, both academics and practitioners, to provide feedback through the Education & Practice PPN survey on ways in which you are providing some level of reciprocation and participation.
In this issue, we will focus on:
Reciprocation and Participation- The relationships between practice and education occur on many levels. One primary method involves proximity, the interaction between practitioners and academia on a state-by-state or program proximity basis. It may involve a relationship between individual faculty members and practitioners who share a common subject or research interest.
Certainly, the alumni factor comes into play. Many of us take pride in promoting our alma mater and seeing it succeed.
We would like to ask members of the PPN, both academics and practitioners, to provide dialog on ways in which you are providing some level of reciprocation and participation. Toward that end, we will provide a series of questions to fuel the dialog:
Chad Kennedy, ASLA, speaking at TEDx Modesto / image: TEDx
TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading,” has popularized short, engaging talks from thought leaders since its founding in 1984 as a conference on Technology, Entertainment and Design. Since then, TED has expanded with the TEDx program to support local, independently organized events that bring communities together to share ideas and spark conversation.
Chad is Principal Landscape Architect at O’Dell Engineering, and he is also serving as Chair of ASLA’s Professional Practice Network (PPN) Council this year, after serving as co-chair and officer for the Children’s Outdoor Environments PPN. Chad is an advocate for and designer of recreational spaces that are created specifically to enrich the lives of all those who visit them. (See “Processing Through Play,” from the June 2018 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, for more on Chad’s focus on play spaces for children with sensory disorders.)
The Women in Landscape Architecture Professional Practice Network (WILA PPN) Meeting in Philadelphia / image: EPNAC
The 2018 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO was a landmark meeting for the Women in Landscape Architecture Professional Practice Network (WILA PPN). Not only did our PPN host two well-attended events as part of the conference, we were also pleased to see women in our profession more equally represented amongst education session panels. 20 WILA PPN members spoke, moderated sessions, and led field sessions on a wide variety of topics over the course of the meeting.
The PPN’s Women in Leadership Roundtable took place on the PPN Live stage in the EXPO hall on Saturday morning. With more than 90 attendees in the standing-room-only audience, we can safely say that this is one of the best, if not the best, turnouts we have ever had at our PPN Live meeting. Roundtable participants Wendy Miller, FASLA, Vanessa Warren, ASLA, Haley Blakeman, ASLA, and Magdalena Aravena, ASLA, shared their paths to leadership positions and lessons learned along the way.
PPN meetings, including three collaborative joint meetings that PPN pairs planned together, took place on Saturday and Sunday, October 20-21, drawing nearly 700 participants to PPN Live on the EXPO floor. PPN events were open to all attendees, giving them the chance to meet fellow PPN members and explore different practice areas.
During the PPN meetings—which ranged from panels to quickfire presentations to interviews, among other formats—new PPN leadership volunteers were also identified for many PPNs, along with members interested in submitting posts for The Field or presenting ASLA Online Learning webinars. If you would like to learn more about getting involved, check out the ways to engage and PPN leadership positions to consider.
Context Sensitive Design (CSS) is having a moment. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has recently released three new publications on Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) and Context Sensitive Design (CSD). The documents are excellent resources for seasoned and novice transportation landscape architects:
Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) and Context Sensitive Designs (CSD) are not new. The concept was first introduced in the 1997 FHWA publication A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design and further defined during the May 1998 workshop Thinking Beyond the Pavement: A National Workshop on Integrating Highway Development with Communities and the Environment. CSS is a decision-making tool that emphasizes multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches to the planning and design of transportation infrastructure. Ideally, when following a CSS decision-making process, the result is a transportation facility uniquely suited to its setting. CSS is achieved by maintaining and enhancing scenic, aesthetic, historical, community, and environmental resources while simultaneously improving or maintaining safety and mobility.
Join thought leaders from the U.S. and around the globe in advancing the connections between cultural and natural heritage for more sustainable conservation. This symposium, Forward Together: A Culture-Nature Journey Towards More Effective Conservation in a Changing World, builds on the recognition that integration of cultural and natural heritage conservation and stewardship across professional boundaries and disciplines is essential to improving conservation outcomes.
The symposium kicks off a week of conference activities in San Francisco, in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation:
November 14-16, 2018: The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s PastForward conference
ASLA members participating in the US/ICOMOS Symposium and PastForward include:
Welcome from symposium partners
Michael Boland, ASLA, Chief of Park Development and Visitor Engagement, Presidio Trust
Re-envisioning the Cultural Landscape Report: Straddling the Nature/Culture Divide at Pecos National Historical Park
Theme: Taking a landscape approach to integrating nature and culture
Robert Melnick, FASLA, Senior Cultural Resource Specialist, MIG, Inc.
Protecting Mendocino Woodlands: Lessons from a Landscape of Natural and Cultural Significance Theme: Linking resilience, sustainable heritage and community livelihoods Laurie Matthews, ASLA, Director of Preservation Planning + Design, MIG, Inc. (presented by Robert Melnick, FASLA)
Identifying Tangible and Intangible Cultural Relationships in a Rapidly Changing Region of Turkey
Theme: Stewardship of biocultural landscapes in the 21st century: the role of traditional knowledge and practices Terry Clements, FASLA, Professor and Program Chair, Virginia Tech Landscape Architecture Program
Spruce Harbor Park at night, Penns Landing, Philadelphia / image: Jon Lovette / Alamy Stock Photo
The 2018 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO begins tomorrow, October 19! In addition to the events planned for PPN Live, each Professional Practice Network (PPN) leadership team reviews the annual meeting education program to highlight sessions relevant to their practice areas. With more than 130 courses, allowing attendees to earn up to 24 professional development hours (PDH), it is an extensive program to explore, and you can do so through the meeting website and mobile app by title, speaker, topic area, and PDH type (LA CES/HSW, LA CES/non-HSW, AIA, AICP, CMAA, FL, GBCI CE, GBCI SITES, ISA, NY, etc.).
Below, we run through the second half of these education highlights (see the sessions picked by ASLA’s 10 other PPNs in our previous post):
Are creating climate positive cities possible? San Francisco is discussing the possibility. / Image: CMG Landscape Architecture
On September 12, 2018, San Francisco hosted international leaders of various countries, states, regions, cities, and businesses, celebrities and environmental justice pioneers invited by California Governor Jerry Brown for three days at the Global Climate Action Summit. This group shared Climate Action initiatives to support the Paris Agreement goals and made bold new pledges for a future low carbon economy – specifically to prevent a 1.5 degree Celsius increase and to ensure a climate turning point of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations by 2020.
As part of the Summit, CMG Landscape Architecture hosted an event titled “Climate Positive City Design” – a multidisciplinary panel discussion and salon bringing together over one hundred people to discuss how thinkers, academics, innovators, and designers can work together to strive beyond neutrality, and bring about positive change to our climate. The group of nationally recognized leaders in environmental design and policy included Ryan Allard – Senior Fellow at Project Drawdown, Claire Maxfield – Director at Atelier Ten, Lisa Fisher – Sustainability City Team Lead, San Francisco Planning Department, and myself with panel moderation by Chris Guillard, ASLA – Partner at CMG.
The community comes together at the “Climate Positive City Design” Salon. / Image: CMG Landscape Architecture
The conversation ranged from how designers can implement solutions from Project Drawdown to how we can collaborate with City agencies to make policy adjustments towards a lower carbon urban environment – but unanimously across the panel and around the room, the message was clear – we all need and want to take action.
The climate is changing. Temperatures are rising along with sea level, and the IPCC recently produced an updated report on the urgency of the situation. It is clear that we have a critical role to play in adapting to the effects of climate warming along coastlines, but is there anything we can do as a profession to mitigate the causes of climate change?
The 2018 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO begins this Friday in Philadelphia! In addition to the events planned for PPN Live, each Professional Practice Network (PPN) leadership team also reviews the annual meeting education program to highlight sessions relevant to their practice areas. With more than 130 courses, allowing attendees to earn up to 24 professional development hours (PDH), it is an extensive program to explore, and you can do so through the meeting website and mobile app by title, speaker, topic area, and PDH type (LA CES/HSW, LA CES/non-HSW, AIA, AICP, CMAA, FL, GBCI CE, GBCI SITES, ISA, NY, etc.).
Below, we run through the first half of these education highlights (stay tuned for sessions picked by ASLA’s 10 other PPNs this Thursday):
Earn PDH right on the EXPO floor at four Professional Practice Network (PPN) sessions for PDH, taking place in PPN Live, and eight PPN EXPO Tours on Saturday and Sunday, October 20-21, 2018, during the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO. / images: EPNAC
The 2018 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Philadelphia this month offers many opportunities to learn and network during the largest gathering of landscape architects in the world. In addition to education sessions, field sessions, and workshops, ASLA’s Professional Practice Networks (PPNs) offer two more ways to earn professional development hours (PDH), right on the EXPO floor:
Unleashed urban sprawl propelled by rapid economic development has caused many issues in China during the past 40 years. With growing public awareness and global vision on the environmental quality, social justice, and cultural heritage in China, as well as the ever strict control on land uses across the country, many cities are refocusing on the developed areas and promoting urban renewal efforts. Case studies will be used to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the recent urban renewal efforts in China through the lens of governance, urban planning, and landscape design.
There will be many opportunities to learn, network, and celebrate during the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Philadelphia later this month. In addition to the 130+ education sessions, field sessions, workshops, and special events, be sure to add PPN Live to your annual meeting plans.
Through PPN Live, you can network with colleagues from all 20 ASLA Professional Practice Networks (PPNs) throughout the annual meeting weekend, right on the EXPO floor. PPN membership is not required to attend that PPN’s meeting or the PPN EXPO tours—all are welcome! Already a member of one PPN, but curious about another? Or not sure which PPN to choose (all ASLA members receive one PPN membership for free)? You are welcome to attend as many PPN events as you like!
The schedule of PPN meetings is below, followed by descriptions of what’s planned for each:
Today more than ever sustainability is used in our line of work; designing and managing green spaces that reflect the value of the word. It only makes sense that nature remain, as she always has, sustainable.
Over the past several years our team has worked on projects across the United States. These national experiences have exposed us to a variety of natural soils and fauna such as the gumbo clays and wildflower meadows of Southeast Texas, the high silt soils along the Mississippi River, the clay loams of the West Coast and the forests of the Northeast.
Nature by herself always seems to have the answers to the questions we are asking when designing and building new landscapes. It is our job to dissect the ecological behaviors of the landscape, explain them and apply them in our work.
There are times when we believe we have unlocked certain secrets of the Earth and developed efforts unparalleled, but eventually science and/or technology deem these efforts linear or one dimensional when compared to her.
Our efforts are stretching beyond the industrial landscape plane and asking the critical questions to scientists and academics that are not part of the main stream landscape franchise. Foresters for example have a different perspective on certain ecologies, scientists in the management of human microbiology have in-depth knowledge on bacteria and how they grow and respond. Agronomists, who manage thousands of acres of farm land, may look at soil completely different then you and I – yet all of these individuals have insight into the same problems our industry faces such as soil compaction, pH, lack of nutrients, etc.
Soils are the foundation of the landscape and plants are the engineers of the ecosystem. One cannot survive without the other. Questions that we are often faced with include, where does the plant end and the soil begin? Is it realistic to have a specification on soil and second specification on planting? Should both be combined into one specification as a system?
As of now we are still figuring out the answers to those questions but perhaps as we adapt changing paradigms, our soils and plants will shift into performance specifications and eliminate the constant finger pointing when a problem arises with the health of the landscape.
Residents of the Lucero del Norte colonia work with [bc] to address stormwater issues. / Image: buildingcommunityWORKSHOPThe ASLA Environmental Justice PPN provides a forum for ASLA members involved in, inspired by, and interested in pursuing environmental justice through education, research, and practice. Throughout 2018, the Environmental Justice PPN has hosted virtual presentations with live Q&A, focused on issues most important to its members. All Environmental Justice PPN members are invited to participate in these monthly events, allowing members to expand their networks, and hear from design professionals who are playing an important role in addressing environmental justice. On August 16, Elaine Morales, Design Manager at buildingcommunityWORKSHOP [bc] joined the conversation on public interest design and equity.
buildingcommunityWORKSHOP ([bc]) is a Texas based nonprofit community design center seeking to improve the livability and viability of communities through the practice of thoughtful design and making. We enrich the lives of citizens by bringing design thinking to areas of our cities where resources are most scarce. To do so, [bc] recognizes that it must first understand the social, economic, and environmental issues facing a community before beginning work.
Our diverse team employs public interest design methodologies to address these issues with an equity lens. Our practice leverages the diverse skill set of our team—encompassing architects, planners, urban designers, geographers, and policy specialists—to steward initiatives that engage communities, create platforms to discuss challenges, set priorities, and envision the future, whilst elevating underheard voices to celebrate and concretize community identity and building capacity for residents to drive decision-making in the sphere of design and planning. We organize our work around six core methods: analyzing, mapping, activating, informing, storytelling, and making.
A diagram illustrating this collaborative approach. / Image: buildingcommunityWORKSHOP
