Landscape architects and allied professionals have kicked off World Landscape Architecture Month 2020 and the Life Grows Here campaign with great energy, engaging through social media and virtual interactions to keep this annual international celebration of landscape architecture and designed public and private spaces going strong, despite the current circumstances. All are invited to participate in WLAM2020, from wherever you are, in celebration and recognition of the spaces landscape architects create.
What’s happening this April for WLAM:
- How “Life Grows Here” Began: ASkLA Podcast – host Daniel Martin, Hon. ASLA, interviews the two members who originated the Life Grows Here campaign, Dalton LaVoie, ASLA, and Andrew Wickham, ASLA.
- Landscape Architecture Magazine – FREE access to April digital edition.
- ASLA Online Learning – FREE for ASLA members “Best of” webinar series from the 2019 ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture.
- Instagram Stories Takeover – featuring Student and Professional Chapters working together to highlight their work.
- STEM Saturdays – showcasing projects that highlight all the reasons why landscape architecture is a STEM profession.
Keep an eye on ASLA’s social media feeds on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and the hashtags #WLAM2020 and #LifeGrowsHere for notable projects, practitioners, and progress in the field.
As the manifold impacts of COVID-19 demonstrate how where we live affects our physical and mental health, we’d also like to highlight the series of guides showcasing cross-disciplinary collaborations for healthy, equitable communities, released in advance of the start of WLAM. This year especially, World Landscape Architecture Month is a time to come together as a community, albeit virtually for now, to advance shared goals.
The Joint Call to Action to Promote Healthy Communities (JCTA) brings together 450,000 professionals who recognize that the built environment—the way a community is designed and built from its buildings and public spaces to how we travel between communities—is a key determinant of health. Working together will create new momentum towards the common objective of creating and sustaining healthy buildings and spaces.
The member organizations of the JCTA have published ten conversation guides to highlight successful cross-disciplinary collaborations for healthy, equitable communities. Each guide examines one case study and includes conversational questions any design or planning professional can use to kick-start collaboration in their community.
The JCTA includes the American Institute of Architects, American Planning Association, American Public Health Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Landscape Architects, National Recreation and Park Association, U.S. Green Building Council, and the Urban Land Institute.