During the ASLA 2023 Conference on Landscape Architecture, 5,000 participants joined together to garner new insights and discover tools that will help you scale up your practice, with education sessions that covered everything from decarbonizing your site construction to artificial intelligence to learning how to navigate government agencies like the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
50 recorded conference education sessions are now available on-demand through ASLA Online Learning for Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System™ (LA CES™)-approved professional development hours (PDH).
You can purchase individual sessions or bundle and save—ASLA members can take advantage of a 25% discount when purchasing four or more conference recordings!
Log in using your ASLA username and password for member discounts.
Here are the 2023 conference education sessions added to the ASLA Online Learning library. A heads up for SITES Accredited Professionals (SITES APs): four of these also offer GBCI SITES-Specific CE in addition to LA CES PDH.
A Future of Computational Collaborators: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Landscape Architecture – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
The role of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in the design profession is quickly evolving, creating challenges for landscape architects. The session will provide a historical context that has led to the current uses of AI, explore the ethical and technical issues associated with AI, and provide a lens on its future applications.
Alternative Business Ownership Models – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Dive into three alternative models of ownership and candidly explore the decision-making process, setbacks, and the psychological explorations that lead to founding and running mission-based firms. These practices include non-profits, B Corps, cooperatives, and perpetual purpose trusts.
A Path Forward: Identifying Accessibility Challenges and Solutions for Historic Landscapes – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Stewardship of historic landscapes and the inclusion of disabled people traditionally clash: Why is this? How can landscape architects preserve the character and experience of cultural landscapes AND improve accessibility? In this session, experts will share successful methods used by projects that bridge the gap between historic preservation and accessibility.
Behind the Curtain: Storytelling and Design Process of Residential Landscapes – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
The opportunity to make shifts in the public’s perception of an idealized landscape can often depend upon our ability to connect audiences with a meaningful story of the place. Three leading residential designers explain how their analysis, design, and marketing processes drive design excellence and stewardship of our lands.
Below the Surface: Strategies for Designing Big Parks on Complex Structures – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
As the urgency to provide access to green open space in dense urban neighborhoods increases, more parks are being constructed on structure—over buildings, highways, and bridges. This session explores these projects’ technical challenges and a range of strategies for designing and engineering public open space on new and existing structures.
BIG PARKS, BIG IMPACTS: Raising the Stakes for Performative Landscapes – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Landscape architects touch only one percent of the planet’s surface, but massive public parks present an outsized opportunity to advance climate action, implement carbon-positive design, and increase biodiversity. With an evidence-based approach guiding design decisions, innovative examples demonstrate how complex projects can offer transferable and replicable lessons for projects of any scale.
Building Biodiversity and Stewardship with Our Native Meadows – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
In this session, an artist and academic, a non-profit administrator, and a design-build practitioner share their approaches to redefining our relationship with meadows. From creating community-friendly designs to engaging the meadow as an outdoor classroom to tracking and promoting native plant sales, this session explores the biodiversity of our native meadows.
Centering Community Voices in Equitable Design Solutions: Restorative Justice on Portland’s I-5 – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
This session will review how historic racist housing policies led to systemic inequities, disinvestment, and displacement of minority communities. We will address Portland’s Lower Albina neighborhood, where the construction of I-5 displaced Portland’s Black community, and how community-centered engagement and landscape architecture can be tools for restorative justice.
Community as Design Consultant/Landscape Architect as Facilitator: Shifting the Design Relationship – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Centered in the knowledge that nobody knows a landscape better than the people who live in it, three landscape architects discuss elevating community voice to a position of expertise within the design team. This session showcases built projects in various communities of the African diaspora in Seattle, Philadelphia, and northeastern Brazil.
Connecting the Dots: Leveraging Infrastructure Funding for Public Improvements – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
This session prepares landscape architects to lead and collaborate with public clients to win local and federal grant funding. Learn about best practices and potential pitfalls of grant funding following three themes: 1) connecting aspirations with funding, 2) understanding grant realities, and 3) understanding grant implementation.
Creating Culture: Studio Perspectives – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
In a society where employees are increasingly seeking personal growth and social contribution, how do you cultivate a studio that empowers collaboration, develops core values, and encourages employee fulfillment? This session speaks to the challenges of leadership, perspectives on culture, and strategies for improvement in the contemporary landscape architecture studio.
Cultivating Climate Justice: New Frameworks for Rural Resilience – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
As climate change promises to reshape working landscapes in far-reaching ways, the need for landscape architects to meaningfully engage with the spaces and systems of agricultural production is becoming increasingly urgent. Through a diverse set of case studies, this panel explores new frameworks for cultivating climate justice in rural communities.
Decarbonizing Details: Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Site Construction – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
This session will provide comprehensive information to decarbonize site construction details. We will explore methods to reduce the embodied carbon of landscape structures including pavements, walls, decks, railings, and other site structures. Resources and techniques for measuring and evaluating the carbon footprint of details and materials will be discussed.
Democracy is Messy, and Getting Messier…. – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Equitable community engagement is essential for landscape projects, but what happens when passionate but misinformed community members try to derail the community engagement process by asserting their influence? See how planners for Zilker Park in Austin and FDR Park in Philadelphia are handling the challenge of building consensus in the age of contentious social media.
Design, Construction, Occupancy, Repeat: The High Line’s Fifteen Years of Development – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Looking at the High Line’s last fifteen years offers an exploration of best practices in design, construction, maintenance, and operations. Learn how to build a governance structure for planning and construction, how to adjust your site post-occupancy, and how to measure the impact programming plays on the site’s infrastructure.
Designing and Implementing Floating Wetlands for Biodiversity and Human Connections to Nature – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Floating wetlands are fast becoming integral components of landscape architecture practice. This session presents exemplary domestic and international floating wetland projects, conveys research on how this innovative blue-green infrastructure can positively affect aquatic ecosystems, and describes essential environmental justice roles that communities play in implementation and stewardship.
Drone Technology and Landscape Architecture: Strategies for Integrated Workflows and Climate Action – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
We invite you to learn how drone technologies and software applications augment landscape architecture’s ability to fight climate change. Accurate site data and realistic visualizations are now more accessible to the profession’s practice and education. This session proposes new drone data workflows for analysis, research, and planning.
Equitable Transportation Design with Small Communities – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Forty-six million Americans live in rural counties, often in towns of under 5,000 people. This session uses comparative case studies to identify unique needs for active transportation planning and design in small towns across the country, from the perspective of providing equitable access, resilient systems, and healthy environments.
Facing Imposter Syndrome: Providing Mental Health Tools for Practitioners, Students, and Firms – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Imposter syndrome is an ever-present topic that is gaining prominence on a global scale. This session is curated for the landscape architecture profession to identify the causes of imposter syndrome and provide tools to help mitigate its impacts on students and practitioners.
Focusing on Your Why: Optimizing Your Firm’s Success and Legacy – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Do you know your “WHY?” Are you able to translate that into your organization’s strategy? This session will provide a process to answer these fundamental business questions. It will inform the choices that are necessary to move your organization to greater success while establishing its practice legacy.
From Gray to Gold: Achieving SITES Certification at Gilead Park – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW) / 1.0 GBCI SITES-Specific CE
This session recounts how Gilead Park transformed a six-acre parking lot into a SITES Gold employee-focused amenity. Examine how SITES was utilized as a project touchstone to advance the client’s sustainability goals, acted as a lens that shaped the design process, and challenged the conventional construction process.
Gather Here: Reinvigorating Iconic Spaces for Celebration, Protest, and Community in Boston – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
What does it mean to renew landscapes for civic expression in a legacy city? Join public and private practitioners to explore how the trifold transformation of Boston’s main civic spaces—the Common, City Hall Plaza, and Copley Square—is reframing conversations, connections, and civic life among Bostonians.
Grand Junction: Climate-Crisis Resiliency, Stormwater Management, Riparian Corridor Reparation, Meets Social Overlay – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Following a 500-year storm event, Westfield, IN, made the strategic decision to layer climate crisis response, stormwater management, and riparian corridor reparation with social overlay. This Quaker-founded Midwest town reinforced identity in a forward-thinking infrastructure strategy, allowing development of a burgeoning downtown core while ameliorating historic and damaging environmental decisions.
Healing on the Inside: The Benefits of Nature Interactions within Carceral Environments – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
The therapeutic benefits of nature interactions in carceral environments positively impact those living in high stress environments, lacking sensory stimulation, healthy social interactions and support rehabilitative outcomes, humanize oppressive environments, and can reduce recidivism. Landscape architects as activists and designers should and can have an important role in this process.
Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities: How Green Schools Promote Wellness and Equity – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
As civic infrastructure, schools play an important role in the health and wellness of our communities, especially in communities of color. This session will dive into the science behind the design of outdoor spaces that can foster wellness, increase equitable access to open space, and improve ecology, learning outcomes, and the community.
How Green Infrastructure Captured the Heart of Lexington: Town Branch Commons – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Weaving 2.5 miles of green infrastructure and multi-modal transit through Lexington, Town Branch Commons represents a decade of public-private partnership, investment, and painstaking coordination. Hear from project leaders, including the designer behind the concept, a former agency lead behind its realization, and a local landscape architect who worked on its implementation.
Human Tolls: Building a Public History of a Community Divided by I-35W – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
This session will explore the impacts of freeway construction on Old Southside, a historically black community in Minneapolis. It will reflect on the goals of an interdisciplinary research team, discuss ongoing efforts to address the human tolls of I-35W, and explore the role of designers in advancing community centered research.
Inside the LA Studio—Coen+Partners – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Coen+Partners has evolved from site-scale projects to leading some of the world’s largest multi-disciplinary green infrastructure projects—all while redefining what a firm of the future looks like. Learn from our successes and challenges in creating a resilient firm culture of shared leadership, collaboration, and mentorship.
Inside the LA Studio—Kounkuey Design Initiative – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Focused on making the public realm more equitable and just, Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) is a non-profit design and community development organization that works in disinvested places around the world, collaborating with communities that have been excluded, harmed, or marginalized by traditional design.
Inside the LA Studio—MnDOT – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Intergenerational panelists from the Minnesota Department of Transportation—an organization with 5,000+ employees that owns and operates the fourth largest public road system in the US—will discuss their varied roles within the agency, their career paths, how and why they came to public practice, and the opportunities and benefits of working in the public sector. Discussion will offer perspectives on how work, family, and community can balance each other and allow growth as our authentic selves.
Inside the LA Studio—TEN x TEN – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Founded in 2015, TEN x TEN is a transdisciplinary landscape architecture and urban design practice grounded by a shared curiosity and passion for exploration, storytelling, and agency. As a values and mission-driven practice, we co-create compassionate, immersive, and resilient spaces that confront the issues of our time.
Landscape Strategies for Water Independence – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Water scarcity is one of the biggest risks facing the American West. This session will highlight how landscape architects address water independence through regional thinking, reducing reliance on gray infrastructure, and enhancing natural systems. This session will cover strategies for design, funding, and cross-agency coordination toward water independence.
Learning with the Land: A Case for Public Landscape Curricula – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Drawing parallels between two case studies in curriculum development in Memphis and New York City, this panel will discuss the benefits of forming educational partnerships to drive long-term social resilience in the communities where we design, work, and build, making a broader case for public landscape curricula.
Magic Johnson Park: Healing Land, Water, and Community – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Landscape architects are leaders in healing land, water, and community—restoring native landscapes and habitats as a refuge for people and wildlife; recognizing distinct communities as places of value and significance; and advancing ecosystems to capture and reuse precious stormwater runoff in drought-stricken areas across the United States and globally.
Media for Growing Trees Under Pavement: Research and Practice – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
This presentation covers how to integrate large urban trees and their associated soil volumes into the densest urban areas. Two research studies compare supported pavement with load bearing modules and structural soil treatments. The researcher, a soil scientist, and a landscape architect present the implications for the profession.
Pregnancy, Parenting, and Practice—Let’s Talk About It – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Over one million women have left the American workforce since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Professional services are the highest expense and the highest value that a design firm provides, making the investment to retain talent vital. This session examines how to retain caregivers, their experience in the workplace, and how parenthood impacts practice.
Preparing for Successful Leadership Transition: How to Navigate the Two-Way Street – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
What are the secrets behind a successful ownership transition? True success involves a mentorship structure that aligns emerging leaders’ expectations and changing roles with those of current owners. This session will demystify ownership transition from multiple perspectives: the leader approaching retirement, the expanding leadership team, and the someday-principal-to-be.
Realizing Climate Action Ambitions: Pathways to Decarbonization – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
How can landscape architects achieve the ASLA Climate Action Plan’s goal for 50 percent emissions reductions by 2030? Discuss tools and case studies showing how to get to that goal, examine a critical review of our current understanding of carbon sequestration associated with ecological restoration, and explore options for firms to decarbonize.
Reconciliation in Practice: Decolonizing Landscape Architecture – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Landscape architects across North America practice on the traditional territories of Indigenous peoples, and their designs seldom reflect this reality. An ongoing process of reconciliation is changing approaches to landscape architecture projects in Canada and holds lessons for practitioners across the continent to not only recognize but learn from Indigenous collaborators.
Reimagining Mentorship for a New Generation – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
After several generations of the mentorship paradigm remaining mostly unchanged, this panel breaks down its definition and identifies where it falls short for a new generation of designers. We will discuss the importance of taking the mentor out of mentorship, and seeking empowerment, awareness, and confidence individually and collectively.
Rolling Back the Lawn: Reinvigorating Ecological and Social Function at Georgia Tech’s EcoCommons – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW) / 1.0 GBCI SITES-Specific CE
This session will discuss the Georgia Institute of Technology’s vision for a new campus landscape typology rooted in performance and ecological health. The panel will demonstrate a new vision for campuses of higher education through the EcoCommons planning, implementation and commitment to biodiversity, stormwater management, and social health.
Sharing Landscape: Telling the Story of Your Work in the Media – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Communicating what landscape architecture is and what landscape architects do through the strategic positioning of photography and text shapes the public’s understanding about the discipline. This session will focus on how this work is introduced to the public via media outlets and offers strategies and recommendations.
Small(er) Firm Diversity, Evolution, Growth, and Longevity in a Megafirm Market – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Have you imagined having your own firm or joining others to do so? As trained landscape architects, business challenges around staffing, HR laws, accounting, and ownership transition may seem unfamiliar. We discuss how we run our small-to-medium businesses so you can learn techniques that might work for you.
Sublime and Simple Detailing: Sustainable Materials for Low-Maintenance Environments – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW) / 1.0 GBCI SITES-Specific CE
Low-maintenance landscapes present a challenge for material choices. This session will discuss what is effective for material choice for public projects and other low-maintenance environments, along with the sustainability behind material choices. We will also discuss successful detailing with reused or recycled materials in public spaces.
Taking a Critical Lens to Urban Planting: Explore Design Challenges and Strategies – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
How do we create thriving green spaces with ecological benefits in harsh urban environments? What challenges do cities face in creating these spaces? This session will discuss challenges and strategies–from both a public agency perspective and a design perspective–associated with creating thriving planting in harsh urban environments.
The After Party: Landscape Architect’s Role in Establishing, Curating, and Maintaining Landscapes – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
Gardens are dynamic, they change from year to year and season to season. How do we let the gardens evolve while staying true to the original design intent? In this session we explore post-project completion services, ecological reasons for planting instability, and the advantages of adaptive management toolkits.
The Improbable Reinvention of a Marginalized Landscape: Shirley Chisholm State Park – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
A dedicated team of designers and public agency leadership share the story of Shirley Chisholm State Park, once a landfill but now the largest State Park in New York City. This project overcame steep political, legal, financial, and physical challenges to provide a large-scale park for an underserved neighborhood.
Time for Action: Advancing Biodiversity through Policy and Practice – 1.5 PDH (LA CES/HSW) / 1.5 GBCI SITES-Specific CE
Through habitat destruction and fragmentation, overharvesting, and pollution, humans are directly responsible for the accelerated loss of biodiversity. It’s our responsibility to act now. This session provides three diverse yet aligned perspectives focusing on design, policy, and performance-based metrics to address the biodiversity crisis and increase our collective knowledge.
Trickle-Up Research: Inquiry and Curiosity in Design Practice – 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
As more design firms establish internal research groups, some have eschewed top-down research agendas, investing instead in organizational infrastructure that supports the bottom-up emergence of research priorities. Hear from three firms with well-established research infrastructure about programs that encourage staff engagement, collaboration, and leadership while supporting disciplinary transformation.
“What Revolution Do You Want To Lead?” and Other Essential Startup Questions – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)
Starting a new practice is daunting. During this session you will hear from three new business owners who will share both the practical and philosophical considerations that go into forging a new direction for yourself, your practice, and the profession.
“Who owns that?” Filling Design Gaps Between Landscape Architects, Architects, and Engineers – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
This session explores the potential scoping gap where landscape architecture, structural engineering, civil engineering, and waterproofing come together. Designing the sub-surface support for site hardscapes and shallow foundations is not trivial, and complications abound at this interface between pavements, foundations, drainage, utilities, soils, and root systems.
About ASLA Online Learning
ASLA Online Learning offers both live virtual presentations throughout the year and 200 recordings for Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System™ (LA CES™)-approved professional development hours (PDH).
PDH may be earned after viewing a presentation by completing and passing a short quiz. Be sure to check state mandatory continuing education requirements to ensure that LA CES courses are compatible with your state’s continuing education requirements.
Log in using your ASLA username and password for member discounts and access to free PDH, for ASLA members only. ASLA Online Learning content, except some LARE Prep and SKILL | ED content, is free for Student ASLA members to access!
ASLA members also have access to the Free PDH of the Month webinar. Each month, members must register for the new Free PDH of the Month by logging in to learn.asla.org with their existing ASLA member login, watch the webinar, and complete the quiz before the end of the month to earn their PDH. Through November 30, we are featuring: Learning from Three Decades of Practicing Ecological Restoration in the Upper Midwest (U.S.) – 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW).
Log into ASLA Online Learning with your existing ASLA username and password to start exploring and to set your preferences. If applicable, be sure to update your asla.org profile with your CLARB record number and Florida license number—these fields can be found under the “About Me” tab, in the “My Professional Information” section—to ensure this information appears on your certificates. If you do not have an account on asla.org, follow the instructions under “Create an Account” to set up a new guest account to login.
Questions about ASLA Online Learning? Please contact us at learn@asla.org.