Centering Environmental Justice in Our Landscape Architectural Practices

ASLA 2021 Professional Urban Design Honor Award. Market + Georgia Public Space. Chattanooga, Tennessee. WMWA Landscape Architects and Genesis the Greykid. / image: WMWA Landscape Architects & Chattanooga Design Studio

As practitioners and advocates of environmental justice, we know that many communities across the country fall short of achieving equity and justice in terms of access to quality green spaces and being overburdened with negative environmental exposures. In this collaborative Field post, we highlight a few voices around the profession on why and how landscape architects should remain committed towards integrating environmental justice in our respective practices.

– Michelle Lin-Luse, ASLA, PLA, and Tom Martin, ASLA, on behalf of the Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network (PPN) Leadership Team

Cher Wong, Associate ASLA
Landscape Architect at SmithGroup

Why are you interested in the intersection of environmental justice and landscape architecture?

From many landscape architects’ training processes, including mine, we didn’t pay enough attention to learning how our work is closely tied with social, economic, political implications and how every design language has a historical context behind it. Now, when I stand at the intersection of environmental justice and landscape architecture as a designer, I see contradictions between our traditional definition of ‘design excellence’ and the implications of many landscape architecture work in environmental justice.

But I also see opportunities on how much we need to develop new design languages that break the contradiction and better support environmental justice.

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Park(ing) Day & Environmental Justice

by the Environmental Justice PPN Leadership Team

Community League of the Heights (CLOTH)’s Open Street in New York City / image: Gloria Lau, ASLA

With Park(ing) Day—this Friday, September 17, 2021—just days away, leaders from ASLA’s Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network (PPN) have shared their experiences with Park(ing) Day, how they have highlighted environmental justice issues through their parklet designs, and their thoughts on Park(ing) Day as a platform to address environmental justice.

Chingwen Cheng, ASLA
PPN Officer and Past Co-Chair
Program Head and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture + Urban Design + Environmental Design, The Design School, Arizona State University

Park(ing) Day started by responding to a lack of people-centered urban design and automobile-driven urban development. Transforming a parking space to a park space is a statement to advocate for inclusive and people-centered design. Many neighborhoods in Phoenix have experienced inequitable distribution of open space and urban tree canopy, resulting in vulnerable conditions under extreme heat and divergent health outcomes. Park(ing) Day provides a space and time for landscape architecture professionals and educators to get together and advocate for creating quality environments for all.

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Envisioning Environmental Justice Futures: Highlights from the EJ PPN’s Virtual Workshop

by Michelle Lin-Luse, ASLA, and Sarah Kwon, Affil. ASLA

Timeline screenshot
image: EJ PPN Living History Timeline

The Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network (EJ PPN) held a virtual workshop in early April, facilitated by co-chairs Michelle Lin-Luse and Sarah Kwon. Our intentions were two-fold:

  1. to raise awareness of the history of the Environmental Justice Movement by lifting up the stories and organizing efforts by Black and brown communities fighting environmental racism, and
  2. create a space for community-building among environmental justice advocates within the landscape architectural community.

A Living History: An Interactive Timeline

After establishing the workshop space with a land acknowledgement, we introduced the participants to the history of the environmental justice movement through the EJ PPN Living History Timeline, an interactive, web-based timeline of the environmental justice movement that links our personal histories to the larger movement. This timeline is built from an open-source online tool designed by the Global Action Project, an organization that uses media-based organizing and popular education to connect personal histories to the larger ebbs and flows of social movements.

The EJ PPN Living History Timeline is an interactive timeline principally organized by key moments of environmental justice movement history, such as the events leading up to the adoption of the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice. Adjoining the EJ movement history is a timeline documenting the chronology of the formation of ASLA’s Environmental Justice PPN, its past programs, and ongoing initiatives to advance environmental justice within the field of landscape architecture.

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Share your Environmental Justice Project with Us

by Sarah Kwon, Affil. ASLA, and Michelle Lin-Luse, ASLA

Environmental justice case studies collage
Top: Building the Melon Street Park / image: Baidi Wang. Bottom: Community of Claverito, Iquitos, Peru / images: Traction

Help Build the ASLA Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network (EJ PPN)’s Case Studies Database

One of the most frequently requested resources amongst landscape architects working on environmental justice is a database of precedent projects to reference. Since 2019, the EJ PPN has been collecting case studies in order to build a robust database of precedents. This database will share examples of how to integrate environmental justice into our field of practice.

You may submit your case study by completing this online form, which has a series of questions to collect information about engagement techniques, resources used, project outcomes, and lessons learned. We are interested in featuring your projects that demonstrate how environmental justice principles can be applied to design processes and outcomes.

Examples of incorporating environmental justice into your projects may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • design processes that center on community voices;
  • projects that address disproportionate environmental burdens; and
  • outcomes that honor the cultural integrity of all communities.

Sarah Kwon, Affil. ASLA, and Michelle Lin-Luse, ASLA, are co-chairs of ASLA’s Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network (PPN).

The Urban Studio Presents: Pardon Our Disruption

Urban Studio event series
The Urban Studio’s three-part virtual event series, Pardon Our Disruption, begins today, December 1!

The Urban Studio has three exciting and relevant programs of interest to members of the Environmental Justice PPN! Not only will you gain new insights into your own practice, you’ll be supporting the Urban Studio’s mission to advance the landscape architecture profession to create more healthy, vibrant, and just communities for all.
– Michelle Lin-Luse, ASLA, PLA, Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network (PPN) Co-Chair

The Urban Studio’s three-part virtual event series, Pardon Our Disruption, begins today. Supporting these events helps create pathways for young professionals and shake up the landscape architecture profession in order to accelerate efforts toward a more equitable future for all.

Upset the Set Up
Tuesday, December 1, 4:00 p.m. (Eastern) / 1:00 p.m. (Pacific)
Join us for an interactive workshop to learn about effective co-creation tools and methods for meaningful community engagement. Facilitated by The Urban Studio’s creative engagement experts Daví de la Cruz, Associate ASLA, and Jenn Low, PLA, plus special guests Daniel Villa and his work with Hello Data and Christin Hu to talk about their work designing cooperative games. These tools and methods will cover a few central themes when designing for engagement: power, co-learning, storytelling, and play.

Interrupt the Program
Tuesday, December 8, 4:00 p.m. (Eastern) / 1:00 p.m. (Pacific)
Join The Urban Studio co-founders Kendra Hyson, ASLA, and Maisie Hughes in conversation with Kona Gray, FASLA, PLA, Principal of EDSA, and Torey Carter-Conneen, the new CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects, to reimagine the future of landscape architecture.

Digitize the Revolution
Tuesday, December 15, 4:00 p.m. (Eastern) / 1:00 p.m. (Pacific)
Explore the intersection of mapping and social justice with Andrew Sargeant, ASLA, and Jelani Byrd as they demonstrate how to democratize data using open-source assets and live, 3D mapping with QGIS.

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