Notes: A miscellany of news and events
presentations
The Landscape Architecture Foundation has made available presentations from their 2022 Innovation + Leadership Symposium. Guests include a range of landscape architecture professionals and academics, and the symposium is approved for continuing education credits. You can watch the presentations here.
new members
The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects is proud to recognize and welcome the following new members to the Association:
Daniela Correia
Mike Hukezalie *
Thevishka Kanishkan *
Lindsay King *
Kristina Lantz Reinders *
Nicholas Minigan
Chris Romasz
Anna Rosen *
Amirhossein Sadeghi
Peter (Petrus) Smulders
Mark Thomann
Tikki Yuen
Kathy Zhu
Asterisk (*) denotes Full Members without the use of professional seal.
conference
The OALA and the Ontario Professional Planners Institute will be hosting a joint conference in London, Ontario, on September 21st and 22nd. The goal of the 2GETHER conference is a chance for planners and landscape architects to “explore the important role that professional planners and landscape architects play in the natural and built environments, including the ongoing climate crisis, racial and social injustice, the inherent rights and title of Indigenous Peoples, and other relevant topics impacting Ontario communities.” Registration is complimentary for OALA Student Members. For more information, check out the website here.
parks
Park People will be hosting their annual conference, held virtually from September 21st to the 23rd. The conference “will feature more than 90 speakers from across Canada, sharing new ways to build partnerships, attract resources, create park spaces and deliver more impact in city parks.” It will feature numerous workshops, panel discussions, and a keynote delivered by Sacred Earth Project Manager Lewis Cardinal entitled “Working in a Good Way: Indigenous Lessons in Collaboration.” You can register here.
As well, you can read Park People’s 2022 Canadian Cities Park Report entitled “Nurturing Relationships and Reciprocity.” These annual reports are a unique and important resource for anyone interested and involved in issues of public space, landscape design, public health, and urbanism. Highlights from this year’s report include centring Indigenous voices, the rising popularity of parks, the problem of maintenance in the face of low budgets, and new attitudes towards unhoused people. Of particular interest to landscape architects is the segment entitled “Engaging with the rights of native plants in parks.” You can read the report here.
equity resources
In the hopes of promoting diversity, equity, and understanding, Ground will be sharing resources for supporting, encouraging, and celebrating racial justice in the landscape architecture field. Here is one selection: Careers Unboxed with Kaari is a YouTube series of discussions with Black professionals from all over the world about how they built their careers. The show is hosted by OALA member, Daniels Faculty of Architecture sessional lecturer, and Ground contributor Kaari Kitawi. This year, she received the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation Gunter Schoch Bursary grant (for $8,650) in recognition and for continuation of her work exposing Black and Indigenous people of colour to the world of architecture and design.
“Having worked with Kaari on Ground magazine, I know she’s passionate about getting young people of colour to consider careers in fields like landscape architecture as an exciting, and viable opportunity, while still acknowledging the barriers in place for people to enter and thrive in these professions.
Following the philosophy of ‘you have to see it to be it,’ Kaari has curated and led a number of conversations with Black professionals, including the Regional Head of Property for Standard Chartered Bank, an IT entrepreneur, and the Senior Gender Officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Kaari is a charismatic host, who draws out stories of building successful careers, often in the face of many challenges, and the result is an act of celebration, education, and inspiration. A great resource for BIPOC folk looking to build a career, or anyone interested in diversity in their profession, and what it takes to realize it.
Kaari will be launching a series on Black architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and planners in Canada in late Fall. Stay tuned and subscribe.”
— Glyn Bowerman, Ground Editor and host of the Spacing Radio podcast
If you’d like to go deeper, the CSLA is providing a Diversity & Equity Resources page on their website.
csla
The CSLA is looking for member input to identify “25 places that exemplify the wide range of cultural landscape treasures across Canada by 2024.” There’s an open consultation period where people can make their case for culturally significant landscapes, followed by a workshop held from 1 to 3 p.m., September 20th.
Categories for cultural landscapes, inspired by the UNESCO Cultural Landscapes typologies, include institutions; cultural and heritage; recreation/health and well-being; residential; transportation; master planning and urban design; and research and communication.
For consideration, cultural landscapes are “clearly defined landscapes designed and created intentionally by humankind; organically evolved landscapes which reflect the process of evolution in their form and component features, and are characterized as either relict or continuing landscapes; and, associative cultural landscapes, i.e. with powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element rather than material cultural evidence.”
You can submit sites for consideration until September 15th. For more information, visit the CSLA site here.
