Education Sessions

In this breakout discussion, we will unpack four terms that can help us understand how to show up in a good way when it comes to engagement with Indigenous peoples: Decolonize, Indigenize, Allyship and Anti-Racist. What does it mean to decolonize?  What's the difference between decolonize and Indigenize? What does it mean to be an ally to Indigenous peoples? And why is it not enough to be 'not racist', but we must strive to be 'anti-racist'.  We will discuss how this impacts your work as a landscape architect, and how you can 'show up in a good way.'

In an era of climate adaptation and technological transformation, landscape architects are increasingly called upon to deliver resilient, sustainable, and circular solutions. This session will explore how consistent information management is the cornerstone of these efforts, empowering landscape architects to make informed decisions throughout the lifecycle of their projects and contribute to the entire information lifecycle of the built environment.  

We will examine the critical roles of BIM (Building Information Modeling) and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in integrating landscape architecture with broader urban systems, breaking down silos and fostering collaboration across disciplines. The session will also introduce digital twins, dynamic data-driven virtual replicas of physical environment, demonstrate their potential to model, monitor, and optimize urban landscapes in real-time.  

Finally, as AI-driven tools become more prevalent in design processes, their effectiveness hinges on access to reliable, well-managed data. Attendees will learn how consistent information management enhances decision-making across the lifecycle of landscape projects, the role of BIM and GIS in integrating landscape architecture with broader urban systems, and circularity, depends on the ability to track and reuse resources efficiently.  

Discover how landscape architects can increase the value chain of information about the built environment.

Do we really need to think outside our boxes or do we need to build better boxes, more inclusive boxes? Boxes that support and enhance innovative visioning and sustainable living.  Why do others set the boundaries of our boxes, define who works within them, and determine the priorities for how we think and design?  What opportunities do we have individually and collectively to alter policy, advance practice and inspire innovation? 

This panel discusses how in ten years landscape architects have become a recognized voice on the challenges our world faces, here at home and internationally.  A powerful voice with much to offer on the intwined and complex issues associated with climate adaptation, urban biodiversity, cultural and heritage, social justice, and human well-being.  

Now that we have that voice, a voice finally heard outside our old box, how can each of us do more to build the better boxes that are desperately needed in this 21st century? Boxes that innovatively address the challenges of a changing world. How can we use our voices to lift each other as well as to lift our communities?

As climate change continues to reshape our world, landscape architects are uniquely positioned to lead efforts in cutting carbon emissions—both within the spaces they design and the broader systems that support their work. This session explores how partnerships with manufacturers and suppliers play a key role in elevating sustainable design practices and driving meaningful environmental impact.  By pushing the boundaries of sustainable procurement practices, landscape architects can centre decarbonization as a fundamental element of their design process. Collaboration with vendors who hold strong environmental credentials, especially Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), is critical in reducing Scope 3 carbon emissions.  

This discussion will highlight the design value of decarbonization, emphasizing its potential to create inclusive, climate-friendly spaces while simultaneously transforming professional practices. Participants will gain insights into how to advocate for innovative, sustainable solutions and capitalize on advancements in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) technologies. They will also learn how to achieve carbon neutrality by adopting measurable targets.  By working with like-minded suppliers, landscape architects can reshape the built environment, contributing to a future where every design choice reflects a commitment to a healthier planet.

Mino Bimaadiziwin, Good Life, 2024, Indigenous-Led, Artist-Centered, stands tall and proud to announce our discipline’s commitment to bringing Indigenous culture and ways of life into the present and future.        

Located at Exhibition Place on the treaty and traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (MCFN), the monumental feature wall spans east to west, symbolizing the journey of a day and the cyclical nature of seasonal changes. The design emphasizes the importance of leading a balanced life, inviting visitors to reflect on the harmony of actions, thoughts, and existence in a holistic way through a narrative inscribed along the wall.    

Led by Shadi E. Gilani, Principal, STUDIO tla, Advancing Indigenous Awareness through Innovative Urban Art will explore the three-year collaboration between STUDIO tla, Exhibition Place, the MCFN Cultural Committee, and artists August and Luke Swinson from the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation that resulted in a monumental public art piece. Shadi and the artists will explore how a collaborative design approach that honours First Nations’ teachings and focuses on cultural respect and engagement with youth and elders delivered a commemorative art installation that connects the First Nations to the land and adds lasting value to the community.

As cities reclaim post-industrial lands for transformation into healthy and resilient landscapes, landscape architects need to confront what it means to re-naturalize toxic, fallow sites in the 21st Century.  How can these new urban landscapes meaningfully reconnect inhabitants with nature without becoming a trope and, instead, deliver a range of experiences inherent to the complexity of living landscapes?   

Using Toronto’s Port Lands Flood Protection Project (PLFP) as a case study, this talk reveals MVVA’s inspiration from three regional features – the Rouge River, the Cheltenham Badlands, and Ontario’s limestone bedrock – to provide memorable landscape experiences that also offer high-value habitats, renew associations of place, and reinforce cultural resiliency. MVVA’s approach to re-naturalization builds on ecological principles to create landscapes that are immersive, sensory, and restorative. Using new construction methods and familiar materials in atypical ways, the Port Lands demonstrates innovative ways to think about how we design with nature.   

This presentation by MVVA’s PLFP Parks and River teams - Emily Mueller De Celis, Herb Sweeney, and Neil Budzinski – who will elaborate on the research, design, and technical approaches that steered major features of the project.

PWL is committed to delivering projects that create lasting, positive change. To support this mission, we’ve developed an internal Impact Matrix, a tool designed to integrate sustainability, inclusivity, and community well-being into every project.   

The Impact Matrix provides a framework for setting and achieving measurable social and environmental goals. Built on a foundation of industry standards and certification guidelines, it guides each project from inception to completion. We establish key goals at the outset, which steer the design and construction process, and then assess the project’s success at the end, identifying achievements and opportunities for further impact.  

This presentation will cover: 

• An overview of the PWL Impact Matrix, including key topics and objectives based on established literature and certification guidelines.
• Examples of pilot projects evaluated against the Matrix  
• Outreach efforts to share this approach with a broader audience.
• Next steps, including applying the Matrix to larger projects and conducting additional research to ensure defensibility.  
• A discussion of deployment challenges, including integrating the Matrix smoothly into projects and managing busy timelines.

It is unsettling, nay unconscionable, to witness the decline of the iconic landscape setting at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) conceived of by the late Cornelia Oberlander. This seminal design comprised three exterior areas, each evoking a subject of the modern art within the gallery.

The Taiga Garden symbolizes the rugged ecozone located between the country’s tundra and its temperate forests. Inspired by A.Y. Jackson’s painting Terre Sauvage, it might seem unrecognizable now to Mrs. Oberlander – the first recipient of the Governor-General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture – who strove to respect biodiversity and bring nature into the city.

How is it that the bespoke art collection ‘inside the box’ of the NGC receives the appropriate standard of care, while its first art reference – “as much a work of art as any in the building next to it” – does not? And how are other pieces of the Oberlander oeuvre in the Nation’s Capital holding up, including The Peacekeeping Monument and the Former Ottawa City Hall (now Global Affairs Canada)?

While ensuring that those who came before are not forgotten, respecting original design intent and maintaining good public spaces/places over time is critical in a world sorely in need of them.

For this presentation, Kristina (MBCSLA) will share her study process, findings, and a pilot project during her 2024 refresh-and-research endeavor supported by the LACF Robert N. Allsopp Urban Design Fellowship. 

The presentation shares the study of Intentional Planting Design – a Study in Settler Decolonizing Practices and Ecological Restoration Approaches for Urban Plant Health.  The study is situated in the Lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ, W̱SÁNEĆ, Stó:lō, Kwantlen, and Semiahmoo peoples. The study explores approaches to ecological restoration as well as approaches to settler-decolonization to consider urban planting design for greater plant success. The study includes literature review, training, conversations, and interviews for an interpretive strategy and ethnographic research informed by the relational approaches of Opaskwayak Cree Scholar Shawn Wilson (Research is Ceremony) and Māori Scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples).   

Kristina will share a collaborative pilot project with the non-profits Co:Here Housing Foundation and the Urban Food Forest Foundation for an ‘Intentional Planting Design’ process that centers around nurturing plant allies and plant relations; situating the site locally, culturally, and ecologically; and designing with principles of time, production, and regeneration.

Kìwekì Point is a prominent new public realm landscape for the National Capital Commission adjacent to the National Gallery. Recently completed, the project began with the ambitious goal of reconnecting the point with the Ottawa River.    

Formerly an isolated, inaccessible space, the new signature park opens up to the city with an accessible new entrance and a striking new pedestrian bridge, blurs its boundaries with the river through new ecologically-focused planting, and shelters visitors through a new architectural feature, Whispering Point.    

During this session, the collaborative team, including landscape architects, Janet Rosenberg and Wayne Swanton (Principal in Charge), and National Capital Commission landscape architect Garry Meus, will discuss the initiatives that re-shaped this important landscape in the Capital, including cultural and natural heritage, ecological sustainability, Indigenous engagement and best practices in landscape design and placemaking.     

The NCC and JRS are also interested to offer a guided Site Tour of Kìwekì Point at some point during the conference schedule.  Jamie Brown, Senior Landscape Architect for the NCC and JRS Senior Associate Nicholas Gosselin will lead the tour with members of the JRS team.

Similar to many cities across Canada, Vaughan is experiencing unprecedented growth and finite resources to meet parkland needs now and into the future. Beyond providing passive/active recreational uses, our park networks are also key in mitigating extreme heat and cloudburst, as well as needs to support community wellbeing, through greenspace programming, access and equity.  

This new reality requires a bold vision that brings innovative solutions to building literacy and agility within our changing parks. The Greenspace Strategic Plan (GSP) creates a guide to prioritize spatial needs and parkland growth. The GSP has informed the City’s first major stride in implementation of this vision through the North Maple Regional Park (NMRP) planned to be one of Canada’s largest urban park commissions in recent history. The NMRP Master Plan is a 900-acre urban renewal project situated along the headwaters of the Don River and over the Keele-Valley Landfill. NMRP establishes a destination that celebrates natural heritage and cultural vibrancy, through a variety of landscape typologies and programming opportunities.  

Together the GSP and NMRP catalog one of the most significant contributions to open space planning and design.  Join us in exploring how these two projects are creating meaningful change to the Vaughan’s parks.

As landscape architects, we live and practice in complicated times. The way we contribute to city building is more important than ever, and we need to approach our work differently if we are to make significant progress. To truly innovate at the city building scale, this presentation proposes a different way to think about public space and infrastructure. This new approach does more than identify specific solutions to defined problems but considers the range of possible scenarios we may see in future generations, and the innovations that might stem from today’s signals of change.  

This is “Futures x Design Thinking”, a hybrid approach that will lead us to imagine what is required to respect our planetary boundaries and respond to both the myriad connected crises we experience today, and those not yet before us.  Like nature, our cities should give more than they take. This approach embeds Indigenous world views—which speaks to the seven grandfather teachings and seven generations—and aligns with Futures x Design Thinking and Climate Positive Design. We do not often discuss streets, spaces, and infrastructure in this way, but believe this is the next step in building sustainable cities.

In this breakout discussion, participants will learn about the importance (and often legal requirements) of Indigenous engagement and consultation, clarifying terms such as co-manage, co-develop, engage, and consult. The presentation provides a general awareness of Indigenous engagement principles, Indigenous Knowledge Systems in research methodology, community protocols (including OCAP), and Indigenous engagement in the context of Indigenous rights (including Supreme Court decisions and UNDRIP). 

We will also provide you with the skills necessary to build your Indigenous intercultural capacity such as: adaptation skills, self-knowledge, intercultural communication, and other attitudes and skills to be anti-racist, and strengthen relationships with Indigenous communities, organizations, and governments. 

PLEASE NOTE: this workshop was offered at the CSLA-MALA Congress in 2024 — if you wanted to attend last year but it was full, this is your opportunity to join.

This exploration showcases how STEM principles enhance landscape architecture, transitioning from experimental pop-up designs to comprehensive master plans case studies. By utilizing temporary installations, ecological, cultural, and functional concepts are tested, providing data-driven insights. 

STEM applications in this field include advanced technologies like AI integration and 3D modeling, environmental science for biodiversity and sustainability, and engineering for resilient infrastructure. These interdisciplinary approaches create innovative designs that balance natural systems, cultural narratives, and community needs, addressing urban and ecological challenges while fostering spaces for engagement and long-term resilience.

Developing a low-carbon project strategy starts with data-driven decisions that enable landscape architects to decarbonize designs through bold, sustainable solutions. The Dynamic Carbon Model is a critical tool in this process, delivering real-time insights on materials and planting options with the lowest embodied carbon, helping designers optimize emissions at every stage. 

By applying this tool, projects like David Crombie Park and World Exchange Plaza have reduced their carbon footprints and are heading towards net-zero carbon results. Looking ahead, this innovative approach sets a new standard for carbon-positive urban development, creating a legacy of environmental leadership that will inspire generations to come.

Our contemporary context faces increasingly challenging issues. Landscape architects are uniquely positioned to propose holistic green and social infrastructure solutions to mediate challenges such as housing crisis, food insecurity, indigenous reconciliation, mental health, biodiversity loss, and rapid climate change. 

Two case studies, an assisted living community (OCH Mikinak) and a student housing residence (UTS Harmony Commons) will demonstrate this holistic design approach. These projects emphasise the importance of collaborative design processes that respect culture, history, and the environment; exploring interactions between passive house standards, storm water management, climate positive planting, renewable energy, community building and education. Direct connections between green and social infrastructure must be considered in tandem to develop healthy environments and healthy communities.

In fall 2024, I facilitated a design studio that explored how landscape architecture can address equity, resilience, and the right to public space. Using CRAB Park in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside as a case study, the studio focused on the intersection of homelessness and spatial justice, advocating for inclusive, community-driven approaches to public space design.  

Students examined critical questions: What makes a space public? Who is excluded, and why? Guided by principles of mutual aid and trauma-informed design, they collaborated with individuals formerly living at CRAB Park, housing activists, and community organizations. Throughout this course we questioned, does landscape architecture have a role in addressing homelessness?  

Through engagement, site analysis, and open dialogue, the studio concluded that landscape architects play a vital role in this conversation. This presentation highlights the studio’s reflections on co-creating equitable public spaces, emphasizing the importance of integrating lived experiences into design processes. By challenging traditional approaches, the studio fosters transformative learning for students while advancing public space design that prioritizes marginalized voices.  

This work offers inspiration for educators and practitioners seeking to align landscape architecture with social justice and inclusive urban planning.

Soils are critical to the success of urban planting, restoration, and green infrastructure projects. However, existing landscape standards and management practices often fall short in addressing the complexities of nature-based approaches. Municipal and private sector practitioners are testing innovative solutions, inspired by natural processes, to fill this gap.  

PWL is collaborating with the City of Vancouver on a nature-based shoreline project, piloting an innovative approach to growing medium design that mimics the soil composition of reference habitats, rather than using standard landscape specifications. This approach was developed with a soil scientist and a soil supplier.  

The City of Vancouver’s Green Infrastructure Branch is advancing soil health in bioretention systems by addressing soil biology. Many imported soils lack the balance of biology and structure found in native soils. In collaboration with a soil scientist, missing biology is identified, and inoculants are added to foster a thriving soil microbiome.  

The Vancouver Park Board has expanded urban meadows across 43 hectares, studying their soil health and ecological impacts in partnership with local universities. Data shows that pollinators, songbirds, and soil microbial communities have significantly increased in meadows.

In 2015, the Ville de Montréal commissioned NIPPAYSAGE to design an overall vision for the four islets of Square Viger and to carry out two of them. The social context was tense, with many issues at stake, including the inclusiveness, safety and animation of these public spaces. As soon as the redevelopment was announced, the place of homeless people was called into question. Not only will they be displaced during construction, but they will no longer be able to find shelter under the Agora's structures. Their presence creates a feeling of insecurity among many citizens, who prefer to walk around the square rather than through it. 

This session will cross four perspectives: that of a researcher from the Collectif architecture+itinérance, a member of the project's design team, an expert in the experience of homelessness, and a team leader from the Ville de Montréal's Service des grands parcs, du Mont-Royal et des sports. The conference will begin with an account of the square's redevelopment, explaining the complexity of the issues involved. The speakers will then look back to see how the redevelopment has contributed to the inclusion of people experiencing homelessness, as well as to the cohabitation of several user groups.

Toronto Green Standard: A continuing landscape story  Marc Halle, Shayna Stott, Jane Welsh  The Toronto Green Standard has set the baseline for sustainability performance for new development in the City of Toronto for over 15 years.  

Today, the Standard’s landscape requirements respond to the climate and biodiversity crises and are driving the creation of  innovative planning tools that make space for nature within the urban environment.   

The policies and standards, as well as landscape architecture practices impacting urban landscapes have evolved and grown over time. The outcome of this process are requirements to support tree canopy growth, climate adaptation and nature based solutions.  

The Standard has been a driver of the changing role of the landscape architect in development; while also being driven by the innovation and problem solving of the landscape architecture profession.  

Through the lens of projects designed and built in Toronto, this presentation looks back at the evolution of policy and practice and forward towards new approaches to enhance biodiversity and decarbonization. The continuing story of the Toronto Green Standard will be told from the perspective of both the policy makers and the landscape architects that looked outside the box to drive solutions for tomorrow’s challenges.

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The built environment accounts for 75% of global carbon emissions contributing to Climate Change and its impacts. As we look to transform the way we build communities and live in them to radically reduce our carbon footprint and achieve Net Zero within a couple of decades, all aspects of the built environment need to be reconsidered. While buildings have been the focus of attention for reduction of operational and embodied carbon to date, urban landscapes are still a new frontier with huge potential to contribute to climate mitigation through carbon-conscious design. As cities and clients begin to establish carbon budgets and benchmarks in environmental policies and design briefs, carbon-conscious design is increasingly becoming part of core skillsets that Landscape Architects will need to be fluent in to contribute to decarbonization.  

A series of studies conducted by the City of Toronto and partners focusing on the public realm analyze the carbon performance of commonly built urban landscape typologies (private development landscapes, POPS, parks, and streetscapes) and typical material assemblies, seeking the most impactful modifications to reduce the city’s carbon footprint. The findings and resources provide a helpful framework for landscape architects to learn how to move toward carbon-conscious public realm design.

Landscape architecture embodies a profound responsibility to reframe humanity’s relationship with the land. The landscapes we shape are not passive backdrops of resources and commodities but living entities, woven with memory, trauma, resilience, and renewal. Colonialism, capitalism, and digital abstraction have fostered a dangerous disconnect, normalizing intervention as the default mode of progress. 

This disconnect justifies designs that exploit rather than reciprocate, treating land and ecosystems as expendable resources instead of collaborative partners. To address this, landscape architects must adopt a mindset rooted in observation, respect, and restraint. Indigenous knowledge systems demonstrate how intentional interventions can rejuvenate land, fostering cycles of reciprocity rather than depletion. Nature-based solutions offer insights, guiding design decisions in harmony with ecological systems. 

The most challenging part for landscape architects is recognizing that non-intervention is sometimes the most critical, ethical choice. We must resist societal pressures to act unnecessarily, advocating for the rights of rivers, forests, Reconnecting with the land as a living sentient force requires more than technical expertise—it demands humility. Restoring this relationship allows us to create landscapes that honor land as memory, celebrate biodiversity, and inspire rethinking landscape architecture through reciprocity.and other non-human entities to exist in health and dignity. Reconnecting with the land as a living sentient force requires more than technical expertise—it demands humility. Restoring this relationship allows us to create landscapes that honor land as memory, celebrate biodiversity, and inspire rethinking landscape architecture through reciprocity.

The Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF) has supported three decades of knowledge production in landscape architecture through its grants program. The influence of this knowledge on the profession or the built environment has yet to be measured. 

Using the quantitative analysis that originates in the field of scientometrics, as well as data derived from bibliographic databases that cover the research production in the field and data obtained from funded projects, this presentation reflects on trends in research in landscape architecture. It provides an overview of the dissemination practices of the field since the 1980s, showing that the field is increasingly focusing on “scientific” topics rather than more “artistic” ones. It also shows that topics studied change over time, with relationships with other disciplines increasing—especially those related to engineering and the natural world, as well as contemporary issues (like climate change and reconciliation). 

Overall, our results point to a professionalization of research in landscape architecture within academia, with increased research funding, and offer evidence that landscape architecture is becoming increasingly academic.

Thunderhead, the 2SLGBTQI+ National Monument, redefines commemorative landscape architecture by integrating performance, activism, and reconciliation into a transformative public space. This presentation explores the collaborative process led by Public City, supported by performance artists, Two-Spirit advisor, the LGBT Purge Fund, and National Capital Commission (NCC). Thunderhead serves as both space for reflection on systemic injustices and a celebration of resilience, inclusivity, and hope.  Selected through an international competition, the design embodies the creativity and passion of the 2SLGBTQI+ community. At its heart, a thunderhead cloud expands within a central column, a void clad in mirrored tiles becomes the monument. At the base, a stage thrusts outward for large-scale performances/protests. The Thunderhead monument symbolizes the fear and power of transformation, offering growth and new life. It rises as the community has risen to proclaim, “We demand change.” The monument balances private and public functions, also providing intimate spaces like Healing Circle, developed with guidance from a Two-Spirit Elder and featuring thirteen ceremonial stones gathered from across Canada.   Sharing insights from Thunderhead’s design, the presentation offers a compelling case for rethinking landscape architecture’s role in shaping narratives, fostering resilience, and creating spaces of radical inclusion.

As a multidisciplinary team made up of landscape architects, architects, planners, conservationists, historians and geographers, ERA Architects have evolved the concept of Cultural Landscape as a collaborative approach for placemaking in a way that is both inclusive and responsive to the critical issues of our time.   

As heritage professionals, we understand cultural heritage as something living, evolving in tandem with culture and society. As an approach, Cultural Landscape focuses on inter-relationships between guiding ideas, rituals, and the physical landscape; connecting multiple scales and layers of understanding. This approach enables the development of holistic and forward-thinking design frameworks and open-ended processes that embrace learning, transformation, and expands the narrative of places that includes Indigenous Peoples and their worldviews.  

In this session, Rui Felix and Sharon Hong will take participants through ERA’s Cultural Landscape methodology – a framework that applies as much to urban centres as it does to the vast northern tundra. The session will highlight case studies and out-of-the-box solutions that are changing the way that ground-up convening, storytelling, research and collaboration are influencing the public realm. The session will highlight various case studies such as the Chinatown Tomorrow Planning Study and Sheguiandah First Nation Community Court showcasing co-creation in action.

The Community Canopy initiative, launched in spring 2024, addresses urban canopy inequities by enhancing tree coverage in underserved Kitchener neighborhoods. In partnership with Reep Green Solutions, a dedicated non-profit organization, the City of Kitchener implemented this initiative to plant trees in public and private spaces where they are most needed. Partnering with Reep Green Solutions, the City planted 100 large-caliper trees in public spaces and 30 on private properties in the Chandler Mowat community. Resident input played a vital role in guiding planting efforts. Achieving tree planting goals within budget constraints requires data-driven planning. 

Using a geospatial tool available on Kitchener’s open data portal, our team analyzed 2019 LiDAR and census data to visualize canopy coverage and calculate Tree Equity Scores by area. Now an annual program, Community Canopy aims to target neighborhoods with the lowest Tree Equity Scores while maintaining annual planting goals. As the largest city in the Tri-Cities of Waterloo Region, Kitchener is dedicated to achieving a 30% tree canopy in every ward by 2050. With almost half of our wards falling below 27% in 2019, Staff will share how we’re working toward this ambitious target in one of Canada’s fastest-growing communities.