gJ 113,860 60W light bulbs for one hour

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02-04/ Ideas for the water treatment plant IMAGES/ Emma Mendel As part of her work in the Masters of Landscape Architecture program at the university of Toronto, Emma Mendel met with the university of Toronto’s First nations House and the centre for Indigenous Studies in an effort to understand how traditional knowledge might inform infrastructure design related to water.

TExT And IMAGES BY EMMA MEndEL

In traditional knowledge, water symbolizes the element from which all else comes. It is a living force and the centre of life rather than simply a component of it: life, land, and water are inseparable. This relationship with water is shared by all those on earth: our ancestors, the fish, grass, and rocks. It is characterized by a spirituality and sacredness, as well as an intimate knowledge and reciprocal respect and reverence for each body’s rights and responsibilities.

In a political environment of reconciliation between First Nations and Canada, it is timely to question the continued deployment of universal infrastructure solutions that have shaped Canada’s landscapes. What are the possibilities of pairing infrastructure standards with traditional knowledge? SITE 1 Healing | Water Treatment Plant

Canada has the second largest global supply of fresh water, yet for First Nations communities, limited or no access to safe drinking water is a persistent reality of daily life. Nearly half of the 133 First Nations communities in Ontario have not had access to clean drinking water for more than ten years, according to a CBC news report, and an astounding 20 percent of First Nations communities are currently under drinking water advisories.

Shoal Lake 40 First Nation is one community that has been under boil water advisories for more than ten years. The community, which straddles the Manitoba-Ontario border, has existed on an artificial island for one hundred years. In 1919, Winnipeg built a passive aqueduct to transport clean water from the community’s lake, Falcon Lake, to the provincial capital, an ambitious feat of engineering that still sustains the Greater Winnipeg Water

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SITE 2 Gathering | Freedom Road

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05-07/ Ideas for the Freedom Road

IMAGES/ Emma Mendel

08-10/ Ideas for the school

IMAGES/ Emma Mendel Districts (GWWD) to this day. The government unilaterally sold Shoal Lake 40 First Nation reserve land and moved the community onto a narrow peninsula to make way for heavy infrastructure. In order to keep the runoff from Falcon Lake away from Winnipeg’s intake pipe, the government severed the community’s land from the mainland, creating a dike that directed unwanted runoff into the community’s only source of water. Forced dislocation has affected Shoal Lake 40’s capacity for economic sustainability: the community must haul bottled water, groceries, and medical supplies by ferry in summer and on ice in winter to their relocated houses and places of business.

For Shoal Lake 40, there are three points of disconnection: the dike , the canal, and the ice road. Infrastructural, architectural, and landscape design solutions could address these problems. Manitoba’s provincial government recently released RFPs for a water treatment plant, a new all-seasons road (named Freedom Road), and a new junior school. These projects are an opportunity to propose alternative infrastructure solutions based on First Nations traditions and culture rather than on standard models of design. For example, the location of the future water treatment plant could be complemented with a biological water treatment landscape and become a site of healing; the site of the new road connecting Shoal Lake 40 to Winnipeg could serve as a point of gathering; and the new school could incorporate a landscape design that embodies ideas of offering. Each of these alternative proposals is here described in turn, with each project based on reverence for the land, and each project reinterpreting the land through water.

Turtle Island: water Treatment Drawing from traditional fishing weir traps and Alan Berger’s “Wetland Machine,” a set of designed weirs could be placed into the bay and, over time, collect sediment, clarifying

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09 the water through vegetation by removing organic content. This clarification of water would create biodiversity, making the water more palatable and transforming the site for the future expansion of a water treatment centre in the community. The design would keep the water moving and keep it alive through a turtle shell pattern, suggestive of Turtle Island rising from the waters’ surface and sprouting new life.

Thunderbird: Freedom Road The fanning wings of the thunderbird, a mythical creature related to rain and storms, allow spaces of gathering, moving, and collecting. They also gesture towards future expansions of the site and their relation to the line of water. The design begins to weave and start a dialogue between the severed landscapes. For the site of gathering, rocks could be used to define and categorize agricultural land for planting medicinal and ceremonial crops, including sweetgrass, wild rice, tobacco, and cedar trees. Mishipeshu: School For the site of offering, inspiration was drawn from traditional basket weaving. The passing of knowledge could be amplified through a canopy, deck, and dock, extending the educational experience outdoors. The copper tail of the Mishipeshu, an underwater lynx, is reinterpreted through copper guiding lights that protrude from each surface design. These lights would serve as visual guides at night and in winter. The suggestive connection represents a union between Shoal Lake 40 and the neighbouring community, Kejick. Mishipeshu’s tail is transformed into an undulating support system that demands respect and caution when crossing these waters. While the deck and the dock would allow travellers to move more safely between the communities, the canopy would be designed as a space for celebration and ceremony where knowledge is passed down to youth. The canopy space is embodied below the surface of the water with logs that, over time, would create aquatic habitat. These proposed, alternative infrastructure designs seek to open a space between western science and traditional knowledge; infrastructure and ecology; and land and water.

SITE 3 offering | New School

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BIo/ EMMA MEndEL HoLdS An MLA FRoM THE unIvERSITY oF ToRonTo And A BFA FRoM THE RHodE ISLAnd ScHooL oF dESIGn. SHE wouLd LIkE To ExPRESS HER SIncERE GRATITudE To PRAcTITIonER JAnnA LEvITT, PRoFESSoR LIAT MARGoLIS, PRoFESSoR MASon wHITE, And ESPEcIALLY To HER THESIS AdvISoR And dEPARTMEnT HEAd AT uoFT, ALISSA noRTH, FoR THEIR GuIdAncE In THE cREATIon oF THIS PRoJEcT. SHE wouLd ALSo LIkE To AcknowLEdGE THE unIvERSITY oF ToRonTo’S FIRST nATIonS HouSE And THE cEnTRE FoR IndIGEnouS STudIES FoR THEIR TIME, AdvIcE, And GuIdAncE.

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TExT BY REAL EGucHI, oALA, kYLE GATcHALIAn, And FRASER vAndERwEL

Upon its release in mid-July, 2016, the mobile game Pokémon GO broke records for most popular download in App Store history. While it might be interesting to try to predict how sustainable the phenomenon is, what seems most important to landscape architects is that Pokémon GO has very quickly changed the way that many people experience the public realm, while also re-defining our understanding of boundaries, property and ownership, and opportunities for commercial partnerships. As design practitioners, we can be cautiously excited about the opportunities that technology such as Pokémon GO creates, but also realize that it is just one instance of how quickly technology can influence the cultural landscape and how, just as quickly, it can be superseded.

Pokémon GO is an augmented reality game that allows smartphone users to track, catch, and play with Pokémon. Augmented reality (AR) is the product of the digital enhancement of real-world environments by way of computer-generated components. Pokémon GO establishes an AR by utilizing smartphone GPS and camera functions to superimpose the Pokémon universe onto the real world as seen through the phone’s screen. The game encourages users to explore landmarks in real-life cities and towns in order to catch Pokémon, and to visit Pokéstops and Pokégyms.

Pokémon GO is a phenomenon based in fantasy but, in its short time in the hands of the public, the game has had very real implications for the use of outdoor space. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, a few days after Pokémon GO’s Canadian release, downtown Toronto’s waterfront was filled with people on their smartphones chasing Pokémon across Queens Quay. In Peterborough, Pokémon GO was used to organize a cleanup of the Otonabee River shoreline. Many other interesting stories were covered by the media.

While players of the game (trainers) have perhaps explored territories they might not have previously visited, Pokémon GO has a way of relegating all spaces, regardless of intended use, beauty, or meaning, to destinations on a checklist. Unless trainers are purposefully using the game as a way to explore their city,

02 Pokémon GO does not necessarily promote meaningful engagement with public places. It appears that those who are outside simply for the sake of catching Pokémon, experience all spaces with a certain level of detachment, indifference, and even irreverence. It is for this reason that more sensitive sites such as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan and the Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., have been removed from the game as locations.

Pokémon GO offers novel incentives and alternative forms of social relationships, competition, and physical movement outdoors. We can’t help but look forward to what future iterations of the game or related and subsequent games will lead to. The built

landscapes we dwell in, with their cultural demarcations and meanings, are in a sense imaginative and virtual, and they are the results of our cultural, spiritual, political, colonizing, and consumptive mindset superimposed onto and augmenting the natural and indigenous worlds that existed prior. AR games could deepen our connection with the earth, help us to renew our relationship to the land as hunter-gatherers. Through play, AR allows us, potentially, to experience a neo-tribal, nomadic-like social reality.

Not surprisingly, it seems that Pokémon GO is most compelling to young adults who were kids in the 1990s when the Pokémon game and cartoon first debuted. Millennials are Poké-familiar, smartphone-equipped, and nostalgic. While Niantic, Nintendo, and its partners struck gold with their market analysis and offering, we are reminded once again that rapid change is central to our culture. The Millennials reflect back fondly about their iPod Minis and the large collection of instant messaging platforms they used, all of which are now obsolete. Soon enough, the fad of Pokémon GO will be surpassed and the game will be left in the hands of dedicated Pokémon trainers. If physical space has never before been so influenced by AR technologies, and if the lifespan of such technologies has never been so short, how might we, as design practitioners and/or policymakers, respond? Perhaps it is simply a matter of acknowledging these technologies, understanding their implications, and, when inspired, actively responding with creativity based on a holistic cultural and design awareness. It would be prudent to remain keenly aware that emerging technologies will be able to reach a much larger audience more quickly, adapt to oscillating conditions with more immediacy, and be updated with minimal resources compared to actual physical environments. Technologies such as Pokémon GO, Uber,

and Google Maps are spawning successors whose consequential effects on how we interact with physical space ask us to remain open with wonderment and to be flexible and thoughtful with new designs, policies, and bylaws as virtual and real worlds collide.

Let’s seek opportunities to use emerging AR and other technologies to leverage our work and continuously ponder how future landscapes might unfold given the novelties that culture presents to us. More importantly perhaps, let’s not forget that despite what technology and other cultural phenomena present to us, our work within the built landscape is to create places that are functional, aesthetically pleasing, physically enduring, and ecologically astute. Let’s continue to renew that elusive balance of timeless quality within these quickly changing times while finding equanimity in our cultural emergence.

01-03/ People playing Pokémon IMAGES/ Fraser Vanderwel

BIoS/ REAL EGucHI, oALA, IS A PRIncIPAL oF EGucHI ASSocIATES LAndScAPE ARcHITEcTS/BREAL ART + dESIGn.

kYLE GATcHALIAn IS A LAndScAPE ARcHITEcTuRAL InTERn And uRBAn dESIGnER AT dIALoG’S ToRonTo STudIo.

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TExT BY kAMILA GRIGo

01/ A median on Greifswalder Strasse, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo 02/ A disused post-industrial lot at Andreasstrasse and Lange Strasse, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo 03-04/ Berlin wall memorial, Bernauer Strasse IMAGES/ Kamila Grigo 05/ Park am Nordbahnhof, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo 06/ Natur-Park Südgelände, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo

Berlin, a city that has been destroyed, divided, and rebuilt numerous times, a city that confounded the cardinal directions with a wall, is in a sense one of Europe’s oldest cities and one of its youngest. Berlin’s continually evolving urban form is in contrast to other comparatively ossified urban centres, and nowhere is the city’s frenetic dynamism better reflected than in its ruderal landscapes. Conventionally referring to plants growing on waste ground or among rubbish, the term ruderal has been applied to landscapes in discussions on urban ecology, wastelands, and marginal sites, but it may be worthwhile to consider the ruderal landscape as a typology with various sub-types. Making a nonlinear, non-chronological record of Berlin’s landscapes under the ruderal typology offers an opportunity to consider them at a city-wide scale while unlocking their design potential.

More than 25 years after unification and both despite and because of gentrification, Berlin contains a seemingly disproportionate amount of vacant lots of varying sizes. This is in part due to Germany’s leading role during the Industrial Revolution, which saw the construction of industrial buildings and accompanying infrastructure in areas of Berlin that are now more central. These buildings suffered various fates over the decades, leading to the disused sites remaining today; some of the manufacturing buildings have remained disused since WWII, while others underwent various incarnations and fell to economic changes during the 1990s. Other disused lots include spaces not rebuilt after WWII and commercial or residential lots in bureaucratic limbo awaiting redevelopment.

Larger, relatively orthogonal lots can be approximately 2 hectares in size and can take up a significant portion of the block on which they are located, while smaller ones are approximately 900 square metres and correspond to the footprint of the building they used to contain. Plant species on these sites include lichens, mosses, sedums, grasses, Solidago, Buddleja davidii, Populus tremula, Pinus sylvestris, Robinia pseudoacacia, Acer negundo, Colutea arborescens, and Daucus carota, with Ailanthus altissima often found on smaller lots near masonry.

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large-scale projects such as Park am Gleisdreieck (26 hectares) and NaturPark Südgelände (18 hectares). These landscapes correspond to abandoned transportation infrastructure sites that have been redesigned as public parks as a result of local activism and much political debate. Park am Gleisdreieck, conceived as an inner-city park, is the most urban and scripted, with well-defined areas for passive and active programming, as well as protected areas of ruderal vegetation. Natur-Park Südgelände hosts arts programming in a former locomotive hall and has retained the most of its original ruderal form; visitors can interact with the park by way of intimate paths and elevated steel walkways, while vegetation—a mix of native and exotic species ranging from substantial stands of Robinia pseudoacacia to Betula pendula, Populus tremula, Quercus robur, Acer platanoides, and Rosa acicularis—remains protected. Impressive for its importance to local citizens and its biodiversity, the park is successful on cultural and ecological levels and is a valuable case study that offers design strategies and planting palettes for resilient, lower-maintenance urban parks.

At the medium scale of designed sites is the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, now a memorial complex that includes a preserved segment of the 1.4-kilometre stretch of the double-walled border known as the Death Strip. The 4.4-hectare site features a minimalist design language, with corten steel elements that are part art installation and part didactic as they trace underground escape tunnels, destroyed buildings, or segments of former wall. Visitors can peer into slightly subgrade exhibit areas housing preserved infrastructure, or climb an observation tower to look over a portion of the original border strip. The modern design of the park uses aspects of the ruderal in what might be called an honestly artificial way—fenced-off wall elements overgrown with Ailanthus are just as artificially maintained and exhibited as areas that are more meticulously cleaned, and both tell the history of the site.

Diagonally opposite is Park am Nordbahnhof, which, like the Berlin Wall Memorial, can be classified as a mediumscale designed ruderal landscape. Also formerly part of the border strip and a rail station prior to that, it is a 5.5-hectare park intentionally designed as a ruderal landscape after budget constraints limited the original design. It incorporates rail and wall infrastructure into paving that hints at the site’s history or into sculptural elements that double as wildlife habitat, and it is executed using a palette of pioneer species typically found on ruderal Berlin sites; grasslands and tree cover that established spontaneously have expanded, and a stunning expanse of Betula now lines both sides of the cobblestone marker that traces the wall’s location.

Against the background of these more publicized projects are landscapes that are so incorporated into daily use that they go unnoticed. These ruderal sites undergo

comparatively regular modification due to continual human use, underscoring the cultural dynamism of ruderal landscapes once they are recognized as more than vacant lots. For example, the landscape that comprises Berlin’s tram and commuter rail network, which runs approximately 500 kilometres in length, includes significant vegetated segments. The commuter rail network features sunken, densely treed, or at-grade corridors that create a very immersive experience for commuters as trains travel between the trees. Species in these corridors include Acer campestre, Acer negundo, Acer platanoides, and Robinia pseudoacacia, while platforms and tracks are bounded by grasses and mounds of Ailanthus, Salix, or Populus. Meanwhile, the tram network is made up of vegetated medians covered with spontaneous herbaceous species and allées of Tilia cordata; it is also common to see Tilia or Platanus acerifolia saplings selfseeding down the medians.

On a smaller scale are the playgrounds that dot residential neighbourhoods. These pocket parks or small plazas are often located on lots left vacant due to wartime destruction, but they also occur on spaces converted from industrial uses, upon demolition of dilapidated residential buildings, or simply as renovated playgrounds. While they clearly read as designed landscapes, these playgrounds can be designated as ruderal due to their provenance, the form they take, and the typical vegetation they contain (whether by design or spontaneously). Standardissue Berlin playgrounds adhere to a more naturalistic materiality, one that, with its rougher wood and natural stone elements, approximates the appearance of a ruderal site. Abstract brick sculptural play elements not only reflect Berlin’s industrial brick buildings and suggest rudimentary wall structures, but, due to their abstracted form, also connote those same structures

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07/ Natur-Park Südgelände, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo 08/ Playground, Marienburger Strasse, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo 09/ Playground, Marienburger Strasse, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo 10/ Berlin wall memorial, Bernauer Strasse IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo

in decay, suggesting that the ruderal is so ingrained in the cultural and design psyche as to manifest itself in even these small sites for children.

Highly popular, Berlin’s public parks— Volksparks—may at first glance appear to be like typical 19th-century urban parks, but they are ruderal landscapes par excellence. Created in the mid- to late 19th century for the working class as a response to crowded urban conditions, they were often located along the commuter rail network and were modified to include whatever passive and active programming was in favour with each generation. During WWII, they were the site of flak towers, bunkers, and, in some instances, labour camps; tree canopy was drastically reduced due in part to fuel shortages during unusually harsh winters. Flak towers and bunkers were destroyed after the war and, along with rubble from destroyed buildings in surrounding neighbourhoods, piled up in parks to create hills—the Volksparks are literally made of rubble.

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11/ Berlin wall memorial, Bernauer Strasse IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo 12/ Playground, Boxhanger Strasse and Weserstrasse, Berlin IMAGE/ Kamila Grigo

12 Today, the hills appear fully naturalized and function as lookouts or toboggan hills, and the canopy has recovered with common Robinia, Acer, Sorbus, Carpinus, Fraxinus, Betula, Populus, and Quercus species.

Berlin’s ruderal landscapes reflect the youthful, rebellious aspect of this still hippy-arty-punk-activist city, and just like the poplars and goldenrods that pop out of every porous nook, they are where the city’s whimsy peeks out. Berlin is a laboratory that is harnessing the design potential of ruderal landscapes and testing their ecological significance while reminding us that the urban condition is ultimately one of disturbance. In such a context, ruderal sites challenge our expectations of how to design adaptable, resilient urban landscapes and force us to confront the end goals of our interventions.

BIo/ kAMILA GRIGo IS A MASTER oF LAndScAPE ARcHITEcTuRE cAndIdATE AT THE unIvERSITY oF ToRonTo And REcEnTLY coMPLETEd A LAndScAPE ARcHITEcTuRE InTERnSHIP In BERLIn.

Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

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exhibitions

On tour from the Natural History Museum in London, England, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition will be shown at the Royal Ontario Museum from November 12, 2016 to March 19, 2017. One hundred award-winning photographs of animal behaviours and wild landscapes are on view from the competition, which received roughly 50,000 entries from 96 countries. For more information, visit www.rom.on.ca.

courses

The University of Guelph’s Arboretum has been providing workshops for adults and professionals for more than twenty years. Among the upcoming sessions that may be of interest to landscape architects are “The Art and Practice of Pruning” (to be held on March 15, 2017), taught by Polly Samland, and “Invasive Species Workshop: Animals and Plants” (to be held on June 3, 2017), taught by Dirk Steinke. To see the full list of workshops or to register, visit www.uoguelph.ca/arboretum or phone (519) 824-4120, ext. 52358.

01/ From the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum

IMAGE/ Audun Rikardsen

02/ From the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum

IMAGE/ Dhyey Shah 03/ From the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum

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04/ Elizabeth Street Playground at the corner of Elizabeth and Louisa streets, Toronto, 1912 IMAGE/ Courtesy of City of Toronto Archives 05/ Elizabeth Street Playground, Toronto, 1913, IMAGE/ Courtesy of City of Toronto Archives

playgrounds

A recently opened exhibition at the City of Toronto Archives, From Streets to Playgrounds, reveals rarely seen images and demonstrates how social reformers of the time used photography to help move children from the streets into structured, supervised, and purportedly safer playgrounds. Also included are contemporary images meant to raise questions about how our current attitudes towards children and their independence may have changed during the ensuing 100 years. For more information, visit www.toronto.ca/archives.

06/ Dave Harvey IMAGE/ Courtesy of Toronto Botanical Garden 07/ Eric Davies 06

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environment

On November 17, 2016, the Toronto Botanical Garden (TBG) will be celebrating three extraordinary individuals who embody the TBG’s mission to transform the city by connecting people to plants and the natural world: environmental activist/singer Sarah Harmer, parks advocate/Park People founder Dave Harvey, and urban ecosystem researcher Eric Davies. For tickets to the Aster Awards reception, the proceeds of which support the TBG, visit www.torontobotanicalgarden.ca.

competitions

Fanshawe College School of Design in London, Ontario, is celebrating Canada’s future and history with the Canada 150 Environmental Design Competition. College and university students enrolled in an environmental design curriculum are invited to create a design of a local place/ natural environment celebrating Canada’s 150 anniversary. The adjudicators will select one winner from each region and invite 12 of the best submissions to present their designs on May 6, 2017 at Fanshawe College in London. The submission deadline is Friday, March 31, 2017. For more information, visit www.fanshawec.ca/programs-andcourses/academic-schools/school-design/ urban-design-competition.

trees

A recently published book, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (Greystone Books), is making a splash on best-seller lists. Gracefully written, the book explores the science of tree communication and is full of surprises. For more information, visit www.greystonebooks.com.

honours

Mark Cullen, well-known to many as a writer, radio host, and retailer, was recently awarded the Order of Canada. According to the office of the Governor General, Cullen’s appointment as a Member recognizes his important contributions to promoting and developing horticulture education in Canada and for his commitment to environmental education. Cullen is the author of more than twenty books.

scholarships

The Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF) recently announced the 2016 recipients of the Schwabenbauer Scholarship, which is named in honour of former Canadian Society of Landscape Architects president Andre Schwabenbauer and recognizes selected students for excellence in design. Faculty in each of the six accredited landscape architecture programs in Canada nominated candidates entering the final year of their programs who best exemplify the objectives of the award.

The 2016 award recipients at accredited programs in Ontario are Andrea Graham (University of Guelph BLA), Julia Taucer (University of Guelph MLA), and Rachel Salmela (University of Toronto MLA). For more information on the LACF, visit www.lacf.ca.

08/ Chantal Gaudet

IMAGE/ Courtesy of OALA 09/ Marjorie Hancock IMAGE/ Courtesy of OALA 08

in memoriam

chantal Gaudet

The OALA is saddened to announce the passing of Chantal Gaudet on July 6, 2016, in Gatineau at the age of 53. Chantal joined the OALA in 2010, and was a Full Member for six years. She was also a member of the AAPQ and practised in the profession for more than 25 years.

Working as a consultant, Chantal brought fresh ideas to her clients throughout her career. Prior to completing her Bachelor in Landscape Architecture at the Université de Montréal, Chantal had trained as a nurse. She had noted to colleagues that this interest in people transferred to her design ideas. Chantal’s meticulous work led to award-winning results. Her designs received the CSLA’s regional award in 2003 for the Gateway to Sussex Drive North and in 2009, a Merit Award from the City of Ottawa for her work on the Sandy Hill Flood Control and Park Rehabilitation.

Chantal was a devoted mother to her daughter, Isabelle, and also served the community, teaching at local colleges and donating her time to local schools. Chantal created a landscape plan for a daycare play area, and took on the role of Environment Committee Co-ordinator at a local school. Always friendly, welcoming, and energetic, Chantal will be sorely missed in her community.

As is OALA’s custom, a book will be added to our library and a memorial tree will be planted at the Guelph Arboretum Wall-Custance Memorial Forest in Chantal Gaudet’s name.

awards

Congratulations to University of Toronto student Jordan Duke, whose project “The Digital & the Wild: Mitigating Wildfire Risk Through Landscape Architecture” recently won a 2016 ASLA Student Award in the General Design Category.

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in memoriam

Marjorie Hancock

Shortly after her 84th birthday, nurserywoman, artist, and former OALA member Marjorie Hancock passed away on June 4, 2016. Marjorie was raised and lived most of her life at her beloved Hancock Woodlands in Mississauga, a landscape of which she was a stalwart steward. She worked with her father, Leslie, and alongside her brothers Macklin and Don at Woodland Nurseries, as well as Project Planning Associates. Skilled in horticulture, she had a lifelong interest in progressive architecture and landscape design and brought much beauty to her life and community. Up until her death, she had been collaborating with the City of Mississauga, which acquired the property to preserve the Hancock Woodlands as a city park for future generations. Her depth of knowledge, keen eye, and sharp wit will be sorely missed by her wide community of friends and family.

books

In Last Child in the Woods, author Richard Louv brought widespread attention to the alienation of children from the natural world, coining the term nature-deficit disorder and outlining the benefits of a strong nature connection—from boosting mental acuity and creativity to reducing obesity and depression. His new book, Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life (published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in paperback), is a practical guidebook with tips on how to share nature with kids.

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ProXstablishmentTM Service

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TExT BY kAMILA GRIGo

The renovation of Prague’s paved surfaces over the past decade or so has brought about new applications of traditional materials and techniques. Blackand-white granite cobblestone pavers are being deployed throughout the city by way of a palette of varied geometric patterns. The effect is a unifying and identity-building element that complements the relatively coherent architecture of this historic, tourist city. With some modifications, the traditional, dry-laid granite cobblestones nonetheless lend themselves to contemporary applications such as accessible, expanded sidewalks, tram stop bump-outs, and traffic islands.

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01-09/ A selection of street pavers in Prague IMAGES/ Kamila Grigo 07

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