Ground 53 – Spring 2021 – Normal?

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Landscape Architect Quarterly

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Round Table Was There Ever Really a Normal?

Features Something in the Dough

Accessing the New Normal

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Publication # 40026106

Brampton’s 20- Minute Walkable Neighbourhood

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Spring 2021 Issue 53

Masthead

OALA

OALA

­About­

About the OALA

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects and provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas and information related to the profession of landscape architecture. Letters to the editor, article proposals, and feedback are encouraged. For submission guidelines, contact Ground at magazine@oala.ca.

Ground reserves the right to edit all submissions.

The views expressed in the magazine are those of the writers and not necessarily the views of the OALA and its Governing Council.

The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects works to promote and advance the profession of landscape architecture and maintain standards of professional practice consistent with the public interest. The OALA promotes public understanding of the profession and the advancement of the practice of landscape architecture. In support of the improvement and/or conservation of the natural, cultural, social and built environments, the OALA undertakes activities including promotion to governments, professionals and developers of the standards and benefits of landscape architecture.

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Editor Glyn Bowerman

2020–2021 OALA Governing Council

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President Jane Welsh

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Advisory Panel

Andrew B. Anderson, OALA – Inactive Member, BLA, MSc. World Heritage Management Landscape & Heritage Expert, Oman Botanic Garden John Danahy, OALA, Associate Professor, University of Toronto George Dark, OALA, FCSLA, ASLA, Principal, Urban Strategies Inc., Toronto Real Eguchi, OALA – Retired Member, Toronto Donna Hinde, OALA, FCSLA, Partner, The Planning Partnership, Toronto Ryan James, OALA, Senior Landscape Architect, Novatech, Ottawa Alissa North, OALA, Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Principal of North Design Office, Toronto Peter North, OALA, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto, Principal of North Design Office, Toronto Nathan Perkins, MLA, PhD, ASLA, Associate Professor, University of Guelph Victoria Taylor, OALA, Principal, Victoria Taylor Landscape Architect, Toronto Jim Vafiades, OALA, FCSLA, Senior Landscape Architect, Stantec, Toronto

Contents

Up Front Information on the ground

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Normal?

Something in the Dough

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Round Table Was There Ever Really a Normal?

MODERATED BY LINDSEY MCCAIN, OALA Accessing the New Normal

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TEXT BY SARAH MANTEUFFEL

Brampton’s 20-Minute Walkable Neighbourhood: A Q&A With Yvonne Yeung

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When Public Realm Meets Global Pandemic: A Q&A with Nina-Marie Lister Grounding Seed Songs Sung in Spring TEXT BY MILLIE KNAPP

Notes A miscellany of news and events

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Artifact #workingfromhome

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Editorial Board Message By the time this issue is delivered, it will have been one year since Ontario entered the first lockdown in mid-March, 2020. It has been a difficult year, likely the furthest from ‘normal’ that many of us have ever lived through.

Like many, my normal now includes daily walks in my neighbourhood. I rediscovered the delight in our small ravine, aptly named Small’s Creek. I then realized that it will be radically impacted with the planned expansion of a new fourth track to the GO/Via rail corridor. As in so many cases, the natural environment is seen as expendable to make way for necessary infrastructure. I am happy to say the local community has come to the defence of more sensitive ecological design, including OALA members Sheila Boudreau, René Fan and student member Matthew Canaran.

Speaking Up for Nature Landscape architects are important advocates for creative solutions to protect and enhance natural features and functions through sensitive design.

TEXT BY HELENE IARDAS, OALA

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President’s Message This is my last message as OALA president. It has been an interesting time to have this role—including an unprecedented 3rd year with the extension of councillor terms in 2020, due to the pandemic. It has also marked a transition to a ‘new’ normal, as we worked from home and connected virtually.

TEXT BY KAARI KITAWI, OALA

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Editorial Board Message

TEXT BY VICTORIA TAYLOR, OALA

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President’s Message

TEXT BY MARK HILLMER, OALA

The OALA continues to speak up for the natural environment and has written letters to the province about changes to the Planning and Conservation Authorities Acts that would undermine the independent voice of conservation authorities and the protection of natural features, as well as impacts of installing electronic billboards on 400 series highways and rail lands. We submitted feedback for the NDP Green New Deal, at their request. We wrote to City of Toronto about the need for revisions to their Grass and Weeds Bylaw to encourage natural gardens. And we have written articles in support of our natural spaces and parks; see the article in May’s issue of Municipal World by OALA member Cynthia Graham on ”The new medicine: How COVID-19 Made Parks Essential to Healthy Cities,” and Steve Barnhart prepared an opinion piece titled “Public Space will Never be the Same in a Post Covid-19 World.”

Our upcoming 2021 CSLA-OALA Congress Nature-Based Solutions: The Green Recovery that Ensures a Great Recovery also reflects this thinking.

Together we can make a difference.

JANE WELSH, OALA, FCSLA OALA PRESIDENT PRESIDENT@OALA.CA

Spring 2021 Issue 53

As the Ground Editorial Board was brainstorming the year’s themes in late summer, the concept of “normal” popped up almost immediately—swiftly followed by a conversation about what we really mean when we use that word. It started with the buzz-phrase of the year: “new normal.” We quickly dropped ‘new’ as we discussed how things have never been normal, and only those operating from a position of great privilege could feel as though they had been. Normal for whom?

‘The new normal’ also belies the hardship which accompanied the huge shifts and continued disruption we’ve faced over the last twelve months, and that we continue to face as we move into the second year of the pandemic. By its very definition, the phrase communicates a sense of normalcy where there is none.

It asks us to passively accept and become accustomed to the challenges and changes the past year has brought us. More insidiously, it discourages us from an honest reckoning with the fundamental societal transformation necessary to move toward an environmentally and socially just future.

If anything, the events of 2020 have shown us how misguided and strange our B.C. (Before Covid) era perception of ‘normal’ really was. The addition of the question mark to this issue’s theme invites us to challenge our conceptions of what is, and is not normal, and asks us to recalibrate our understanding of the world around us, and how we move forward in our personal and professional lives. It is this question which provides the focus for the NORMAL? Roundtable, where professionals from diverse sectors—public, private, academic—discuss how they’re enacting change from within, and speculate on how we continue to prioritize a paradigm shift as the pandemic wanes.

NADJA PAUSCH, OALA CHAIR, EDITORIAL BOARD MAGAZINE@OALA.CA

Up Front

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Suspended push up, part of a routine designed for cyclists.

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Kim Mckenzie

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Otium Outdoor Exercise Garden, Yoga Retreat at Canada Blooms.

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Shawn Gallaugher

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Regent Park Athletic Grounds, Toronto.

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Glyn Bowerman

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moving it outside The top key exercise trends for 2021 as identified by a survey of Canadian fitness professionals are increased diversity and inclusion, workouts with limited equipment, online personal training, and focus on health (including mental health). With additional programming of public space, the delivery of all of these trends can be moved outside to provide greater outdoor fitness options. With the

Up Front: Information on the Ground

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Up Front

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Providing opportunities to exercise outdoors offers people an opportunity to be physically active, social distance, and experience mental health benefits by connecting with the natural environment.

According to a study published by the European Centre for Environmental and Human Health, exercising outdoors helps refresh one’s physical and mental health and increases energy levels and satisfaction by a greater margin than indoor physical activity. Study participants who exercised in natural environments reported feeling more revitalized and energetic than their counterparts, with a decrease in feelings of tension, confusion, anger, and depression. The study also revealed that participants reported greater enjoyment and felt more inclined to repeat the activity. Moving it outdoors increases energy levels, positive attitudes, and satisfaction.

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Riverdale East Bodyweight Exercise Equipment, Toronto.

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Glyn Bowerman

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Otium Outdoor Exercise Garden, climbing wall, Canada Blooms.

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Shawn Gallaugher

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intermittent closure of gyms, recreational sport programs, and organized sports due to the pandemic, there has never been a greater demand for outdoor exercising.

Typically, we have been conditioned to exercise indoors and at gyms or recreational centres. While these facilities provide an opportunity to be a part of a greater fitness culture, the fitness industry, until now, has mostly provided an indoor experience.

Often in these spaces, air quality or circulation is poor, people are breathing heavily in enclosed spaces and in close proximity to each other, and all are touching the same surfaces. We have learned these are conditions of concern during a pandemic.

While various parks and trail systems within the Toronto area feature outdoor exercise stations, individual pieces of equipment only strengthen one muscle at a time, and they are geared to beginner fitness levels. Other ares include a collection of bars to lift one’s own body weight, but this equipment is intimidating, as they are not intuitive and offer little direction or guidance on how to use them. As well, they are mostly confined within a section of the park and not integrated into the landscape.

In comparison, landscapes that provide flexibility for circuit-type exercises offer participants an experience to engage with both the designed and natural features of the landscape. Outdoor exercise circuits typically refer to a series of exercises that are performed as one moves through the landscape. Various muscles are trained at the same time through continuous movements, and exercises are alternated at each station to condition different muscle groups.

Outdoor spaces designed with exercise circuits in mind provide the opportunity for an endless combination of exercises and routines, and offer various stages of difficulty to challenge all fitness levels.

Outdoor exercise circuits allow for a diverse range of warm up, cardio, power

Up Front

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circuits strengthen our connection to the landscape because both the natural environment and fitness program are experienced together. Exercise circuits can also be a safe group activity that brings people together in the landscape for the common goal of improving health. Outdoor exercise circuits also promote the release of endorphins, which creates feelings of happiness and well being. The greatest benefit, however, is that it has the potential of being a game-changer and shift the way our society presently exercises by reconnecting people to the outdoors and making physical exercise accessible and affordable to all.

Because the majority of people today live in urban areas, exercising outdoors is important to allow people the opportunity to reconnect with the natural environment.

There is potential for outdoor open spaces within urbanized areas to accommodate a range of outdoor exercises. The key lies in designing spaces that are multifunctional and combine the aesthetic and healing properties of the landscape, but also incorporate additional programming opportunities for physical activity and exercise.

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training, cool down, and stretching to specifically improve ones strength, cardiovascular conditioning, muscle endurance, co-ordination, flexibility, and speed.

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Garden workout series for core conditioning (leg raises and plank).

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Shawn Gallaugher

Incorporating outdoor exercise circuits is socially responsible on several levels.

First, it increases the health and well being of people. Secondly, it rethinks the way our society exercises by taking exercise outdoors to reconnect people with the natural environment. Thirdly, it demonstrates how physical fitness can be accessible and affordable to all, and can reach people of lower socioeconomic status who tend to have poorer health and greater issues with depression and obesity. Outdoor exercise

TEXT BY SHAWN GALLAUGHER, AN INSTRUCTOR IN LANDSCAPE DESIGN AT RYERSON UNIVERSITY AND GEORGE BROWN COLLEGE AND PRINCIPLE OF SHAWN GALLAUGHER DESIGN.

Something in the Dough

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Technical schematics for tandoor oven.

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Daniel Antonucci

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05 MATERIAL LIST in total we need: 3 fire bricks 1 patio stone 24 x 24 1 patio stone 16 x 16 18 pavers per layer x 8 layers = 9 full size pavers x 18 layers =162 pavers + 6 extra for the vent NOTES — Cut the 8 x 4 bricks in half, make them sqaure then make this shape so that they can go around in a circle leaving a small gap between (0.3 inch).

— Fill the joint between with mortar.

— Only 3 firebricks are needed below the bottom pot.

— There is a 4’’ gap between the pot and paver wall that surrounds them.

— We need a larger patio stone for it to sit on 24 x 24 and a smaller one for the prep area.

— Notice that the outer wall of pavers hangs over the large patio stone slightly, this might be fine or we will have to buy a second and cut strips to fit it better.

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TEXT BY VICTORIA TAYLOR, OALA

The heard and unheard voices that inspire and guide us through the built practice of landscape architecture are diverse, each one providing critical insights into the site analysis, design, and construction phases of our work. How do we activate new paths toward inclusive design when existing maps are limited?

For inspiration and insights, I invited Thevishka Kanishkan and Rayna Syed, co-founders of newly launched activist design group Common Space Coalition (CSC), and artist Sameer Farooq, to talk about Sameer’s recently installed public artwork, a tandoor (clay oven) and semi-permanent fixture commissioned through In Residence, an artist-in-residence series at the Scarborough Museum curated by Aisle 4. The In Residence program is meant to challenge the role of a colonial museum in presentday Scarborough, Toronto. The following is an excerpt from our conversation in December, 2020.

Victoria Taylor: Hello Sameer, Thevishka and Rayna. First, I want to acknowledge the important and engaging work you all are doing.

I’m hugely inspired. Let’s start with introductions.

Rayna Syed: Thevishka and I are recent MLA grads and, since graduation, we have been looking for ways to continue our thesis work around context-specific design and encourage systemic change in our industry. We launched CSC this past summer after writing a letter to our professional bodies in reaction to the lack of response in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. It was signed by over 100 of our colleagues across Canada and asked that our leaders acknowledge their complicity and complacency in the role landscape architecture plays in defining who belongs in a space. The CSC came into fruition as a steering committee to continue to lobby our governing bodies on accountability, and to create a community conversation on how best to move forward. The CSC asks, “How can we write a new framework that is participatory and rooted in community engagement from the beginning and create equal spaces for everybody?” We believe that by pushing this conversation forward, we can begin to challenge our unconscious biases and, in a generation from now, we will see systemic change.

Theviskha Kanishkan: Our approach is through activism and research and to focus on incorporating community voices, marginalized voices, community leaders, and activists directly into landscape architecture to result in more economically, socially, and ecologically resilient designs.

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Artist Sameer Farooq and his assistant Daniel Antonucci construct the outer wall of the tandoor oven.

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Kat Rizza

Sameer Farooq: This is really incredible to hear! I come from a typography and graphic design background—before I became a full time visual artist—and I understand so much the bristling against official bodies and how we shape shift as practitioners to accept the rules, the different exams, the requirements, and content and how we have to embody the history of design that can be so different from our own lived histories.

TK: Reflecting on what we have read about your work in Scarborough, Sameer, we believe in the importance of responding directly to cultural context and community in our design work. Something like a tandoor oven, placed in an extremely diverse community with a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds can happen in our work by rethinking diversity on our design teams, our steering committees, and in our working groups. We believe that contextsensitive landscape architecture is possible if we revisit how we currently practice. If we have committees that directly represent the communities we design for, we will have stronger, more resilient designs because the design actually engages the community.

VT: Sameer, would you like to introduce your work, your approach to this particular tandoor project, and your process?

SF: Sure. What I’m understanding is that we want to dig into process and the different ways that one can cultivate a more informed community engagement to result in the final work. My process was a bit weird. When I got asked (by curator, Aisle 4) to do a site-specific work, I really struggled at first with what I wanted to do. Around the same time, I went on a trip to Pakistan with my dad and, during that trip, something just clicked. In all of these cities where I traveled (Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, and Karachi) tandoor ovens were vital meeting places for people. So the starting point for my research method was very diasporic. When I started to research in

Something in the Dough

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in the office or from developers, we minimize diverse opportunities and ways of life. This process of daily observation, of how a diverse range of people move in space is missing. As landscape architects, post-occupancy evaluations after the first year (or three or five years) is something we need to consider bringing back to our process.

SF: Yes, I think so much about this divide: between looking through assumptions, or by seeing what is in front of our eyes. When you look at what’s actually in front of you, and you spend a lot of time in a park, you take in many different pattern languages. For me, when I saw the spontaneous family gatherings around a charcoal barbecue, I said to myself, “Let’s build a big one that people can book and use.” While some communities can really benefit from a massive splash pad, others just don’t have fun that way.

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View of the tandoor oven, including the outer wall and inner clay vessel.

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Kat Rizza

Scarborough, and research what populations use tandoor ovens, they were all present in the Bendale neighbourhood—from South Asians to Uyghurs, they all use a tandoor. So an oven could be a very direct way to engage in a sensory and familiar feeling of home.

Much of my process is informed by my background in anthropology and the anthropological methodology of participant observations, interviews, playing with the value of the insider, versus the outsider role, participating in things directly, or just sitting in places for long periods and watching.

RS: Your anthropological methodology insight ties closely to a few notions that have been percolating recently. This action of sitting and watching and seeing how people really interact seems to have fallen out of the landscape architecture process, and instead there tends to be an understood, universal approach to how people act and the generic requirements—seating, a dog run, utilities, plants—that we embed into our designs. We can’t assume that we know how all types of people inhabit space. Especially, as designers, if diversity is lacking

VT: Even though the tandoor project has not been realized, and there has not been a proper launch the way that you and the curators envisioned, there is still so much we can learn through this process of research and making.

SF: Because of COVID, we weren’t able to have a real launch, but what we imagine is that the oven will become an important meeting spot during cultural events, or when different things happen in the park. We did several test fires, and we also had some interesting experiences with the Museum’s kitchen. It’s amazing seeing these brown and Black people dressed in full Victorian garb, making butter tarts and pies, and then, for us, they started making naan dough for the oven; everyone was sharing different naan recipes and we began experimenting.

RS: There is so much to this idea of community artists and leaders and new activities happening in these colonial institutions, and how the process of responding to a context can be ongoing and evolving to continually respond to people’s needs. At the end of the day, landscape architecture is driven by money and development, and we have to respond to that. But that’s why we find your project so interesting: because it brings these ideals of responding directly to community context into the built environment and into a design detail that gives back to the community.

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SF: I’ve thought a lot about landscape architecture in terms of what we look at in the material itself, looking at where it comes from and what are the political ramifications of that material. But here in my practice, the material is dough. It’s incredible because it’s economical, nourishing, sensory, highly available, very transportable—they could easily engage this colonial kitchen and it suddenly became a bakery in Pakistan. I love the potential of landscape architecture to be seen as an expanded field, and it’s so exciting to look at the materials and the possibilities of what you can use to engage the public on land. This is definitely about dough.

TK: As you are talking, Sameer, I’m seeing how the tandoor dough is the material and also the program element—a detail of your design that activates and decolonizes the museum’s kitchen, re-centering the colonial history of the site to bring in new stories and new cultures to reframe the history of this cabin. De-centering all of that is something your dough is doing. It’s pretty wild to think about.

SF: Yes, I couldn’t believe the museum was game for it. They were very open. They gave us a beautiful spot on the lawn for a semipermanent structure that the museum will manage. We will see how it all unfolds once people start meeting again, and it does already perform this function as a beacon for people to gather around. There are a lot of good feelings around this process.

VT: Public art is often a way to have these types of critical conversations. Can the public art process be a way to activate the changes we are talking about here?

SF: I do see my piece as public art, and definitely see these collaborations are vital because we (artists) don’t have all of the skills to conceive of a project with all of the protocols that need to happen in public space. I was surprised this one happened so easily. I love thinking about the value of bringing in outside voices into one’s practice, of bringing in people who aren’t accustomed to the day-today habits of a certain profession, and can point out blind spots in the process that maybe aren’t a good fit. There are interesting openings where the engaged landscape architect and the artist can become a team to amplify each other’s voices, work through the red tape, and have a certain amount of distance to question things and offer new insights. It is a wonderful way to give both parties a valuable opportunity, bringing two very different skill sets together in order to navigate the fortress that has been set up to allocate land and use land in certain ways.

VT: Any final thoughts?

SF: This has been wonderful because the project happened and then and we didn’t have a launch, so it’s been really nice to reflect on it through all of your eyes and to think back a year and consider what it was.

VT: How did the community interviews you did affect your tandoor design?

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SF: The curators visited local restaurants to ask about how they used their ovens. But a lot of them were electric. We did speak to a couple of tandoor walas in the wider community; one was a tandoor export business in Oakville. I did some general research for various designs and calibrated that with what was available locally and within the budget we were granted. If I were to do it again, and inspired by these conversations, I can imagine the whole community building a super tandoor. It did have the foundations of community advice—how things need to be insulated, coal versus wood, and bringing in these types of conversations—but the design was determined by me, and for this first try it was very much based on what was available in the time frame.

RS: When we think critically about art and community initiatives and how to activate these into our practices, it can be a lot easier, on some level, for smaller practices. For larger design firms that pitch to more capitalist-driven clients, it’s hard to begin the rewiring of clients’ brains so they realize that this is an important thing to do. Certainly, one of the most challenging things for us is how do we, as young designers starting out, restructure the profession. But as emerging professionals with a critical eye, we understand that if we were really going to decolonize ourselves and our unconscious biases and the inherent hierarchies that surround almost every single profession, the vital first step would be to step back, unlearn, and to amplify the voices of people who are doing this work already.

VICTORIA TAYLOR, OALA, IS PRINCIPAL/FOUNDER OF VTLA STUDIO, AND CO-FOUNDER OF ====\\DERAIL PLATFORM FOR ART + ARCHITECTURE, A CURATORIAL EXPERIMENT TO ANIMATE PUBLIC SPACES ALONG LINEAR LANDSCAPES. VTLA.CA // DERAILART.COM SAMEER FAROOQ IS A CANADIAN ARTIST OF PAKISTANI AND UGANDAN INDIAN DESCENT. HIS INTERDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE INVESTIGATES TACTICS OF REPRESENTATION. WITH EXHIBITIONS AT INSTITUTIONS AROUND THE WORLD. FAROOQ RECEIVED SEVERAL AWARDS FROM THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, ONTARIO ARTS COUNCIL, TORONTO ARTS COUNCIL, AND THE EUROPE MEDIA FUND, AS WELL THE PRESIDENT’S SCHOLARSHIP AT THE RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN. REVIEWS AND ESSAYS DEDICATED TO HIS WORK HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN CANADIAN ART, THE WASHINGTON POST, BBC CULTURE, HYPERALLERGIC, ARTNET, THE HUFFINGTON POST, C MAGAZINE, AND OTHERS. HE WAS LONGLISTED FOR THE SOBEY ART AWARD IN 2018.WWW.SAMEERFAROOQ.COM COMMON SPACE COALITION IS A COALITION OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS ACROSS CANADA WHOSE GOAL IS TO COMBAT RACISM IN OUR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE. WE SEEK TO ENGAGE IN A PROFESSIONAL, POSITIVE, AND TRANSPARENT RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR PROFESSIONAL BODIES (CSLA, OALA, BCSLA, AALA, AND OTHERS) AS AN ARMS-LENGTH ADVOCACY GROUP/STEERING COMMITTEE. WWW.COMMONSPACECOALITION.COM AISLE 4 IS A TORONTO-BASED CURATORIAL PROJECT THAT INITIATES AND PROMOTES SOCIALLY ENGAGED ARTWORK. THROUGH COLLABORATIONS WITH ARTISTS FROM A RANGE OF DISCIPLINES, THEY PRESENT CRITICAL PUBLIC ART EXPERIENCES THAT REACH BEYOND CORE ARTS AUDIENCES TO ANIMATE UNSUSPECTING SPACES AND CONNECT COMMUNITIES. WWW.AISLE4.CA/IN-RESIDENCE THOMSON MEMORIAL PARK IS A MIDSIZED PUBLIC PARK LOCATED ON BRIMLEY ROAD IN THE BENDALE NEIGHBOURHOOD, LOCATED EAST OF TORONTO, ONTARIO. IT IS THE SITE OF THE SCARBOROUGH HISTORICAL MUSEUM AND INCLUDES HISTORICAL HOUSES OF THE FOUNDING FAMILY OF THE FORMER CITY OF SCARBOROUGH, THE THOMSON’S, FROM THE 1790S. SCARBOROUGH MUSEUM CONSISTS OF FOUR BUILDINGS THAT WERE MOVED TO THE SITE BETWEEN 1962 AND 1974. THESE INCLUDE: CORNELL HOUSE, A CLAPBOARD, SCARBOROUGH VERNACULARSTYLE FARMHOUSE; THE MCCOWAN LOG HOUSE, RESTORED TO ITS 1850S APPEARANCE; KENNEDY GALLERY, A SMALL FORMER FARM OUTBUILDING; AND THE HOUGH CARRIAGE WORKS, WHICH HOUSES A COLLECTION OF ARTISANS TOOLS DONATED BY THE HOUGH FAMILY WHO OPERATED THE ORIGINAL SHOP AT HOUGH’S CORNERS.

Round Table

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DAYNA EDWARDS JONATHAN LOSCHMANN

MARK HILLMER

NADJA PAUSCH

LINDSEY MCCAIN

What we left behind, and what we need to create.

MODERATED BY LINDSEY MCCAIN, OALA

FUNG LEE

ROBERT WRIGHT

Round Table

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FUNG LEE, OALA, CSLA, IS A PRINCIPAL OF PMA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS AND A GRADUATE OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (BLA 1997). THE MAJORITY OF HER 24 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE INCLUDES THE DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT OF URBAN PARKS, STREETSCAPES, BOTANICAL GARDENS, LANDSCAPES FOR HOSPITALS AND LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES, HIGH-DENSITY RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT, SCHOOLS, AND PLAY ENVIRONMENTS. SHE CURRENTLY SITS ON THE URBAN DESIGN REVIEW PANELS FOR THE CITY OF VAUGHAN AND METROLINX. ROBERT WRIGHT, OALA, CSLA, IS INTERIM DEAN OF THE JOHN H. DANIELS FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE, AND DESIGN. HE’S A LIFELONG EDUCATOR, WITH 35 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AS A PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND AN EXTENSIVE RECORD OF RESEARCH IN THE AREAS OF DESIGN THEORY, URBAN LANDSCAPES, FORENSIC LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, AND SIMULATION AND VISUALIZATION. HE WAS DEAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S FACULTY OF FORESTRY FROM 2017 TO 2019, DIRECTOR OF THE DANIELS FACULTY’S CENTRE FOR LANDSCAPE RESEARCH FROM 2014 TO 2019, DIRECTOR OF THE DANIELS FACULTY’S MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM FROM 2011 TO 2014, AND, FROM 1999 TO 2004, DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S INTERDISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE MEDIA DESIGN INSTITUTE. IN ADDITION TO HIS ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES, ROBERT MAINTAINS A SUCCESSFUL PRIVATE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PRACTICE, IZ-DESIGN. HE RECENTLY CONTRIBUTED SITE PLANNING AND LANDSCAPE DESIGN TO LAURENTIAN UNIVERSITY’S NEW MCEWEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE BUILDING. THE PROJECT WON AN OAA AWARD IN 2018.

DAYNA EDWARDS, AS A PROFESSIONAL IN PLANNING AND URBAN DESIGN, COORDINATES AND IMPLEMENTS THE URBAN DESIGN PROGRAM, INCLUDING THE PREPARATION OF URBAN DESIGN GUIDELINES AND URBAN DESIGN STUDIES, AT THE CITY OF KITCHENER. IN ADDITION, SHE LEADS AND PARTICIPATES IN THE REVIEW OF INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS AND DEVELOPMENT PROPOSALS AND APPLICATIONS. DAYNA IS A GRADUATE OF THE QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY’S SCHOOL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING AND LATER COMPLETED A SPECIALIZATION IN URBAN DESIGN AT SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY IN VANCOUVER. DAYNA’S INTERESTS HAVE FOCUSED ON URBAN DESIGN CHALLENGES RELATED TO INFILL DEVELOPMENT AND MASTER PLANNING PROJECTS. IN ADDITION, DAYNA IS A JURY MEMBER ON THE COMMUNITY/URBAN DESIGN PANEL OF THE OPPI EXCELLENCE IN PLANNING AWARDS AND SITS ON HAMILTON’S URBAN DESIGN REVIEW PANEL. JONATHAN LOSCHMANN, OALA, CSLA, IS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND LEED ACCREDITED PROFESSIONAL WITH 18 YEARS OF PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE, CURRENTLY ACTING AS DIRECTOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN AT WSP CANADA INC. PRIOR TO JOINING WSP IN OTTAWA IN 2010, JONATHAN WORKED FOR CDM-SMITH IN CAMBRIDGE, SCOTTSDALE, AND LOS ANGELES (2004 – 2010), AND AS LANDSCAPE DESIGNER AT PRESSLEY, INC. IN CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS (2002 - 2004). JONATHAN SERVED HIS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL INTERNSHIP AT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL COMMISSION IN 2001. HE FOCUSES HIS PRACTICE ON THE DESIGNING LASTING AND SUSTAINABLE MUNICIPAL ENVIRONMENTS AND PUBLIC REALM CENTRED ON TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE. LINDSEY MCCAIN, OALA, CSLA, IS A GRADUATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH’S BACHELOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM, WITH SEVERAL YEARS OF EXPERIENCE PRACTICING IN BOTH THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE SECTORS. IN 2020, SHE WAS AWARDED FULL MEMBERSHIP IN THE OALA AND RETURNED TO U OF G TO PURSUE GRADUATE STUDIES. SHE IS CURRENTLY IN HER SECOND SEMESTER OF THE MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM, STUDYING HOUSING AND TRANSPORTATION ACCESS AMONG CREATIVE WORKERS IN THE SUBURBS.

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Lindsey McCain: What a year 2020 was.

Events like the global pandemic, climate change, and the call to dismantle systemic racism have forced us to reflect on ourselves and our practices and imagine a “new normal.” In the context of these issues, what is your organization doing to prepare for a new normal, and what are you doing, personally?

Robert Wright: I really hate the term “new normal.” There’s never been a normal, ever.

We tend to see these issues in a North American, Western context, but around the world there have been pandemics, diseases, and inequality of all sorts. So, I think it’s a shift in perception about the issues you’ve identified that we’re really facing. We have to ask ourselves, particularly when talking about professional education, what our role is relative to these issues, the values we bring to them, and the shifts are we making? Because, fundamentally, we’re being asked to reconsider everything we’re doing right now. And we’re all struggling to figure out how to pivot. But the word “systemic” means embedded in the system itself. One of the ironies of the situation is we’re asking institutions in which this has been systemically embedded to lead change. That’s a very difficult thing to do and do quickly.

I’ve been on equity and diversity committees for over 10 years. Primarily, they started around the issue of gender equity, then it went into diversity. For example, the University of Toronto says 60 per cent of our students are English-as-a-secondlanguage. That doesn’t mean they didn’t grow up here, or they don’t speak English fluently. That means, when they go home, they often speak a second language with their parents. Our faculty, however, certainly does not reflect that kind of diversity. And the type of shifts required to change that— rehiring people, et cetera—is a very longterm proposition.

We’re really being challenged on all fronts.

That’s why I say it was never normal to start with, and it shouldn’t be normal when the pandemic ends, but it’ll be interesting to see

what we carry forward, institutionally, in our professions, in our own lives, and the way we address all these issues.

Jonathan Loschmann: One thing that WSP is actively doing is connecting our global family by enabling our baseline infrastructure to interact in real time, on a global stage. I’m amazed at how fluid (not seamless) that has been. But with this push of being at home and our reliance on information technology (IT), the world has become a smaller place and, from a business perspective, it’s easier to communicate quickly on a global scale.

This reliance on technology means the amount of communication is increased. And we’re embedding that into how we organize ourselves, nationally and internationally.

We’re challenging our unconscious bias and—to get into particulars about global health, climate, and racism—we have diversity and inclusion policies enacted and communicated internationally, with an IT platform, and we have Indigenous relations policies embedded within every one of our projects.

In terms of looking forward to what business opportunities exist, if you fast-forward about half a century from when Buckiminster Fuller put forward the notion of thinking globally, and acting locally, it’s amazing how we can now do that in a global society, with the technology I’ve outlined. Regardless of how an organization communicates, we have a real opportunity to enact that notion.

And, while we rely on our economy, I’m energized by an increased focus on environment and society, where in previous years, or even centuries, economy stole the show. As a global society, we now see the benefit and importance of social and environmental contributions, including mental health as a contributor to global health.

Dayna Edwards: I work in the public sector for a municipality, and what I’ve seen at the City of Kitchener, as well as other municipalities, is this desire to hire people that work in equity and diversity. So, we’ve

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created five new positions around that.

And, like Robert said, no change will happen overnight, and large-scale change will take a lot of time, but bringing people in with that kind of expertise and looking at our organization through an equity and diversity lens is an important first step.

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St. James Park, Toronto.

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Courtesy of Fung Lee and PMA Landscape Architects

One of the things we’re looking at in land use planning is the history of racism in zoning across cities, the country, and North America.

We’re taking a hard look at things we’ve taken for granted in our zoning bylaws that are creating inequality or equity challenges.

We’re also looking at past practices. We used to have public meetings at City Hall that went past 5:00 p.m., which not everybody could attend. As a result, we were seeing the same people and representatives coming out to meetings, and we weren’t reaching the underrepresented people within our

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society. We would look at the census demographics and we could see that the people coming to the meetings weren’t representative of the demographics of the area. So, from a planning perspective, this has caused us to take a harder look at what we’ve been doing in the past as the status quo, and how we can make changes within our organization to reach a wider audience.

Fung Lee: As small practitioner—we’re 10 people right now, never had an HR department—we had a company-wide chat about these recent issues, particularly systemic racism, social equity, and diversity.

I think the change for us, as a small studio, was really about formalizing these things.

We’ve always had a policy about mutual respect and professionalism, but it’s important to actually spell out diversity and equity protocols and policies.

I agree these issues have been ongoing.

The difference in this past year is the expectation of the pace with which we need to respond. It’s challenging, but also great.

We are making time to be more proactive, rather than reactive.

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So, as a small office, we’re reaching out to experts in cultural sensitivity training, an Indigenous course out west, and professionals who can assist us in what we do. We do a lot of public realm, and high-density development in the city. How can we apply these principles more actively, and sensitively?

LM: Maybe a “new normal” is really raising awareness of existing issues, especially with regard to social equity. What steps are we all taking to make sure the world is a better place in the future? I’d be interested to hear a little more about enacting equity principles in practice, as well as in the spaces we design and the types of projects we choose to work on.

RW: Well, one of the issues that we face in this, because of the whiteness of our profession, is that it’s difficult to deal with these issues if you’re not involving people with lived experience. In a school, if we want to make this change, the last thing we want is a bunch of white, European males sitting around a table, trying to decide approaches to Black Lives Matter or Indigenous activity. Without those voices at the table, it’s irrelevant. There needs to be a shift in administration and leadership

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Socially-distanced outdoor dining in Kitchener, Ontario.

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Courtesy of Dayna Edwards

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Vogelsang Park in Downtown Kitchener, newly redesigned and redeveloped in 2020.

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Courtesy of Dayna Edwards

within our faculty. We can begin to access the resources and training required to understand the issues, but we must bring those voices to the table so that they can talk for themselves.

I have an Indigenous student doing a PhD and she asked, “What’s white privilege feel like?” And I told her, “It doesn’t feel like anything.” That’s how you know you have it: the fact that we don’t have to think about it, when people of colour sense that difference every day.

That’s the kind of shift and experiences we’re trying to begin to understand. And it requires us to do a couple of things. We need to be more horizontal in distributed leadership so there are many voices at the table, and we need training. We’re hiring specialized consultants to help us with 04

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access to outdoor space, which, at the height of the pandemic, was the one thing that everybody wanted and needed to sociallydistance safely outside. We’re realizing some of what we’ve done without much thought has exasperated the problem, and we’re looking at creating more quality around access to space and the outdoors and, as a city, how we’re bringing in groups with social equity values.

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the training of staff, students, and faculty, and we’re not differentiating between them. We’re all participating in the training together, so we understand the common languages and the things we need to do.

FL: I partnered into a firm founded by three white men, and now we are owned by two female partners, one of which is me, a visible minority woman with a very Canadian immigrant-child upbringing. So, I’m pretty proud my partner Leslie Morton and I are now running the show. I’m so fortunate the original partners passed the torch to us and we’ve adopted this wonderful studio. But, certainly, now that it’s the two of us, we are rethinking and refining who we work with, externally.

We’ve hired a lot of MLA grads, a lot of them women and quite diverse. In that way, in terms of the hiring internally, my partner and I would like to give the same opportunity we got.

I’m on a team for a medium-density development in Etobicoke. It’s an all-female consultant team—quite deliberately by the owners and developers—and because of that, coincidence or not, by having an allwomen consultant team, it’s also very diverse. There’s a lot more people of colour on this all-woman team than usual.

LM: Dayna, what have you seen working for the City? I’ve noticed, responding to Request For Proposals, a lot more questions about what a firm is doing to source contractors that support social equity and to source subconsultants. Have you seen this, working in a municipal environment, too? Is that becoming more important?

DE: Agreed. This is one of the things that our equity and diversity group will be tasked with as they look at who we’re bringing to the table and what values they have. What we’ve learned from the pandemic, as well as social movements, is we aren’t doing a good enough job.

We aren’t bringing the right people to the table and we aren’t always engaging with underrepresented groups.

I deal with a lot of urban design through new development applications. I’ve noticed we always make sure that, in a new subdivision, we have a 7.5-metre rear yard and access to outdoor space. But when we review multiple residential developments, we sometimes see proposals that have no outdoor space as part of the development, no indoor amenity space, and that’s a problem because a lot of underrepresented groups or people with financial constraints are living in multi-residential units. Therefore, we’re creating more inequality around

JL: There is great potential to use technology to address some of our universal access issues in the built environment. However, depending on technology, that can’t be the solution alone, because reliance on technology comes at a cost. So, how do we maximize technology while making it accessible to all? I think there’s a great leadership opportunity for landscape architecture to take conversations around universal design and social equity and inform public realm.

Mark Hillmer: It might be nice to end with a little optimism. What do you want to see happening in professional practice, and society at large, in the next little while?

RW: It’s always good to have optimism. I have an ecological background where there’s two rules, Mark. One is ‘everything is connected to everything else,’ and the other is ‘everything dies.’ It’s the harsh reality of our system. But the elephant in the room, for me, is climate change, for our profession. If you think we have inequities now, or seen loss of life in the pandemic, it’s nothing compared to the coming impact of climate change. We hear about a nine- or 10-year horizon to get this under control, to do carbon accounting on all our projects, and really deal with these issues. It’s going to be the challenge for our profession, particularly. And that’s connected to issues around open space, et cetera.

We are going through our curriculum, decolonizing it, and making sustainability and climate change part of every course. It’s not a special topic, it should be in everything that we do now.

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Optimistically, I think it’s a great future for landscape architecture if we actually start to address these problems in a concrete way and provide leadership in these areas. Landscape architecture is very much in a position right now to adopt a more active leadership role. But climate change is going to be the one issue that will bring us together.

JL: I think the global pandemic has accelerated and amplified opportunities for landscape architecture to address and combat issues, as Robert outlined, surrounding climate change and social equity, and to do so in an economically prosperous manner.

In that vein, I think landscape architects are well-poised to lead the multi-disciplinary teams required to meaningfully address our world’s issues, thinking globally and addressing them on a regional or global scale. I think the future is bright for landscape architects and landscape architecture.

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FL: I agree, we are well poised to be advocates for climate change and social equity in our work, in how we, individually, can improve that and apply that. Our clients, municipalities and developers, are quite directly affecting the shape of our cities. The hope is that we’re all doing this together.

The hope is, after what’s happened in the last year, everyone knows what the right thing to do is, and that it’s not shocking when we bring it up. Dayna gave the example of how shared amenity spaces— interior and exterior—should be prioritized, not as marketable things, but as real social gathering places.

In this recent year, I had been hoping and looking to our professional associations for advice. I think it’s starting to become available, but we all need more and we need to learn together.

The challenge is there’s an expectation of immediacy, but it’s really hard to change an institution.

LM: Yeah, it’s tough to balance the urgency of everything that’s happening right now with the fact that it’s going to take decades to change institutions.

DE: I’d like to see that focus on climate change budgeted for upfront, not as an afterthought, but also our attention shifted towards the quality and quantity of outdoor space. Right now, that’s sometimes treated as a nice-to-have: we throw some extra money at making it happen or try squeezing it into a development. It’d be great if that was the starting point. If it was just built in. It would be great to see those two issues—climate change and outdoor space—as primary factors around design.

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FL: Yeah. We have been the nice-tohave, and now we are critically essential.

Finally, people recognize the importance of landscape, the public realm, outdoor space, and the inherent worth of access to nature. Finally, the rest of the world—at least in cities— recognizes landscape and our profession as critical.

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Public art in downtown Kitchener.

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Courtesy of Dayna Edwards

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Pedestrianized street in Kitchener.

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Courtesy of Dayna Edwards

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Public art in downtown Kitchener.

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Courtesy of Dayna Edwards

THANKS TO MARK HILLMER AND NADJA PAUSCH FOR COORDINATING THIS ROUND TABLE.

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“While this is a grim and necessary story to share, the pandemic has also brought us new opportunities for viewing and connecting with the world around us.”

Accessing the New Normal

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TEXT BY SARAH MANTEUFFEL

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought many of us into lockdown and a new “normal,” as we explored our world in changing ways over the course of the last year. Many began the shift to a increasingly online world, whether for work or social interaction, and we explored the possibilities of staying connected when we needed to stay two metres apart.

While this was a “new” world for a majority of people, many in the disabled community became disenchanted as the lockdowns continued. The infection rates started slowly in Canada, and the initial concerns were not considerable for healthy, able-bodied people. Often phrases such as “it’s only a risk to the elderly or immunocompromised” were shared to spread hope to those who were healthy and young, trying to navigate this massive change. Language like this set a standard for how we prioritized each other. If you did not have high-risk individuals in your life, your concern may have been minimal. But to the disabled community, this sent a clear message. The disabled and elderly were at risk, but that was not a worry because the able-bodied should be okay. As the pandemic continued and we saw how dangerous this virus was to all, the mindset shifted. However, the horrific death tolls this virus has taken among our elderly in care homes has emphasized what we prioritize, and who we do not.

While this is a grim and necessary story to share, the pandemic has also brought us new opportunities for viewing and connecting with the world around us. The expanded online opportunities that presented themselves were not new technologies, but became a new standard. Access to workfrom-home became the standard in 2020, something disabled people have frequently been denied in the past. When we began to crave arts and culture in lockdown, museums and performing artists began posting more digital content so that people could take in their work. As a disabled person who often needs accessible seating to be able to safely attend concerts, the pandemic allowed me access to shows I would never have been able to attend in person before (think punk-

rock, headbanging, mosh pits and the like).

While this kind of exposure to the arts is not the same as the in-person experiences we had before, the pandemic has shown that the ability to provide different kinds of access was always there, and now there is a broader desire for it.

The pandemic has largely impacted small business, which caused many stores to create websites so their goods and services could be purchased online. The intent to keep our small businesses afloat by supporting local was strong, especially through the holiday season. The benefit of adding access to online shopping was, in fact, a huge achievement for the disabled community, and added an increase in customers for these stores. Many store fronts in Toronto are inaccessible to people with physical disabilities, which meant that these stores may have prohibited up to 20 per cent of the population from accessing their products. Now, having online shops as an addition to many stores creates a significantly larger shopping base than before for these businesses. While the pandemic has challenged us all financially, and we may not be able to support businesses like before, I hope these stores continue to see the benefits of online storefronts, in service of those who may not be able to access their stores in person, while they work to be able to provide physical access as well.

In 2020, I began my master’s degree in city planning. Due to the pandemic, the program was presented entirely online. While initially disappointed to lose the positive social aspects of attending school in person, I noted so many benefits that I did not consider initially. First is the time saved in not having to commute to school. I can take the time I need for myself to prepare for classes, sleep, and take extra time for work, without the need to accommodate for travel time (and the physical toll it can take on my body).

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Performance of “Icarus” at Robert Wagner Park for the virtual 2020 Battery Dance Festival.

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Steven Pisano / Flickr

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To America: A Live Performance in Green-wood Cemetery, Ivan Thompson with a string quartet in the Catacombs.

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Steven Pisano / Flickr

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To America: A Live Performance in Green-wood Cemetery, Lady Jess playing violin in the Weeping Beech Tunnel.

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Steven Pisano / Flickr

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My cohort come from across the globe, and while many would have been in Winnipeg for in-person class, they are now able to participate from their home countries, safe with their families. While the time changes 03

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“The pandemic has shone a spotlight on considerable inequalities in our cities.”

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Empty lecture room

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Changbok Ko / Unsplash

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Outdoor dining set-ups limit public access of already narrow sidewalks.

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Jasper Flores

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Businesses offering contactless deliveries due to Covid-19.

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Blue Mountains Library / Flickr

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prove challenging, the international access provides an immense amount of global insight to our classes that I think would be missed if we were all in person.

Lastly, online university provides opportunities from an accessibility standpoint that were previously missing. If a classmate is injured or sick, they are still able to safely attend class. There are options to record lectures for repeat viewing, should you miss anything or need a refresher. In addition, I was able to attend classes in my home set up that is built for me. I no longer had to sit in lecture halls and studios that caused pain to my disabled body, and could be comfortable for multiplehour lectures.

Now, I know these positives are not presented to all, and there are incredible amounts of negatives with online learning.

Problems such as strict and ableist policing policies for online examination processes, requiring stable internet access and a working computer, safe and secure housing, social support and privacy. The intention here is to bring light to consistent accessibility requests, denied in the past, that are now readily available, and for us to consider how we can continue them once we are all no longer at home.

had on public access for disabled people.

Often, these patios take up already minimal and precious real estate on sidewalks, creating even more narrow passageways.

Not only is this a challenge for mobility devices, but it also creates bottlenecks that force people to walk close together (or close to said unmasked patio-users) during a time of two-metre physical distancing. For the immunocompromised, or people like myself who are told to stay 10 feet apart (due to my shorter height and droplet spread), this can create challenges that make it easier to instead stay inside.

These changes to our streets, while praised by many, can greatly affect the mental and physical health of disabled people who now may not even have the ability to enjoy a simple walk in the city they live in and rely on.

Disabled people are consistently speaking up and providing insights about ways in which we can create a more accessible world for all. Perhaps now we will listen to these voices, without the need of a global pandemic to emphasize our points.

The pandemic has shone a spotlight on considerable inequalities in our cities. When things began to shut down, lack of facilities such as public and accessible washrooms, affordable, available housing, and safe indoor spaces were vastly apparent. The pandemic shut down much of the public realm, however those who frequently utilized these spaces for their own safety and community, including unhoused and low-income communities, were left without support and safe spaces to convene.

Accessibility issues have increased in the streets as well. In this time of struggle, much of the focus has been on trying to find ways to keep the same “normal,” but convert it to the outdoors. Restaurants and bars have successfully taken to the public realm to create outdoor patios, allowing pandemicfriendly service, and adding a liveliness to the sidewalks that had been missed. However, continually understated is the effect this has

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SARAH MANTEUFFEL IS A GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER, AND ACCESSIBILITY ADVOCATE, WORKING ON HER MASTERS DEGREE IN CITY PLANNING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA. SHE WAS THE COORDINATOR AT THE OALA FOR 4.5 YEARS BEFORE LEAVING IN JULY 2020 FOR HER STUDIES. SHE IS A MEMBER OF SEVERAL DWARFISM ASSOCIATIONS AND SITS AS CO-VICE PRESIDENT ON THE UOFM ASSOCIATION OF PLANNING STUDENTS. AS A PERSON WITH DWARFISM, AS WELL AS HAVING AN UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE IN INTERIOR DESIGN, SARAH HAS ALWAYS VIEWED THE WORLD FROM A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE: FOCUSING ON HOW SPACES PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY AFFECT PEOPLE BEYOND INCLUSIVE DESIGN. IN HER CURRENT GRADUATE STUDIES, SARAH HOPES TO GAIN MORE EDUCATION ON HOW DESIGN AND POLICY CAN BETTER INCORPORATE ACCESSIBLE DESIGN IN PUBLIC SPACES.

Brampton’s 20-Minute Walkable Neighbourhood:

A Q&A With Yvonne Yeung

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Brampton’s 20-Minute Walkable Neighbourhood:

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Integrating Nature in the heart of the development.

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

Brampton’s 20-Minute Walkable Neighbourhood:

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TEXT BY KAARI KITAWI, OALA

The suburban City of Brampton, Ontario, is the ninth largest city in Canada, and growing fast. Like many cities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Brampton is looking to reimagine itself, and prepare for the future. In 2018, it adopted the Brampton 2040 Vision, which aspires to promote sustainable and healthy growth, create five Town Centres, build complete neighbourhoods, and integrate a number of mobility options, including regional transit hubs, into the design.

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Kaari Kitawi: Recently, you organized a virtual workshop conducted by the City of Brampton, in partnership with Urban Land Institute Toronto (ULI), the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, and the City of Helsinki. Is the City of Brampton using Helsinki as a benchmark, and will the collaboration continue?

the delivery of walkable communities within urban growth centres, served by rapid transit.

The “Getting to Transit Oriented Communities Initiative” was a great team effort among various thought-leaders within ULI, including Ken Greenberg, who shared in this vision.

As part of the visioning of this initiative, I tapped into my experience in the private and public sector, and travels to Europe over the past two decades. I am particularly intrigued by the Scandinavian model of creating family-oriented neighbourhoods that integrate nature and social hubs at the heart of communities. I had also attended a conference in Denmark and seen the need for collaboration and exchange of design ideas at a global scale.

Yvonne Yeung: This was an initiative I started with Urban Land Institute, prior to joining the City of Brampton. The idea was surrounding

When the provincial government issued a directive on establishing Transit Oriented Communities, a group of ULI leaders began

In keeping with the 2040 Vision, Brampton is transforming it’s Uptown into a 20-minute, walkable neighbourhood, with an “Urban Community Hub.” To explain the plan, and the city’s ongoing transformation, we spoke to Brampton’s manager of urban design, Yvonne Yeung.

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Community Hub Campus— amphitheatre and public spaces

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

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Community Hub Campus—sports field

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

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to look at the overall transit infrastructure to identify how to strategically position cities that are undergoing suburban transformation, including Brampton. We selected Helsinki as an international benchmark, because they had succeeded in shifting their city planning policies from being car-centric to transit-oriented, and created walkable neighbourhoods.

Brampton sees an opportunity to do the same by prioritizing public health and environmental sustainability.

When establishing the walkable neighbourhood, Helsinki’s city planners seek to elevate the happiness of their citizens by ensuring the community facilities are in place from the very beginning.

KK: When Waterfront Toronto was redeveloping the lakefront, the parks and

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the public realm were put in place first and the buildings later. Is that what you mean by community facilities being in place at the beginning?

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Vison for Hurontario—Steeles TOC in Council endorsed “Brampton 2040 Vision.”

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

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Hurontario and Steeles intersection changing from car centric to pedestrian oriented.

YY: Yes, the Urban Community Hub is a critical component in building communities, and making this facility available to the first generation of residents is important to the success of creating a walkable neighbourhood.

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

KK: When you say Urban Community Hub, what do you mean?

YY: The Urban Community Hub is a multi-use facility prototype we developed under the direction of city council. It was developed in collaboration with the library board, school boards, Peel Region Public Health, and Peel Social Services. The hub is designed

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master planning at multiple scales, not by piecemeal design, is key.

KK: Was the workshop initiated by the City of Brampton or ULI?

The City of Brampton sees an opportunity to increase competitiveness by repositioning education to build talent and cultivate an innovation economy. We are looking to diversify our portfolio to become an “Innovation Corridor,” by aligning to the Kitchener-Waterloo corridor and attract more technology jobs.

YY: It was an invitation-only workshop, using the ULI platform. We invited 200 people, including representative from Sweden, Helsinki, Netherlands, local developers, and professionals. The intent was to get independent feedback from professionals without a vested interest in the project.

At Uptown, we are also removing the need for car ownership and replacing expansive parking lots with high-quality public spaces.

To achieve this, we are working closely with transit, transportation planning, and other departments to design the transit around this campus, so there is seamless connectivity.

The bike trail will be improved so that children can bike to school safely, negating the need for drop-off.

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as a “pavilion in park,” with a daycare, school, library, recreation centre, exhibition and performance spaces, technology and innovation space, and it will integrate green technologies with learning gardening.

We are also interpreting the advice of Peel Region Public Health into tangible design projects to encourage an active lifestyle and minimize the spread of infectious diseases. The public spaces at the heart of the community will be interconnected for the enjoyment and safety of residents. These spaces will provide additional benefits of improving cognitive performance and mental health.

Drawing from the lessons of the Helsinki model, we are establishing this prototype as a campus at the heart of the neighbourhood.

We have a unique opportunity, with the rapid transit investment that is happening very fast, the decentralization of economic activity that has been accelerated

by COVID, with people working from home, and the request for office spaces across the region. Walkable complete neighbourhoods connected to transit nodes are the most ideal places to live and work.

The Major Transit Station Area envisions complete walkable neighbourhoods will be created within 800 metres from all the rapid transit stops. A majority of the trips will be made by walking, cycling, and riding transit.

As designers, we have to align with these planning policies and see how to create a condition that can benefit both public sector and private sector.

At Uptown Brampton—Hurontario Street and Steeles Avenue—we are working with seven developers. The urban vision is to create 14 million square feet of new, high-density, mixed-use development. The projected population at this transit node is 100,000.

We realize, to achieve best outcomes, 07

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KK: Some of the 905-area municipalities don’t have a catalyst such as the waterfront.

How do you see Brampton creating a catalyst to attract people to live here?

YY: The Urban Community Hub is envisioned as a catalyst for development. It will be at the heart of the development, surrounded by the community. It will be connected to great public spaces, schools, parks, trails, and the valley system. Green streets will be integrated, and Vision Zero will be implemented, to reduce pedestrian fatalities at the intersection.

When Oslo was rebuilding after the war, their efforts were led by the mayor, an engineer, a doctor, and a designer. In my opinion, that must have informed their focus on building walkable neighbourhoods, connected by efficient transit. They have a collection of 15-minute walkable complete neighbourhoods that are connected by the public realm as the glue. We are exploring applying this same thinking to Brampton and using the Urban Greenway as our glue.

Brampton’s 20-Minute Walkable Neighbourhood:

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the idea of having shareable retail spaces on the ground floor. Instead of having fixed, long-term leases, the space can be let out on the short term to start-ups, to use space as and when needed.

The spaces will be designed to support residents through different life stages.

The neighbourhood will be a learning ground for children throughout their development. Programs such as internships, performance spaces and urban agriculture will be integrated to enrich the overall education experience.

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KK: You mentioned the important role quality architecture plays in the Scandinavian model, are mid-rises the preferred built form for Uptown Brampton?

YY: We don’t see tall towers on two or three storey podiums creating the neighbourhood environment that fosters community. To facilitate the design judgement, we go through rigorous, logical explanation demonstrating the importance of the public realm in driving the development. Across the region, designers are trying to avoid building vertical suburbs. The built form needs to create the right enclosure with the surrounding street and block. It also needs to provide comprehensive, familysized dwellings that provide lots of eyes on the street.

Public space is the key driver to achieving the vision. As designers, we have to take the driver’s seat and provide clear vision to influence the shaping of the physical city. I have seen this demonstrated very well in Arabianranta, in Helsinki. The developments are primarily driven by public art, which is placed throughout the public realm and acts as wayfinding.

At times, designers focus their energy on getting a perfect plan from 10,000 feet above, instead of designing from the ground at the human scale.

KK: How does the proposed plan compare with Cornell in Markham, are there any similarities? You are familiar with both developments.

YY: As a resident of Cornell, I can share my view. This new-urbanism community was developed 20 years ago, and it’s an absolute masterpiece. It has fine-grain design, with a collection of interconnected public parks and open spaces. This feature makes it easy for children to navigate their way to school, without needing to cross the street. The homes are designed for people to be able to have home businesses, with ground floors easily converting into office or retail space.

The layouts also allow for eyes on the street and foster a strong sense of community.

KK: How has COVID impacted the Uptown Brampton plans, are you tweaking it?

YY: COVID has shed light on the need to prioritize public health and social equity, and increased the daytime population in neighbourhoods with people now working from home. Families have learned to share space in the house and be flexible.

Working parents—particularly those with young children—are structuring their workday to meet family needs and work obligations. Employers, too, have had to be flexible to accommodate staff.

The active transportation and new daytime population will act as a catalyst to create a safe neighbourhood and foster social cohesion. With many people working from home, it is a perfect environment for starting small businesses and boosting local economy.

The proposed Community Hub is envisioned to be operational 24 hours. We are testing

The federal government is providing further support through community innovation grants. This will create opportunity for the community to partner with non-profit and or municipality to retrofit some of these public spaces.

KK: You mentioned that time was an important piece in all this. Is that the reason testing is critical to get buy in?

YY: The CityPlace community in Toronto that we celebrate took years to come into being.

When I was at university, it had a centralized park with a temporary outdoor golfing area. The public spaces were installed first, then the high-density neighbourhood.

The community would have benefited if the recently completed school would have been done at the beginning. We are learning that there is opportunity to attract families by prioritizing the early delivery of community infrastructures. The “20-minute walkable neighbourhood with community hub,” provides a scalable model to unlock an urban growth centre by building community, and it can be replicated across the region.

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Creek to Creek Transit Connection from Brampton to Mississauga.

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

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20-minute Walkable Neighbourhoods at Uptown Brampton.

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

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24-Hour Community

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City of Brampton, Urban Design

BIO/

KAARI KITAWI, OALA, IS AN URBAN DESIGNER AT THE CITY OF TORONTO AND IS A GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER. SHE A GRADUATE OF THE MASTERS OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO AND HAS A BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN MATHEMATICS FROM KENYA. PRIOR TO MOVING TO CANADA, KAARI RAN HER OWN LANDSCAPE FIRM FOR OVER 10 YEARS.

When Public Realm Meets Global Pandemic

A Q&A with Nina-Marie Lister

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When Public Realm Meets Global Pandemic

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TEXT BY HELENE IARDAS, OALA

We will likely remember the past year as being marked by unprecedented isolation, turmoil, and challenges. However, it has also been a period of exploration and ingenuity on many fronts. The public realm, our shared public spaces, is one of those fronts. In response to the global pandemic, our shared outdoor space has transformed, both physically and figuratively. We, as a society, have already begun using and thinking about the public realm of streets, parks, open spaces, and ravines differently, more creatively, and, perhaps, more appreciatively.

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But was it all just a bone we were thrown in an otherwise dismal year? Or, are there important lessons we can use, going forward, when our current danger has passed?

We had the opportunity to ask Professor Nina-Marie Lister, director of the Ecological Design Lab at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University, how the COVID-19 pandemic challenged and changed our public realm, and what we can learn from that.

Helene Iardas: How do you think the perception of the public realm— parks, streets, ravines, publicly accessible open spaces—has, or will change within different organizations, industries, and the public as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?

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Covid-safe dining space in Kitchener, Ontario.

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Courtesy of Dayna Edwards

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Streets closed for cars, open for local pedestrian activities in Jackson Heights, New York during Covid time.

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34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition

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When Public Realm Meets Global Pandemic

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Nina-Marie Lister: Why don’t I start with the public. The public isn’t one group, of course, it’s a diverse range of publics with very different ideas and relationships to what we might call the public realm. From a landscape and ecological perspective, which is the lens through which I look at the city, most of my work involves connecting people to nature in the city, and ideas about nature are often expressed in the public realm. Sure, they’re expressed in parks and gardens, but also in the connected spaces between those, our trails, our parks, our hinterlands, our ravines, for example.

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Streets closed for cars, open for local pedestrian activities in Jackson Heights, New York during Covid time.

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34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition

The research that we’re doing right now and the engagement that we have through the Ecological Design Lab in the public realm clearly shows that never before has there been as heightened an awareness of the importance of time spent, first of all, outdoors, and secondly, in something that we relate to as nature. I would say that the pandemic has offered a more heightened and urgent sense of connection for public mental health and physical well-being in the sense of awareness and relationship to the public sphere or the public realm.

In pre-pandemic times, the public realm does not enjoy the same public sector profile that does our other capital infrastructures around the construction of roads, bridges, pipes, sewers, et cetera.

That’s changing. The investment in the public realm is now seen as social and ecological infrastructure for well-being.

That’s what’s changed.

HI: Where would a changed attitude toward the public realm make the biggest difference, in your opinion?

NML: I would reiterate the emphasis that the investment in the capital infrastructure of our public realm is suddenly justified on the basis of health and well-being outcomes for people. That change in attitude from public sector leaders, thought leaders, elected officials, that’s hugely important right now.

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HI: As the pandemic continues, both public and private organizations have begun to change the way outdoor space is being used and valued. Bike lanes, temporary street closures, outdoor patios, and social distance design features in parks are a few of the emergent strategies and projects that have already started to be explored and put in place.

Is there a specific example of a public space or strategy that you believe could be a prototype for, or at least the start of, a conversation about how the public realm can better respond to physical health, mental health, social connections, and social challenges such as we are currently experiencing?

NML: Ultimately, you’re asking about ways in which we can use the public realm to both connect us and distance us. The issues that this question raises for me have to do with issues of temporal and spatial scale.

Our public spaces are not just for social gathering. They’re places for reflection, for contemplation, for taking solace outdoors, for communing with nature sometimes, and those actions are good for our mental health. They’re incredibly important for our physical well-being. As it turns out, the pandemic has highlighted what science has already told us is really critical to health and well-being. This means that programming for those public spaces takes on a new kind of flexibility and urgency.

I like to think about ways in which we can use the public spaces we have in a more ameliorated or mediated way. Think about “time zoning,” a kind of temporal zoning of our parks, where perhaps there are hours of the day when they are specific to seniors or specific to small children. It’s not just the

When Public Realm Meets Global Pandemic

design of physical space, but the design of the policies that guide behaviours and use of those spaces.

The obvious examples in the pandemic that I think have really shown that kind of short turnaround in responsiveness would be a simple matter of closing a lane to cars and allowing bicycles or walking, for people to be spread out more. That was a relatively easy fix that happened very early on in the pandemic, and that is likely to have some staying power.

Many of our interventions, out of urgency or crisis, have shown the power of creativity, but also the power of overcoming barriers.

It’s amazing how powerful the barrier to accessing wine and beer in restaurants after hours was, and that just vaporized overnight. So, I think our ability to overcome policy barriers is really a matter of will.

It’s a matter of political will, of course.

It’s also a matter of thinking creatively how we can take what we learned as urgent responsiveness in a pandemic and apply it to good, thoughtful, proactive programming of public spaces.

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Designated play space and time for seniors.

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Galveston County Parks and Senior Service

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Road seasonally closed for amphibian crossing in Evansville, Indiana.

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Historic Southern Indiana

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My favourite example, I would say isn’t actually a pandemic response, but rather a very smart response to the intersection of people and wildlife in cities. We have for a long time contemplated closing roads to traffic in areas where, in spring, amphibians need to migrate. So, temporary closure of roads to allow amphibians to move across a roadway to a safe breeding or feeding ground is not an outrageous proposition. We do it in lots of places, and it’s temporary—a matter of days or weeks. We managed to do it with bicycles and people, extending the sidewalk into the roadway, because there wasn’t as much traffic to have to worry about.

The emphasis is really on temporal and spatial flexibility, on thinking creatively about policy, as much as about infrastructure.

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HI: In a post-pandemic world, what would be the “lessons learned” for designing, programming, and maintaining a beautiful, resilient, and more welcoming public realm?

NML: Most importantly, it is an appreciation of the public realm’s value at a time when we were all confined to the private realm.

I think it is fair to say, as many have, that while we are all weathering the storm together, we are not all on the same ship.

Some are in first-class, and many are at the bottom of the ship, or on a lifeboat. So, I think what we take away from that is that the public realm, the outdoor space, is the kind of accessible space where we need to pursue equity. It has to be something that is accessible for everyone. And the period of confinement in our cabins, if you will, luxurious or in poverty, makes us all understand and appreciate the desperate need for access to that public realm. The lesson that we take away is its critical value to a convivial and healthy democracy.

Actually, we need equitable access to those aspects of the public realm that sustain us, and, a lot of that is the physical green infrastructure of the public realm that supports not only us, but the other species that sustain us. I hope that’s something we all take away: that it’s not just about equal access to a soccer field, but rather access to nature, and access to the mental health and well-being benefits that it provides us.

BIO/

HELENE IARDAS, OALA (SEMI-RETIRED), CSLA, RPP, MCIP (RETIRED), GRADUATED FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH WITH A BACHELOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN THE LATE SEVENTIES AND THEN, COMBINING LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, CITY PLANNING, URBAN DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN, CRAFTED A CAREER THAT SPANS OVER FOUR DECADES. RECENTLY RETIRED FROM TORONTO CITY PLANNING, HELENE IS PURSUING WIDE-REACHING DESIGN INTERESTS THAT RANGE FROM HER OWN GARDEN RESTORATION PROJECT TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND URBAN DESIGN.

Grounding

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TEXT BY MILLIE KNAPP

Elissia Ferguson sings in her garden.

She sang “come in your own time” in Anishnabemowin to 300 tomato seedlings last year. This year, she distributes the heirloom tomato seeds to her community, Kitigan Zibi, and across Turtle Island.

Ferguson’s singing stems from her Anishinabe ancestors. She and her husband,

Wilmer Decontie Jr., named their ¼-acre garden Kete Mikiinins Kitigaanens. Shirley Tolley, a Kitigan Zibi elder, advised the name, which means old seed garden.

Kete Mikiinins Kitigaanens sits near where Decontie’s grandmother, Clara Decontie, gardened. Like her, they feed their family healthy organic vegetables picked from

the garden near their house. They carry forward traditions of connecting to the land in sacred ways.

Ferguson grew up learning how to garden from her father, Thomas Ferguson. They grew tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn on the family porch in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Grounding

Ferguson learned her seed song from Rowen White, a leader and blogger in the Indigenous seed sovereignty movement.

White mentors Ferguson online in White’s Seed Seva Seasonal Mentorship program.

White, director and founder of Sierra Seeds, an organic seed stewardship organization, encourages local seed use. They met in Akwesasne, at a gathering hosted

by Sovereign Seeds Indigenous Seed Sovereignty Network in February, 2020.

Ferguson followed White, a seed keeper and farmer from the Mohawk Nation, on Facebook. When they met, White swapped Haudenosaunee strawberry popcorn and bear paw popcorn. Ferguson describes the heirloom Haudenosaunee popcorn kernels and cobs as small. Strawberry popcorn cobs grow to about two and a half inches long.

“They almost look like grains of rice. You can pop them right up and eat it like that or you can grind it into a flour to make polenta or corn bread,” says Ferguson about the kernels, which can be made into hominy, soup, mush, or tortillas.

Diversity benefits life, says Ferguson. She notes how Indigenous gardening builds up soils when many varieties grow together.

Ferguson grows three sisters mounds of corn, beans, and squash. The three sisters is an ancient Haudenosaunee companion planting way where each plant complements each other.

A seed swap has advantages over buying conventional seed packages from local stores. Those sold in stores are not heirloom seeds, explains Ferguson.

“It’s good to know who your seed breeders are so you know what kind of seeds you’re getting,” says Ferguson. “I recommend trying to find a local seed first when you’re growing your garden.”

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She contrasts how industrial agriculture’s monocropping depletes soils fast. Big machinery and pesticides introduce toxicities in the air, land, and water. Clearcutting destroys animal habitats.

Ferguson prefers Indigenous corn varieties in our food chain over Genetically Modified Organism products like corn oil. She believes Indigenous corn has more nutritional value than today’s corn by-products.

She notes how many apple varieties exist, while stores offer only a few. “We’re losing our diversity,” she says.

Ferguson builds diversity with Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe seed heritage. She swapped for Algonquin pumpkin seeds with Chrystal Toop, seed saver from Pikwakanagan First Nation, in Akwesasne last year.

“You want to start with seeds that fit your region and your area. With my tomato seeds, I’ve been saving the generations for about four generations now. When I grow those ones, compared to any old variety from the store, ours look much better, taste better, and they’re hardier in the garden,” she says.

Ferguson dries and saves the Cherokee purple tomatoes seeds to send to Sovereign Seeds. Anyone interested in receiving the seeds can write Sovereign Seeds to get on their waiting list.

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This year, Haudenosaunee strawberry popcorn and bear paw popcorn seeds kept by White will uphold beans sown by Ferguson. She created mounds last year with a Cherokee glass gem popcorn which didn’t fare well, as it requires a long growing season. Ferguson sings to Haudenosaunee seeds suited to Quebec’s shorter season of May to October.

The three sisters combination of corn, beans, and squash gives a balanced diet of proteins, says Ferguson. Something to consider, as Algonquin communities in Quebec enact a moratorium on moose hunting to stabilize moose populations.

Moose is a meat staple for Algonquin communities. Putting the three sisters back into an Algonquin diet makes sense during the moratorium, as “they each have their own protein that, when put together, can replace meat,” she says.

When Ferguson sings in her garden, she brings alive seeds of thought, heritage, culture, and history.

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A variety of heritage seeds used by Elissia Ferguson.

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Millie Knapp

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Elissia Furguson and her seeds.

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Millie Knapp

BIO/

MILLIE KNAPP, ANISHINABE, WRITES ABOUT ARTS AND CULTURE AND MINO PIMADIZAWIN, THE GOOD LIFE.

CLARA DECONTIE IS MILLIE KNAPP’S GRANDMOTHER AND WILMER DECONTIE, JR. IS MILLIE KNAPP’S COUSIN.

Notes

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Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

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camping boom The pandemic has made most travel and vacations inadvisable, or even impossible.

It’s no surprise, then, booking for Ontario Provincial Parks sites doubled between January 1 and February 5, as compared to last year.

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Presqu’ile Provincial Park, Brighton, Ontario.

Megan MacDonald Sandbanks Provincial Park, Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Andrew Cromey Awenda Provincial Park, Georgian Bay, Ontario.

Megan MacDonald

Ideally, this is the beginning of a surge in appreciation for these provincial treasures, a greater desire to connect with nature, and stronger feelings of stewardship for Ontario’s diverse natural habitats. Although, it’s worth noting, Ontario Parks is asking people to only visit parks and conservation reserves “close to home,” as the pandemic continues, and so-called variants of concern threaten a third wave of infections.

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Presqu’ile Provincial Park, Brighton, Ontario.

Megan MacDonald Cover: Fixing Niagara Falls.

Courtesy of UBC Press

Notes

congress

obscured from broader collective memory and recognition? Building on the underlying motivations of the BLM movement ‘to be seen, to live with dignity, and to be connected,’ Kofi Boone challenges us to reconsider landscape architecture to include Black landscapes and landscape architects as a way of strengthening and diversifying both the history, and the future, of the profession.”

The 2021 CSLA-OALA Congress is going virtual for the first time in the history of the event.

Due to the climate crisis, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this spring, you’ll be able to attend the congress from the comfort of your own home.

— NADJA PAUSCH, OALA, GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD CHAIR

The accessible online program will offer education, engagement, award shows and networking opportunities with landscape architects from across the country.

This year’s theme will be Nature-Based Solutions: The Green Recovery that Ensures a Great Recovery, with keynote speakers Martha Schwartz and Maude Barlow.

It all takes place May 27-29, 2021. For more information, go to www.csla-aapc.ca/ events/2021congress

new members The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects is proud to recognize and welcome the following new members to the Association: Helio Araujo

Milana Malesevich *

Zeynep Benk *

Christina Vannelli

Karen Lui *

Asterisk (*) denotes Full Members without the use of professional seal.

Defaulted and Resigned Full Members for 2020 Nine former members defaulted in 2020: Mark Ambtman

Ian Hampson

Roy Averill

Kendra Kryszak

Michael K Pui Chan

James Sampa

Barry Day

Moira Wilson

Stan Fung

Thirteen Full Members resigned in 2020: Elena Brescia

Tracey Schwets

Victoria Lister Carley

Maria Smith

Michael Clement

Jordan Vander Klok

William Montague

Jeffrey Waring

Samuel Ng

Peter Windolf

Tim O’Brien

Kyle Yakimovitch

Christina Schmoll

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books Readers might be interested in a new book from UBC Press which examines the intersection of iconic landscape and public infrastructure. In Fixing Niagara Falls: Environment, Energy, and Engineers at the World’s Most Famous Waterfall, author Daniel Macfarlane explores the multinational engineering project that both harnesses the power of the falls for hydroelectric power generation, while preserving its outward, tourist appeal as one of the world’s great natural wonders. But at what level of human intervention can this iconic landscape withstand and still be “natural?”

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 are a few selections: Black Landscapes Matter, by Kofi Boone: worldlandscapearchitect.com/blacklandscapes-matter-by-kofi-boone/ “What are we taught about landscape architecture — which theories, histories, and case studies inform our understanding both of our profession, historically, and how we work in the present? Which landscapes do we choose to exalt, and which are

Climate in Colour: climateincolour.com “Conversations surrounding climate change and environmental justice often exclude Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, despite the longstanding and intimate relationship between environmental justice and racial justice movements.

Climate In Colour is an online educational platform that ‘stands at the intersection of climate science and social justice and is making climate conversations more accessible and diverse.’ Climate in Colour provides useful resources to learn more about the link between the environment and racism, including an interactive online course, The Colonial History of Climate, which explores the connection between climate, science, and European Imperialism, and how this connection translates to today’s climate crisis.”

—

SAIRA ABDULREHMAN, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS AND PRINCIPAL DESIGNERS AT THE [204] DESIGN COLLECTIVE, A POC AND WOMEN-LED DESIGN STUDIO, AND GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER

If you’d like to go deeper, the CSLA is providing a Diversity & Equality Resources page on their website: www.csla-aapc.ca/ mission-areas/diversity-equality-resources

covid escapes Last summer, in response to the pandemic, many municipalities looked for ways people could get outside and enjoy their cities and towns, while maintaining safe social distance and practicing public health safety. With another summer approaching, these municipalities are looking to repeat, perfect, or even expand their COVID-safe interventions. As well, Toronto is looking to bring back its ActiveTO weekend road closures program for pedestrians and cyclist, although construction may prevent the use of Lakeshore Boulevard West for that purpose.

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A bright set up.

Mark Hillmer Office, featuring aloe.

Leah Lanteigne

01 TEXT BY MARK HILLMER, OALA

A global health pandemic has reshaped the way we work. Is it temporary, or are we learning lessons to carry forward?

In March 2020, we abandoned our offices en masse, trading them for kitchen counters and stools, coffee tables and couches, dining tables and desks in our homes. Some of us are sharing spaces with spouses, partners, roommates, children, or pets—life and work colliding in a new home circus.

As if in protest to our circumstances, we forged ahead, determined to adapt to our new surroundings, leaving our clients and colleagues none-the-wiser. Except, we are wiser.

Video conferencing has become the new norm for holding meetings, giving client presentations, collaborating, and keeping up with colleagues. A communication tool we have never relied on so heavily is now so fundamental for work, it can be difficult to remember a time when we used to meet face-to-face.

But video conferencing has also humanized business. Peering into the homes of our colleagues and clients, and inviting them into ours, like some strange pseudo-reboot of MTV Cribs, can lead us to understand one another on a deeper level. We see the challenges we are all overcoming daily and feel connected through a shared understanding of just how emotionally draining it can be. We make space for casualness, for interruptions, for life.

When we emerge from our homes, can we maintain that space? Will we be more patient and supportive of each other? How can we leverage a deeper understanding of one another and redesign our businesses to be more mutually beneficial?

The pandemic has challenged us to adapt and grow in ways that would have been difficult to predict a year ago. Post-pandemic, we will be presented with an opportunity to affect change. Can we rise to meet it?

BIO/

MARK HILLMER, OALA, IS A MEMBER OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD AND A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WORKING FOR A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY DESIGN FIRM IN TORONTO.

Nature-Based Solutions: The Green Recovery that Ensures a Great Recovery