Ground 63 – Fall 2023 – Messy by Ground Magazine

Landscape Architect Quarterly 16/

Round Table Resilient Chaos

Features 08/ Why Messiness Matters 22/

Publication # 40026106

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The Wonderful Messiness of Multispecies Design Sweeter Than Honey Fall 2023 Issue 63

Masthead

Editor Glyn Bowerman

OALA

About

About OALA

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Contents

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Up Front Information on the ground Messy:

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Why Messiness Matters: The garden as a reciprocal healing journey TEXT BY REAL EGUCHI, OALA (RETIRED)

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Round Table Resilient Chaos: How messiness can save our landscapes MODERATED BY GLYN BOWERMAN

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The Wonderful Messiness of Multispecies Design TEXT BY HEATHER SCHIBLI, OALA

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Sweeter Than Honey: Saving our native bees

President’s Message

Editorial Board Message

This “Messy” issue is timely, considering municipalities across the country are reevaluating acceptable property maintenance standards. “Messy” landscape architecture recalls the one constant in physics: entropy.

Much of our work as landscape architects is in service to the public or public-facing and demands a level of aesthetic order and control that we, as a society, have come to attribute with beauty. Organized nature that serves to reinforce the architectural forms of our urban environments. However, these solutions are often compromised in their ability to meaningfully contribute to improving urban systems and reducing our reliance on hard engineering.

But entropy is not, in itself, messiness. It is a state of perceived disarray. It’s when a project evolves that entropy sets in. You find there are subtleties that need tweaking, on site or in the office, which become distractions from the original proposal. When I studied landscape architecture at the University of Manitoba under Charlie Thomsen, I learned his philosophy of naturalized landscapes as a resilient form of environmental design. He transformed his suburban front yard into such a landscape. Trees, shrubs, and architectural features appeared to be placed randomly in what the neighbours referred to as a haphazard, weedy mess. But it had no weeds—he controlled those. The neighbours were referring to native grasses and wildflowers—allowed to create their own structure in an entropic manner

TEXT BY GLYN BOWERMAN

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Book Corner Nutrua Urbana TEXT BY NATASHA VARGA

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Notes A miscellany of news and events Artifact Asphalt Jungle: Wagon Landscaping Paris, France TEXT BY GLYN BOWERMAN

I once saw a comparison of office structures at a conference. One showed the traditional pyramid structure, with few executives at the top and many staff at the bottom, all with specific roles and a reporting structure. In the alternate model, the team was a messy, amoebic shape with principals, manager, and staff all interacting, sharing resources and talents in all projects and decisions. I tend to like the latter model. It better demonstrates what landscape architecture is and reflects British theoretical physicist Geoffrey West’s scientific perspective of what cities are: “We form cities in order to enhance interaction, to facilitate growth, wealth creation, ideas, innovation, but in so doing, we create, from a physicist’s viewpoint, entropy.” He emphasizes that messiness is what attracts us to cities. But by creating order in one place, you unintentionally create disorder in another, known as a complex adaptive system. Landscape architects, like other design professions, create these Complex Adaptive Systems. But unlike other professions, we work with the natural world and recognize change is an important process in design.

Fall 2023 Issue 63

Editorial Board Message

As landscape architects, we ensure the natural laws of physics through our “controlled” designs, while maintaining the natural “messiness” of entropy. At the same time, we continue to create a world where beauty, functionality, and environmental consciousness intertwine seamlessly. STEFAN FEDIUK OALA PRESIDENT PRESIDENT@OALA.CA

In this issue, we wanted to embrace the “Messy”. We wanted to challenge our understanding of what can be beautiful. We wanted to investigate the origins of our collective contempt of wild landscapes among our structured built spaces. We aimed to shed light on our colleagues who bravely break from convention and argue for the benefits of these multi-faceted, ecologically productive environments. As you read through this issue, consider how our colonial values have shaped our residential neighbourhoods and addictions to lawns over wild gardens, reflect on the beauty that can be found in nature succeeding, and contemplate the ideas you can implement into your own work or personal spaces. Ultimately, this issue is an ode to Messy and a rejection of the preconception that it is inherently dangerous, ugly, or undesirable. As the new Chair of the Editorial Board, it is my hope that you find inspiration in the ideas presented through the words of our generous contributors and challenge your own preconceptions of the beauty in the Messy. I would also encourage you to consider how you might be able to contribute your ideas to future issues of Ground Magazine. MARK HILLMER CHAIR, EDITORIAL BOARD MAGAZINE@OALA.CA

Up Front

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The prescribed burn at High Park in Toronto gets underway.

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Sarah MacLean

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Observers of the annual High Park burn.

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Sarah MacLean

Up Front: Information on the Ground

PARKS

ecological fire

On an unseasonably warm April afternoon, I rode my bike to meet my fellow colleagues standing in a semicircle on the precipice of Toronto’s High Park parking lot and edge of the park’s black oak savannah. A group of roughly one hundred, comprised of Indigenous leaders, community members, parks staff, and forestry professionals were gathered to participate in the opening proceedings of the High Park prescribed burn, or Biinaakzigewok Anishnaabeg, which, according to Toronto’s City website, translates to “a responsibility for a cleansing burn by all Native Peoples” in the Anishanaabemowin language. Although the City of Toronto has been conducting burns in High Park on a semi-annual basis since 2011, this was the first burn that included an Indigenous ceremony highlighting the cultural significance of fire

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in Indigenous culture and its historical use for land management and protection.

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The High Park burn continues.

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Sarah MacLean

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The burn included a gathering and ceremony with Indigenous leaders.

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Sarah MacLean

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The annual prescribed burn helps regulate High Park and keeps the habitat healthy.

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Sarah MacLean

The use of fire as an ecological management technique has been widely understood and employed by Indigenous peoples across North America for millenia. In Ontario, several landscape types and specific plant species have evolved and adapted overtime to periodic wildfires, either by natural occurrence or with the help of human intervention: open grass meadow ecosystems like the tall grass prairie and black oak savannah, once commonly found in southern Ontario, and the iconic jack pine barrens of northern Ontario. Likewise, the boreal forests, covering much of Ontario and Canada depend on fire for management of their ecological health and structure. Periodic fire in these landscapes control the growth of invasive plants, recycle nutrients, and create habitat diversity. In the wake of recent devastating wildfires across Ontario, and much of north America, the idea of fire as an agent of ecological regeneration and protection may seem counterintuitive. However, it is in fact the

colonial legacy of fire suppression in combination with warming temperatures which has contributed to the ripe conditions for these large-scale fires. Learning from Indigenous teachings of using fire to cleanse the forest of highly flammable debris and make way for new growth is a key strategy in defending and adapting to our current climate crisis. High Park’s landscape is home to notable fire-dependent species the black oak (Quercus velutina) of the black oak savannah, an ecosystem once common across North America, now greatly reduced (less than 0.5 per cent of its original area remains), as its open understorey was seen as prime farmland to early European settlers and hundreds of years of subsequent fire suppression has reduced its expansion. It is estimated that the portion of black oak savannah preserved in High Park is 4,000 years old and has been recognized as an important relic of Indigenous land stewardship. Other tree species found throughout Ontario like the jack pine (Pinus banksiana) and black spruce (Picea mariana) also benefit

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from ecological fire. Their tightly sealed serotinous cones rely on intense heat to release seeds and initiate new growth. The young seedlings propagate in open areas freshly created by fire, ensuring the continuation of the species. Similarly, early successional deciduous tree species like aspen and birch take advantage of the newly cleared areas and sunlight. The process of clearing the land is reciprocal by nature—allowing for new habitat and the rapid sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere. Broad-leaved trees like aspen and birch are also more naturally resistant to wildfires, as they contain more water than conifers and provide more shade to keep the forest floor moist. A cluster of broadleaf trees create natural fire breaks during the summer when their leaves are out. Native grasses and wildflowers that thrive in full sun are also naturally key components to the post-fire landscape and provide much needed habitat to many animals, including birds and pollinators. Species like little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) are native Ontario grasses commonly found in the black oak savannah. Other favourite native savannah wildflowers include butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberose), cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum), cylindrical blazing star (Liatris cylindrical), and finally the wild lupine (Lupinis perennis). A surprisingly helpful species in the post-fire landscape, wild lupine, like other members of the tuberous

legume family, are nitrogen fixers. They are often one of the first species to propagate disturbed landscapes, helping to expedite soil regeneration. Finally, wild lupine is the sole larvae food source for the now endangered Karner blue butterfly, last seen in Ontario in 1993. Other early propagator understorey shadeloving woodland plants like ferns, mosses, bunchberry (Cornus canadenis), as well as sun-loving blueberries (Vaccinium varietals), are fire-adapted species that can survive most moderate forest fires thanks to their deep rhizome layer. The influx of nutrients following the fire creates rich soil to nurture new spouts. Fire is becoming a common elemental force on our landscape again, and so it is imperative we better understand the ecological and cultural importance it carries. Ecological fire, through controlled burns, is a vital tool in the conservation and management of Ontario’s diverse landscapes. Collaboration between fire managers, Indigenous communities, and stakeholders is crucial through this process. By embracing this powerful practice, we

can help to foster resilient ecosystems, support wildlife, and protect unique natural treasures that define Ontario’s landscape in the face of a changing climate. For more about the High Park prescribed burn, check out highparknature.org. And for more about Indigenous fire stewardship, check out Blazing the Trail: Celebrating Indigenous Fire Stewardship in Canada, by Amy Cardinal Christianson.

TEXT/ SARAH MACLEAN, OALA (INACTIVE), IS A LANDSCAPE DESIGNER BASED IN TORONTO.

Up Front

DESIGN

student corner Upon entering the MLA program at the University of Guelph, we were given a mountain of software and information to absorb. Through this process, our lives and learning experiences as students can become somewhat insular and confined to our school’s design studio. But last winter, our professor Brendan Stewart brought us

with the community groups. Longer discussions would have been helpful to get more detailed and flushed out ideas, but the workshops were already two hours, and a longer time commitment may have dissuaded some from attending. These constraints forced us to be strategic and mindful of how we communicated and engaged with the groups; we needed to be concise and avoid using jargon. Moreover, the workshops cemented the importance of having clear concepts and drawings. In this regard, we found community members tended to gravitate towards models and perspectives, rather than technical drawings, to understand the designs. The conversations we had were valuable as they gave us deeper information and understanding about the sites, surrounding businesses, and community. They were also key in helping us generate design ideas and themes. But the workshop process itself and how it enabled us to form connections with

out of our studio caves for the final project in our Community Design class. In this project, we were tasked with developing designs for this year’s plazaPOPS installations along Lawrence Avenue in Wexford, Scarborough. The design process for this project was memorable, as our class was involved in two community design workshops, hosted at the Working Women Community Centre in Scarborough. In these workshops, we engaged with a diverse and lively group of approximately 30 community members to generate and refine design concepts. This was a new experience for us, which deserves some reflection.

Up. These individuals, along with Brendan Stewart, Rui Felix of ERA, and Jennifer Wan (who ERA hired from our class), later worked together to realize the designs our class and community developed after the semester.

Prior to the workshops, our class visited the five parking lot sites along Lawrence Ave to conduct a site analysis and get a feel for the neighbourhood. We were joined by Daniel Rotsztain and Tupac Espinoza of ERA Architects, and Brennan Luchsinger, the general manager of contracting for Building

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Through the process of these two workshops, our class gained valuable experiences and lessons in public engagement. There were some common questions and hurdles that came about before and during the workshops, such as: • What jargon words should we avoid and replace? (i.e.‘programming’ with ‘activity’). • How do we engage and get thoughts from quieter community members? • How much technical detail should we include in drawings? Along with these questions, the first big challenge we found was time constraints, as we generally had five-minute conversations

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plazaPOPS community workshop participants.

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Videsh Brijpaul

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Workshop participants put dots by design concepts they like best.

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Videsh Brijpaul

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Looking at design options for plazaPOPS.

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Videsh Brijpaul

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Community members propose a neighbourhood flag.

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Ryan De Jong

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Brendan Stewart shows the plazaPOPS timeline.

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Videsh Brijpaul

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the community felt just as valuable. This was echoed in our class readings, where Emily Talen wrote in Do-It-Yourself Urbanism: a history (2015), the act of doing has benefits in itself. She says the act of doing, “can bring a diverse group of people together, united in a common, active purpose.” Karl Linn also noted in Building Commons and Community (2007) that, “The process is more important than the product”. I expect that when the community members visited the sites in the summer, they likely felt a sense of pride and deeper connection to their neighbourhood knowing they played a role in helping design the installations.

and experiences. These out-of-studio experiences enrich our education experience—broadening our perspectives and improving our communication skills, making us well-rounded people and designers. Moreover, they set a precedent for how to approach projects in the future. As a class, the excitement of the workshops and the importance and value of facilitating community involvement in 15

As a class, we found the workshops to be an exciting and rewarding experience. Classmates noted that, despite challenges such as our visions not always aligning with the community members, the workshops inspired greater enthusiasm for the project and they felt they were providing an act of service to the community which was

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plazaPOPS design concept models.

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Videsh Brijpaul

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Workshop participants look over the concepts.

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Videsh Brijpaul

gratifying. And, being the final studio class of our program, the experience felt like a bridge into our future professional careers. As students, we often forget the minute details and material learned in class—I admit I’ve forgotten much of the plant ID knowledge and facts I learned last semester. But, reflecting on the courses I’ve taken and material I’ve been exposed to, it is experiences such these community design workshops I remember the most. I will always remember precariously loading our big models into cars with my classmates, the stories I heard, and the faces I met in the workshops. I will remember chatting with Abdi, who drew a camel during the concept development exercise which involved drawing a Wexford flag, as it reminded him of home back in Somalia. As students, the field trips and people we meet along the way leave an impression on us; we are products of our environment

the design process is now etched in our minds. And while this process requires a lot of coordination and planning, it is worth it. As musician Brian Eno put it: “Although great new ideas are usually articulated by individuals, they are nearly always generated by communities.” In the final lecture at the University of Guelph this year, BLA (06) graduate Brad Smith, OALA, of Seferian Design Group emphasized the importance of lifelong learning. Our MLA class has completed our foundation courses in our program and is now focusing on thesis research, but it is clear our learning is not over: it has just begun.

TEXT/ RYAN DE JONG IS A MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

Why Messiness Matters

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The garden as a reciprocal healing journey TEXT BY REAL EGUCHI, OALA (RETIRED)

Our twenty-three month old grandchild Reese marvels at the rainbow coloured soap bubbles floating in the heavy air. His jaw drops, his posture realigns. He feels awe aligned with nature… or something akin to that. Dacher Keltner’s recently published book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life is based on extensive research exploring the science of awe. He provides this definition: “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”

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While observing the natural buoyancy of floating soap bubbles, Reese appears to experience awe.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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Reese is wonderstruck while playfully immersed in a room full of balloons filled with different gases of varying densities. SUMMIT One Vanderbilt, NYC

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

Loosely described, awe is the complex emotion we have that could include mixed feelings of wonder and dread, joy and sorrow, reverence and humility, big and small. It requires being open to vastness and making accommodation for an

experience. It leads to prosocial behaviour and compassion. Keltner describes the healing benefits of awe, how it helps to regulate the nervous system, activate the vagal nerve, and improve overall physical and emotional health. He describes the importance of experiencing awe in nature and how the science of awe provides insight into the wisdom revealed by contemplative traditions and practices and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). When we consider messy gardens as opportunities for intentionally experiencing awe, not unlike a simple awe-walk, the subsequent healing benefits become evident. Reese has been born into this garden we call Earth. It is not the mythical, perfect Eden of the Bible. Nature supports human

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The beauty and awe of ermine moth larvae supported by invasive common spindle (Euonymus europaeus). Taylor Creek Park.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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Monarch butterflies roosting in the Lower Don Parklands prior to migrating south.

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Steven J. Shpak

The Japanese water god Mizugami, including movable visitation stones, keeps watch over an engineered rain and pollinator garden while acknowledging earthbased traditional wisdom.

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bREAL art + design

life, yet can easily feel threatening. Earth is that complex, liminal space that metaphorically sits between heaven and hell. It seems imperfect. It appears messy and the apparent messiness of our earthgarden can fill us with awe if we are not overly traumatized.

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about the exponential, emotional-physical development of young children and the importance of nature to healthy growth, there needs to be a greater emphasis on the potential for reciprocal healing with nature. The messy garden is integral to this intention for humans of all ages. An awareness and acceptance of our wholeness as social mammals with a body-mind, versus a mind controlling a body, and arguably as spiritual beings, is key to our mutual healing journey with nature. We are animals. We are nature.

Due to climate change, the public is increasingly aware of how the health of plants plays a critical role in our earthgarden. For this discussion, ”gardens” are viewed as landscapes we often physically occupy, live in, or near. They are landscapes that humans have influenced with intentional manipulation or design. They are cultural landscapes in which plants are considered key elements such as parks, public/private gardens, and ravines.

“By allowing children to identify with their surroundings, we’re helping them develop their own appreciation for nature and, over time, a recognition that these places are worth conserving. We protect what we love.”—The Nature Conservancy

The extent to which he is immersed in nature plays a key role in Reese’s growth. While there is an abundance of information

The messy garden is not inherently messy, and similar to a “wild” landscape, the level of perceived orderliness is subject to our

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From the sound and movement of splashes from stones tossed into Taylor Creek, Reese experiences a sense of awe and healing through embodied wholeness.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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Reese is developing a relationship, and hopefully love, for Toronto ravines by exploring and connecting intimately with an unmanicured parcel of Taylor Creek Park.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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Red-winged blackbirds revealed in the messy beauty of Taylor Creek Park where Real has immersed himself for over 60 years as a practice integral to his own healing journey.

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Real Eguchi, OALA (Retired)

individual aesthetic sensibilities and cultural worldviews. The messy garden seems inclusive of confusion, disorderliness, or mystery. Also included is a sense of somatic beauty and joy. Feelings of control are combined with uncertainty. At its best, it is an ecosystem we acknowledge as complex. It re-integrates the beautiful and the sublime of the 18th century Picturesque landscape style. Appealing elements go hand in hand with elements and processes that feel less or unappealing. I have lived beside and visited Taylor Creek Park ravine in Toronto my entire life. There were no walkways or bridges when I was a child. To us, it was wild. It still includes areas of unmanicured thickets alive with messiness. These areas are a complex collection of native and invasive perennials, shrubs, and trees with bright coloured, oily water that seeps out of the ground and coats our boots. With

each visit, we discover new species and ponder their relationships. In this messiness, we feel awe. Reese doesn’t seem to dislike messiness and neither do insects. They appear to revel within it. He touches a prickly juniper and soft lamb’s ear. His body-mind senses the difference and his awareness and understanding of the landscape and life expands. A renewed sense of beauty, a somatic beauty and joy, aligned with awe experienced in the messy garden, complements the growing body of scientific information and changes in public policy, and can be helpful towards addressing sustainability, biodiversity, and climate change issues. Simply being cognitively informed seems insufficient to shift our cultural norms. If it was, then denial of climate change or apathy towards it would

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The delicate beauty of the native fringed gentian located in a polluted, wet thicket in Taylor Creek Park.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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The toxic beauty of native cow parsnip growing in abundance in a Toronto ravine, demands a sense of respect for nature and a feeling of awe.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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Co-created with nature in the messy garden, ephemeral healing art by Real is in part inspired by an inner somatic joy aligned with awe.

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Real Eguchi, OALA (Retired)

be much less an issue. Empathy and compassion (concern for suffering) for nature is founded in our senses and emotions and inner gratitude. We can care about the health of nature because we love nature. Somatic beauty and joy is the pleasure we experience from within our bodies that extends from our felt sense. It is complex, aligned with awe, characteristically ”messy,” and different than the externally imposed, codified sense of beauty we often subscribe to in our art and design practices. I have written and presented about the importance of the messy garden and sustainable beauty for about 13 years and I am cautiously optimistic about our shifting cultural interests and concerns for the health of nature. Commercial garden centres now carry native plants. Trendy pollinator gardens, seemingly promoted by the charismatic monarch butterfly, has turned common milkweed from a 11

noxious weed to a portal into a wonderfilled, wider, wilder world. Discussions of fungi and mycelia deepen our reverence for the mystery that lies beneath our feet. Inanimate dirt has become living soil. For these to have become media or trend-worthy, our feelings, thoughts and embodied experiences have likely holistically evolved and shifted. We have been open with a sense of awe. We are accepting, for example, that the formerly disdained common milkweed can also bring us pleasure. Conversely, the sensuous beauty and aroma of the lily of the valley, invasive in Ontario, now has to be reconciled with what science and our intellects tell us about invasive plants and biodiversity. Being open and curious to a somatic sense of beauty and joy, aligned with awe experienced in the messy garden, allows us to navigate between the dreadful and

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whose life force is in obvious decline, can keep reconfiguring our sense of wholeness in our healing journey, despite not always having a cure for undesirable illnesses. For example, we can heal from cancer even if we are not cured of cancer. Joanna Macy’s The Work that Reconnects centres on ”Active Hope.” It provides a method through which we can feel empowered, despite the despair and smallness we feel when faced with challenges such as climate change. We can keep returning to wholeness within ourselves, with others, and with earth through cyclical practice.

be a community vegetable or permaculture garden that includes risk and anxiety— especially when relied upon for sustenance. It could be a garden with predominantly native plants or a local ravine, habitats for all flora and fauna to thrive. With any example, there is the felt beauty and joy, the gift of nourishment, the reality of threat, and the comfort of control and safety. We feel awe. The level of messiness clients can sustain, such as a healing garden for dementia patients or those who cannot tolerate a significant deviation from a controlled aesthetic, are key considerations for education and creating safe, holding spaces for reciprocal healing.

delightful, to revere the dandelion in the turf grass, to embrace biodiversity and natural processes, to acknowledge our existential fears while continuously falling in love with gardens, nature, and more-than-human communities. Like my grandchild Reese, we can remain curious, creative, and allow our senses and our felt sense to help guide and heal us when reason alone fails. We give ourselves choice, options, and hope. We can choose to develop wholeness, resilience, and combine personal and planetary healing. The messy garden is a reciprocal, relational healing journey with nature I have carefully witnessed Reese cycling between feeling big and small, feeling a sense of agency and frustration and perhaps humility in his journey with his great unknowns. With good fortune, Reese’s body-mind develops and heals. Healing is to become whole again. Like a vibrant ecosystem, in each moment Reese is whole and in transition. With renewed wholeness, he suffers less. We might all hope to share this ongoing journey towards greater wholeness. Adults, including those of us

Free-play is also healing. It is widely discussed as a critical activity in healthy childhood development, especially within what we are calling messy gardens. “Free play is unstructured, voluntary, childinitiated activity that allows children to develop their imaginations while exploring and experiencing the world around them.” — Play and Playground Encyclopedia There is an uncertainty with free-play: each moment in the process is filled with risk. Triumph and disappointment combine with joy and sorrow. It is a messy process that is essential for a child so that they develop the ability to navigate life within our earth-garden while developing increased resilience and respect for earth. Depending on the age of the child, we might view this as being the practice of experiencing beauty and joy aligned with awe. Messy gardens can support this practice for all ages.

The messy garden is (a) holding space with Earth In the field of psychotherapy, ”holding space” is a verb which means, in part, to be present for ourselves, another individual, or a group, while being supportive and non-judgmental. The messy garden as (a) holding space can be viewed as a verb and noun, a process and a place. It is a safe place for nature to hold space for humans. When not fully human-centric, there is reciprocity. It is a safe place for humans to hold space for the more-than-human world. Reese’s messy and complex play garden must be a safe, holding space. Messy landscapes must feel safe for all of us. While much is eschewed about the healing benefits of awe in wilderness settings, for most of us awe would quickly shift to existential dread when the requisite materials and elements of our culture do

What might a messy, reciprocal, healing garden be for adults who are free to play and unconstrained by social norms that arguably extend the colonial mentality and a hyper sense of control? The garden could 13

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not allow for safe experiences. Nature is not simply nourishing or supportive. Few of us would feel awe or even survive in wild nature if left on our own to forage for food and create shelter. 16 12/

Aphids dancing on Tuscan sunflower add an apparent messiness and uncertain beauty to a residential garden.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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A curious child developing agency, resilience and “active hope” in a growing relationship with her family’s disheveled, permaculture, healing garden.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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Unstructured free-play in a park is a messy, healing process that can help to develop resilience, wholeness and a deepening respect for earth. Trinity Bellwoods Park, Toronto.

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Barbara Eguchi

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The minimalist aesthetic of this residential garden, designed by bREAL art + design, was developed to respect the limited messiness the client required for their garden to be a safe, holding space.

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bREAL art + design

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An engineered rain and pollinator garden, designed by bREAL art + design, is (a) holding space for many species.

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bREAL art + design

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The three rainwater detention areas in this garden designed by bREAL art + design, fills the garden with flowing delight during heavy rains, while reducing the burden on city infrastructure and nature.

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bREAL art + design

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Little Island at Pier 55 in NYC, is a whimsical, organically flowing, humancreated island landscape where “visitors can experience nature and art in a unique urban oasis on the Hudson River.” Its undulating topography challenges our perceived relationship with nature.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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Culture and nature align as delightfully messy shelter for birds in this multi-part sculpture. The Guardians by Amy Switzer, Humber Bay Butterfly Habitat Home Garden.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

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The fragile beauty and awe of driftwood poignantly supporting life. Second Marsh, Oshawa.

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Barbara Eguchi, OALA

The messy garden promotes the human experience of somatic beauty and joy aligned with awe and the more-thanhuman world With this limited discussion that briefly touches upon the science of awe, health sciences, and traditional/contemplative practices, we might further appreciate how the messy garden supports and promotes the emotional health of humans and the health of our earth-garden.

The messy garden is a reciprocal, relational healing journey when we experience the beauty and awe within a safe yet complex landscape, a holding space for humans that also provides sanctuary for flora and fauna. When we are able to be still and present while being open to vastness, we feel joy and melancholy and other mixed feelings. We develop humility and deep reverence for the more-than-human world. Some consider this sacred.

At the least, the messy garden is (a) holding space to navigate between grief and gratitude, a practice towards developing resilience. This is perhaps why messy gardens matter most. They teach us equanimity. They prepare us for dealing with uncertainties and teach us how to discover new certainties. They encourage our capacity for creativity and collaboration, for finding new pathways to navigate the messiness in our lives, in much larger systems that lay beyond our precious moments immersed in our messy gardens.

As speciesism and speciesist thinking diminishes, we feel our smallness. Yet, through intimate connection to that which is infinitely larger than us, our wholeness continues to expand. Some consider this spiritual.

“Well something’s lost, but something’s gained In living every day”—”Both Sides Now,” Joni Mitchell BIOS/ REAL EGUCHI, OALA (RETIRED), WAS A PRINCIPAL OF EGUCHI ASSOCIATES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS/BREAL ART + DESIGN FOR OVER 30 YEARS. HIS CURRENT INTERESTS INCLUDE RECIPROCAL HEALING GARDENS, SUSTAINABLE BEAUTY, SOMATIC JOY, AWE, AND EQUANIMITY. HE BELIEVES THE DESIGN OF LIVED-IN LANDSCAPES MUST PROMOTE A HEALTHY, RECIPROCAL, RESILIENT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND MORETHAN-HUMAN COMMUNITIES. AS A SURVIVOR OF THE CULTURAL GENOCIDE, INCARCERATION, AND ASSIMILATION OF JAPANESE CANADIANS, REAL VIEWS NATURE AS A PARTNER IN HIS OWN JOURNEY TOWARDS WHOLENESS AND HEALING FROM RACISM AND ATTACHMENT/ EXISTENTIAL/ INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA. REAL BELIEVES THAT TO HOLISTICALLY ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES, IT IS CRITICAL TO ACCEPT THAT HUMANS ARE UNEXCEPTIONAL, MORTAL CREATURES.

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How messiness can save our landscapes

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Glyn Bowerman: What does the term “messy” evoke for you? What kind of feelings, what do you think about? Nina-Marie Lister: Messy is generally understood to be unordered, unstructured and can also imply diverse. Most simply it means “not neat,” and neat is a valued concept in Canadian society. We do tend to like order and cleanliness, and messy implies the opposite of that: something

because they are created by many people unintentionally. No one cut that path. One person wanted to go that way, and then someone else, and, over time, multiple people created it, but it reflects what people want and desire, (hence the name desire lines). But they’re also messy physically. They’re kind of ugly and they don’t have defined borders. They’re a bit offensive to a lot of people because they’re not ordered or constrained, and because they weren’t

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Desire lines.

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Dylan Reid

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Plants growing up through a former pole hole.

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Dylan Reid

MODERATED BY GLYN BOWERMAN BIOS/

DYLAN REID, IS A CO-FOUNDER AND NOW EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF SPACING MAGAZINE. WITH OTHER SPACING EDITORS, HE WAS A CO-WINNER OF THE 2010 JANE JACOBS AWARD. HE IS ALSO THE AUTHOR OF THE TORONTO PUBLIC ETIQUETTE GUIDE AND CO-EDITOR OF OTHER BOOKS ABOUT TORONTO. IN 2010, HE WROTE “BLESS THIS MESS” IN SPACING ABOUT THE IDEA OF MESSY URBANISM. SINCE THEN, HE HAS BEEN EXPLORING ASPECTS OF THIS CONCEPT IN HIS WRITING, AND IS CURRENTLY CO-EDITING A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ABOUT MESSY URBANISM FOR COACH HOUSE BOOKS. NINA-MARIE LISTER IS PROFESSOR IN THE SCHOOL OF URBAN PLANNING AT TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY WHERE SHE FOUNDED AND DIRECTS THE ECOLOGICAL DESIGN LAB. WINNER OF THE 2021 MARGOLESE NATIONAL PRIZE FOR DESIGN, LISTER IS A PLANNER AND ECOLOGICAL DESIGNER WHOSE WORK CONNECTS PEOPLE TO NATURE IN OUR CITIES. HER RESEARCH IS PUBLISHED WIDELY, FOCUSED ON GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE, BIODIVERSITY, AND HUMAN WELLBEING. SHE IS CURRENTLY VISITING PROFESSOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY’S GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN. GLYN BOWERMAN IS THE EDITOR OF GROUND, AND HOSTS THE MONTHLY SPACING RADIO PODCAST, THE OFFICIAL PODCAST OF SPACING MAGAZINE.

that breaks out of its boundaries or container. And that generally makes people uncomfortable.

determined by someone, they just evolved. But, at the same time, they show people creating their spaces for themselves.

GB: Dylan, you specifically think about “messy urbanism.” What does that mean to you?

GB: I’ve heard a lot of praise over the years for this concept of messiness in landscapes, public spaces, urban design, and I have to wonder if this a reaction to something? Do we tend to oversanitize spaces in Ontario, Canada, North America?

Dylan Reid: It means everything that’s not structured, ordered, or intentional in the city. It can mean grassroots, maybe a bit disruptive, or things growing up where they’re not supposed to be or expected. One great encapsulation of the idea is what people call “desire lines,” which are those muddy paths multiple people have treaded over the years, through the grass or shrubbery or some neglected space, because that’s actually the way people want to go.

NML: That’s an interesting word choice: “oversanitize.” We value order principally

Desire lines capture messy urbanism, especially from a landscape point of view, in a couple of different ways. First of all 03

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because it keeps society from ostensibly devolving into chaos, and we value “cleanliness” as a sign of order. We also particularly like to keep certain types of people “in order” and, by extension, their landscapes, places of employment, or homes. If you think of the way the domestic home fronts onto the street, this is the “public face” of the home: we like a neat, ordered front yard. We don’t like the laundry hanging out front, the car parts—the messiness is intended for the back. There’s a long tradition in our society—one that grew from British colonization and settlement—in which order and control of the “wilderness” was paramount. These ideas of order, neatness (often equated with good behaviour) extend from the yard, to the land, to bodies (women’s bodies in particular), to the way we keep our homes and places in the city. In my own work, which is centred on landscape and particularly native plants, they’re generally viewed as messy, untidy, overgrown or wild, and even “promiscuous”—a word that has sexual overtones and implies being out of control. Plants that don’t fit the ordered garden, grow “too big” or become “unruly, or bust out between cracks, we don’t like these because they don’t reflect order. Worse, they suggest disorder, being out of control. The intersection of order and conformity in Ontario right now is relevant. People are

afraid of change, and perceived unrest, and they are nostalgic for a time when things seemed simpler, orderly, predictable, and therefore manageable. When you see a native meadow rather than a neatly clipped front lawn, spontaneous pathways through a park (desire lines), or people behaving in an unexpected or non-conformist way, that makes some people uncomfortable. There is a nostalgia for order, whereas messiness can be seen as threatening the foundations of society. What some people might perceive as messy (or by extension chaotic) is deeply disturbing to a culture that’s founded on conformity. DR: People definitely oversanitize front yards and gardens. We also discard or reject spaces that aren’t sanitized. A great example is the Don Valley, which is a bit of a wild, feral landscape. It was once industrial, controlled, and managed, but was messy in a different way: it was extremely polluted. That industry is now gone and it’s being reclaimed by nature, but in a very randomized way. It has a lot of invasive species, it’s not structured. We’re always seeking a balance. We can oversanitize, we undersanitize. There’s reasons why we like a certain amount of order in our cities. The trick is finding that balance. And we’ve definitely gone too far in the oversanitizing direction. The push now is to find out how much we need to let things grow on their own? How much do we need to let people shape their city, as opposed to overplanning and trying to control it? GB: We know landscapes are dynamic and change over time through natural processes and human use. Do we have

trouble accepting that, and is there a hubristic need to overrule it? NML: Sure. Complexity is also part of messiness, in a more technical way. Complexity is essential for the emergence of life on earth. In ecology, complexity from the cellular, organismal level, to species, to whole ecosystems, is the essence of life. It’s what gives us diversity, but we don’t like it. In general, we like predictability and simplicity even when we know it’s an illusion. It’s very hard to find the balance Dylan mentioned. We all know that sweet spot before a city gentrifies. If we could hold onto that in planning, we’d have the million-dollar solution to place keeping and city making. It’s elusive and ephemeral. We don’t understand the need for diversity until we have either oversanitized it out

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A thriving plant bed.

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Dylan Reid

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A desire line path along a hydro corridor.

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Dylan Reid

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A wild, bushy plant bed on a sidewalk.

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Dylan Reid

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and homogenized a place, or we have devolved into a place that has no character at all. For the most part, modern human societies exhibit this creative tension between order and chaos, complexity and simplicity, diversity and homogeneity. In our yards and gardens as much as our parks which are integral to cityscapes, this is an important phenomenon to understand—particularly now, while we’re sitting at the intersection of rapidly accelerating climate change, cataclysmic biodiversity loss, and social chaos that ensues from the loss of healthy ecology and its protective, life-sustaining ecosystem services. It really is a crisis on multiple levels, and unless we can embrace complexity, diversty, and the uncertainty that comes along with it, we’re in big trouble. So, it’s not just about being messy, but embracing those aspects of life itself that make us uncomfortable—and the balance that’s lost. DR: Hubristic, yes. Everything from pesticides, to lawn mowing, all of these things are examples of humans trying to absolutely control nature and constantly having nature fight back. And as soon as we stop paying attention, it comes back again. So we definitely have this hubristic feel that we can control nature and we’re constantly trying to do so.

we need to control them. But they’re there because we brought them over without thinking what they were going to do. Nature is constantly reminding us of our hubris. GB: Given that, how do we teach people to embrace messiness? What are its aesthetic virtues and ecological advantages? NML: The ecological advantages are that diversity and structured, layered complexity are the building blocks of a functioning, healthy ecology. Our yards and gardens can’t purely be ornamental, particularly when the ornament of the lawn and nonnative, sterile cultivars for plants are very costly in terms of homogenizing or breaking down diversity. If all we have are sterile plants and relatively few species that can no longer provide the ecosystems services of pollination, decomposition, nutrient cycling, water infiltration, soil building etc. we are doing a huge disservice to future

And, in many ways, we’re harming ourselves. A great example is all the plants we brought to North America, intentionally or unintentionally, for our gardens that then escape into the wild and are now messing up our natural environment. Now we realize 09

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Plants growing up through sidewalk cracks.

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Dylan Reid

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Desire lines in Berczy Park.

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Dylan Reid

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Ravine remnants

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Dylan Reid

generation of city dwellers. Our yards, gardens and parks, must have value beyond the way they look. With the current biodiversity and climate crises, we know this is a growing problem. It’s no small irony that we have good public policies supporting biodiversity and ecological health in public spaces, and yet we punish people who try do the same thing in their private yards. The City of Toronto now plants native trees and encourages native perennial flowering plants over annual ornamental plants in public parks, yet bylaw officers can fine and even legally destroy native gardens if neighbours complain about how these gardens look. Appearance is somehow legitimized over performance. That doesn’t make any sense, given that most of the land in the city is private space. It’s wonderful that we have big public landscapes, and particularly water and ravine systems, but the majority of lands in the City of Toronto are under private

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ownership. We need to encourage people, not punish them, for growing biodiverse yards and providing habitat for other species as well as ecosystem services. More importantly, we need to support and incentivize that. One of the ways we have been working to do this is to change outdated bylaws— bylaws that effectively punish people for not conforming to an orderly aesthetic, and which constitute an anti-ecological approach to yards and gardens. There are very simple and important ways to encourage people to grow biodiverse and “messy” yards, some of which actually address issues of social vulnerability too. For example, we can support food gardens and encourage people to grow natural, healthy, and regenerative gardens that aren’t hooked on chemical applications and dependent on nutrient inputs and water. These are not highly technical efforts. They’re just forgotten arts. DR: We talk about how orderliness is enforced from above, but it’s also something enforced horizontally from other people, from the grassroots. A lot of the front yard garden controversies come from a neighbour complaining because they don’t like it. They think it looks ugly, and they also feel it reflects on them somehow. That if there’s an “ugly” garden in their neighbourhood, people look down on the neighbourhood and think it’s somehow poor. That’s actually really tough to work on. It’s easier to change a bylaw than it is to change people’s instinctive opinions of what’s good or bad, ugly or beautiful.

But the way do it is to show it. If you have a garden that’s thriving and beautiful, and full of pollinators, butterflies and bees, then more people start to appreciate that beauty. The same thing with other landscapes: if you can start to show that a park that hasn’t had weed control is still a functional park—you can still play sports on it, run around on it, and it’s healthier and stays green during the middle of a drought instead of going brown like all grass lawns do— people start to realize there are actually advantages to that. Part of that is demonstration, part of that is education. It’s a process we need to do. It’s not easy, but it is possible. People’s aesthetic choices can change, and have changed in history, when you assert that there’s value in a different aesthetic.

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Desire lines

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Dylan Reid

NML: To say it’s a long-term change is an understatement. Social attitudes are effectively enshrined in our policies—and the behaviours that stem from these attitudes are regulated through our bylaws. There’s no more powerful stigma than being judged and policed by your neighbours. This social policing extends to value judgments that often have no basis in law or science, and that’s really hard to change. For the record, bylaws that enforce value judgments and aesthethics are actually illegal. The Ontario Superior Court ruled in 1996 that a person has the right to express their values through their yard. And yet, somehow, such value judgements are still embedded in bylaws mainly because they are a reflection of cultural norms—norms that need to change to reflect both the diversity of our cities and the climate and biodiversity crises upon us. Think about it: we live in cities defined by cultural diversity. That diversity is what makes a city humane, interesting, exciting, and sometimes, uncomfortable. It’s the same for biodiversity, for plants: they don’t all

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We have made progress in some areas. In public park design, the days of the annual flower bed planting are waning (if not gone entirely), not least because it’s more economical to plant longer-lasting perennials and shade trees that provide a number of the ecosystem services we’re trying to quantify for climate resilience.

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A desire line where stairs should arguably be.

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Dylan Reid

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A plant grows up through a former pole hole.

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Dylan Reid

look and behave the same, and their diversity is in fact the key to their health and vitality, adaptability, and resilience in the face of change. If you think about the way we treat our gardens, “weeding out diversity”, supressing difference is actually xenophobic. We only allow a limited palette of “well-behaved” plants that look “neat and tidy.” In a culturally diverse and cosmopolitan city like Toronto, shouldn’t our gardens and yards reflect this too? They ought to be diverse and healthy to flourish too? GB: You have a captive audience of landscape architects with Ground: how can landscape architects, specifically, use the messiness of natural systems to their advantage and find new ways of designing and sustainable best practices?

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I do think the profession needs to look closely at its code of ethics. There’s a strong social and ecological responsibility not only to “do no harm”, but to provide for a biodiverse, resilient future. There are many practical things we could do in this respect: we can refuse to specify poorly-adapted, chemically-dependent nursery plant stock that comes from a very limited plant palette, that includes mostly non-native and some invasive species. It would be a major step forward to reduce the profession’s reliance on ornamental and horticultural cultivars and increase affordable, locally grown sources of native plants, including pollinators, bird-friendly, shade-providers, and drought-tolerant species. These should be locally sourced and cultivated, widely available, and of course can be mixed in with the horticultural cultivars we have invested in over centuries. To be clear this isn’t a binary choice: No one is advocating that we eliminate ornamental planting designs, but rather we need both to balance the mix of native and non-native species and increase the availability of genetically and climate adapted local species that do triple duty as food, forage and landscape performance species. DR: In terms of public projects, we need to think about community as part of the messiness: incorporating spaces where members of the community can manage

NML: Landscape architects have the skills needed to encourage and support biodiversity. But perhaps their employers and clients may not be providing the scope and context for this work or deployment of the full range of landscape architectural skills. 13

them. Even if you’re planning messy, you’re still planning in a sense. But, if you create spaces where the community can do stuff outside even the landscape architect’s control, that’s interesting, and creates an extra layer of messiness. Which may be challenging for landscape architects, because the community might manage it in a way they don’t really think works well. But, in creating those spaces, whether it’s for planting vegetables or flowers, or people shaping the use of that space in their own way, like having an open space they can use for their own purposes, like birthday parties or farmers’ markets, these are things that add an extra layer of community messiness to a landscape, where you can’t predict or control how people are going to use it, but they become involved with the landscape. That’s the way people are going to protect that landscape. If people are involved with it, engaged with it, shaping it themselves, they’ll have a sense of ownership and will value that landscape significantly. An example I love is the Pumpkin Parade that started in the early 2000s at Sorauren Park. Someone in the community said, “We have all these beautifully carved pumpkins after Halloween and then they just get thrown away,” and had the idea of bringing them all to the park so people could walk among them. They didn’t ask the City for permission, they just told the City this was going to happen. But, within a couple of years, the City agreed to clean it up after. People loved it. And now it’s spread all over the city and you get Pumpkin Parades in all kinds of local parks. It’s people doing ephemeral landscaping on their own initiative. It’s a good example of the necessary tension between a grassroots, messy event, and order: they didn’t tell the City, but the City had to play a role because otherwise you’d have rotting pumpkins polluting the park, which is no good for anyone. So the City comes and cleans them up. It says, “Yes, you can do this. We’re not really going to control it, but we’ll clean it up afterwards. And we’ve accepted this is something beneficial for the community the people really like.” It doesn’t go too far towards messiness, which would be having rotting pumpkins all winter, but it also doesn’t go too far towards order.

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GB: There are concerns such as accessibility and safety of a landscape or public place that sometimes necessitate an intervention in the natural messiness of a place. We’ve talked a lot about balance: how do we identify what that balance feels like for everyone? Most of us understand the need for accessibility. Safety calls to mind things like wood ticks or falling tree branches. How do we know when to intervene for accessibility and safety’s sake?

GB: Messy could also describe the deterioration of a design feature. Not just natural features like plants, but, say, a park bench, a washroom, all kinds of amenities, hardscape or softscape. Many of these design aspects require maintenance, and we notice when they’re not given proper love and care. Let’s talk about the downside of messiness. Toronto’s public spaces, in particular, have a big problem maintaining the state of good repair. NML: Certainly, one perception and an extension of the idea of messiness is disrepair, which goes beyond merely ‘colouring outside the lines.’ Certainly, maintenance and care challenges are a big part of designers’ work and advocacy for high quality public spaces. When you budget for a project, you also must budget for maintenance and care, ensuring the client owner or operating agency understands the investment necessary for ongoing care. I would offer the perspective that care is a human value. When we care for something, it shows we value it, and when we value it, we invest in it, whether through community efforts or political will and dollars. Care is part of landscape cultivation. Respect, nurturing, empathy: these values reflect how we relate to, steward and care for land. Somewhere between order and chaos, care keeps messiness from devolving into anarchy.

We can all point to landscape projects that don’t reflect care, perhaps because City budgets and institutional policies have not allowed us to express care. Community residents have had to pick that care up in many places. The Pumpkin Parade is one example of community investment, but so are beach cleanups, litter cleanups, or foodbanks and shelters staffed by volunteers. These are aspects of what I would call “landscapes of care” that are necessarily part of the spectrum of, and conversation about, messiness. DR: There’s an interesting phenomenon where overdetermining a landscape— putting in too much stuff, trying to make it too controlled—actually means it’s more likely to be neglected and fall apart. Because you’ve got so much stuff, so much maintenance required to keep it up, eventually it becomes too expensive. People lose interest and it starts to decay. So, incorporating some messiness can actually reduce the amount of maintenance required. That’s a really interesting balance. If you overdetermine a landscape, you can actually make it harder to maintain, and more likely to be abandoned. Whereas, if you incorporate a certain amount of messiness, allow a certain amount of variation and natural processes, the actual maintenance is less expensive, less onerous, and more feasible.

NML: That’s a politically challenging question because, to be inclusive, by definition, we try to make everything accessible. But another way to think about it is not everything has to be accessible to everyone, all at once, all the time. We can use creative methods of thinking about accessibility: think about time-based zoning where parks are accessible to certain people with interests in particular kinds of sports or gathering at specific times. This is different than physical accessibility, but rather access to a public landscape in terms of use. There are ways we do that already by overlaying sports fields for different kinds of activities. There are different types of surfaces that are accessible for different types of bodies, whether they’re wheeled, walking, or assisted and they don’t all have to be in the same place in the same way. Although equity of access should always be consideration in design it must also be in planning and space allocation. We have many people needing access to

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public landscapes, particularly parks, which are not equitably distributed across neighbourhoods and the city. There is mounting evidence (and certainly more still since the COVID pandemic) that we all need access for our mental and physical health to nature. We need to be creative in how we deliver access to these benefits, and probably not only through traditional parks. Think about ways we can stratify access, by requiring accessible roof gardens, healing gardens, food gardens and more creative use of the landscapes between buildings. Parks can no longer be limited to neighbourhood playgrounds and sports fields, or a destination park you go to by transit or in a private vehicle. We need parks, trails, roofs, bioswales, and green streets to serve as connective tissue in every city, as a network of nature – including wilder and “messier” places like urban meadows, hydro corridors and so on. Re-thinking accessibility from a scaled perspective may help us to advocate for a diversity of ways to connect to a healthy, functioning ecology in the city. Evidence shows that (re)establishing connections to natural, sometimes messy, wilder landscapes are as important for our mental health and wellbeing as they are for our children’s intellectual and emotional development. In these ways, accessibility is not only about physical access or getting to an outdoor place but seeing it and having it within reach of your home. It’s a different kind of accessibility than, say, a paved walkway or a ramp at a particular percentage grade. Those are all important, they’re just different aspects of the accessibility conversation.

DR: The point about there being multiple accessibilities is really significant. Messy doesn’t just mean the lack of a paved path, it can also mean a more feral landscape that may be intimidating for some people. They might be more vulnerable in that space and unwilling to go into it. These are important factors. A lot of times, people focus on things that actually aren’t that significant, in terms of what they find messy or unpleasant—a semi-wild garden or something. They’ll focus on that instead of important things like poorly maintained spaces, or a lack of accessibility. We need to distinguish between what offends our aesthetic sensibilities, but isn’t significant and doesn’t propose a barrier to people or cause danger, versus what is actually causing a barrier or creating danger, which may not be as aesthetically obvious, but is actually much more significant. A broken path may actually be a big problem. It may be dangerous, people might trip, it might be a problem for accessibility. That’s something we should focus on. A field of goldenrod isn’t causing anyone harm. We need to focus on what’s messy in a way that causes harm, versus what’s considered messy purely because it doesn’t fit our aesthetic expectations.

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Hillcrest Meadow

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Nina-Marie Lister

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Some ravine messiness.

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Dylan Reid

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Plants growing through sidewalk cracks.

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Dylan Reid

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The Sorauren Park annual Pumpkin Parade.

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Donna MacMullin, Friends of Sorauren Park

THANKS TO HELENE IARDAS FOR COORDINATING THIS ROUND TABLE.

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TEXT BY HEATHER SCHIBLI, OALA

First, I noticed the eggs, red and glossy, arranged in tidy rows on a serviceberry leaf. Good, I thought to myself. After all, this was the point of my planting native species in my backyard. Having channeled Douglas Tallamy and Akira Miyawaki, an entomologist and a botanist, respectively, I had planted thirty odd species of trees and shrubs with an emphasis on oaks, cherries, and maples. Although this planting is very much for my own benefit, the design was also informed by the needs of other species, our fellow earthlings. 01/

Boxelder bug illustration

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Heather Schibli

Our property is surrounded by an abutting parking lot, residential homes, and multiplexes. I live downtown where I can

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walk to work, to my daughter’s school, and to the city centre. I welcome urban density and the diversity of people; however, sometimes I yearn for the forest. Sometimes, I yearn for other species. I know I am not alone in this sentiment. If I were, there would be far fewer cottages, no eco-tourism, birding, nor ornamental gardening. So, to address this desire, I have planted a broad array of native species within my property. And I hope this forest I planted will one day tower over our house, the multiplexes, and the parking lot. I hope this miniature, pocket-sized forest will house birds, insects, mammals, and fungi. I hope it will teem with life.

the boxelder tree, which is better known in Ontario as the Manitoba maple. Although unpalatable to many, these critters are food for other insects, spiders, birds, and mammals. They fed upon my little forest, though, aside from their presence, evidence of feeding evaded me. No damage could be seen on my thriving trees.

versus nature. Nature with a capital ‘N’: pure and elsewhere, protected from us humans. But nature is neither pure nor elsewhere. We are nature, it just so happens the habitats our species creates within the global dominant culture tend to exclude most other life. What if we adopted a land ethic that recognized and embraced the messy entanglement of life on this planet? What if we designed our spaces to celebrate life by creating habitats and providing food for biodiversity? Instead of selecting the standard ‘pest free’ Eurasian cultivars we’ve come to rely on, what if we planted these spaces to support insect development? Like milkweeds and monarchs. Like oaks and the 450+ species of moths and butterflies they host.

Last year, when I first noticed those tiny red eggs, this little forest was small in stature. These trees are just babies, still small enough to be clipped clean by a rabbit in winter. Curious, I searched for more eggs. To my delight, I found more, and then… more. A creeping dread settled in replacing my initial enthusiasm. I worried there were perhaps too many eggs. It is hard not to meddle; I had to actively curb my impulse to remove those eggs. Within a couple weeks, the eggs hatched, revealing first-instar boxelder bugs. Like the red eggs from which they emerged, these young, soft-bodied insects gleamed bright red against the rich green foliage. Boxelder bugs are true bugs, sporting strawlike mouth pieces for feeding. They can’t bite. A North American species, boxelder bugs are named after their preferred host plant,

In his last book, E.O. Wilson pleads for humanity to protect 50 per cent of the Earth’s surface for species other than humans. This sounds like a lot, but, flipped upside down, it is far more striking that just one species (us) takes a full half of the planet, which is home to an estimated 8.7 million species. Of course, there are species that live with us too, but those numbers pale in comparison to all that is on this planet. Likewise, the 30X30 movement is an international push to protect a minimum 30 per cent of land and water by 2030, plus another 20 per cent protected as climate stabilization areas, which is deemed necessary for any hope of staying within a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in global annual temperatures. These targets are geared to protecting what intact biodiversity and high carbon stocks remain. But what about the rest? What of the places we call home? I hope 30X30 is implemented and upheld and I hope we attain E.O. Wilson’s dream of 50 per cent global protection. These protections, however, do not challenge western culture’s binary ideology of human

I challenge you to adopt a land ethic whereby a full 50 per cent of your designs consider and aim to support species other than us. How? By employing multispecies design, which is the practice of designing systems, spaces, and objects that address the needs of humans and of non-human species, thereby supporting biodiversity. Try employing the following multispecies design principles adapted from Daniel Metcalf’s 2015 thesis “Multispecies Design”:

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Garden illustration

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Heather Schibli

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White ash illustration

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Heather Schibli

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1. Non-human species as clients of design In addition to designing for humans, consider plants, fungi, and/or animals as your clients. This can be accomplished with targeted species design, whereby a species is identified and their habitat requirements to feed, breed, rest, and nest are researched and implemented. More generally speaking, adopting multispecies design elements is to introduce complexity in both form and function. For instance, include multiple food sources and irregular terrain. Incorporate many native plant species with varying shapes and sizes into your design. Complexity is key.

3. Human created systems are extensions of ecological systems It is crucial to recognize our habitats are part of larger ecological systems. Much like beavers, our actions define our habitats. We are a keystone species. The ways we define our habitats greatly impact other species. Our habitats—cities, agricultural fields, parks, city blocks—are not outside of ecological systems, but merely spaces within. How does your design impact the landscape’s ecological functionality?

to welcome other species’ autonomy into our spaces. There are many boxelder bugs in my backyard. I have since learned that boxelders collectively insert their straw like mouths into the seeds of Manitoba maples, whereby they liquify the contents before slurping them up. The female fruit-bearing Manitoba maple in my neighbour’s backyard explains the profuse number of boxelder bugs in my yard. I don’t want Manitoba maples germinating within my forest; thus, I am both relieved for leaving those eggs and pleased to share this space with these insects. Another benefit I’ve seen from their presence is that my daughter, who was at first afraid of these black and red insects, has since built a relationship with them. She now gently carries them to safe havens and prides herself on becoming a good steward.

2. Human/non-human interaction as a designed experience Consider the interface between humans and non-humans, but also between wild and domesticated animals. How might this space be utilized by humans and their pets? How might their usership impact wild animals, fungi, and plants? For example, enlisting amphibians or birds as clients where cats frequent undermines the goal of multispecies design. Most species conflicts arise from routine feeding by humans to other species. Minimize species dependencies on humans within your design. Control access through programming and design elements.

4. Respect for other species This can best be achieved by minimizing maintenance. Know that other species possess intelligence we may or may not perceive. Trust their capabilities and respect their autonomy. For instance, leave the leaves. Trees and their allies (insects, fungi, etc.) have evolved to capitalize on fallen leaves. Leave them! Leave dead stalks and seedheads over winter and into late spring. If you must cut them, leave them on the ground in situ. There are likely insects housed within those stalks. And the material will nourish the soil ecology. Life on this planet is messy and complex, and that is exactly what makes it so exquisitely beautiful. “Messy” is a loaded word. In land ownership, it is often tied to “unkept.” But perhaps if we consider messy as the complex web of life that is unknowable and ultimately beyond our control, we can begin

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Ocellate gall midge illustration

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Heather Schibli

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Red maple leaf illustration

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Heather Schibli

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Smooth serviceberry leaf and flat-tailed leaf-cutter bee illustrations

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Heather Schibli

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Garden illustration

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Heather Schibli

BIO/ HEATHER SCHIBLI, OALA, IS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, ECOLOGIST, AND ARBORIST, WHO DRAWS UPON HER DEEP AFFINITY FOR THE NATURAL WORLD TO GUIDE HER DESIGN PRACTICE AND CONSULTING WORK FOR DOUGAN & ASSOCIATES, A GUELPH-BASED TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY FIRM. SINCE 2019, SHE HAS BEEN AN ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE NETWORK OF NATURE (FORMALLY CANPLANT), WHICH IS A PARTNERSHIP WITH CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC THAT IS DEDICATED TO SUPPORTING AND RESTORING CANADA’S UNIQUE BIODIVERSITY AGAINST THE STRESSES OF DEVELOPMENT, EXTRACTION, AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Sweeter Than Honey

Saving our native bees TEXT BY GLYN BOWERMAN

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Sweeter Than Honey

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A common eastern bumblebee on a woodland sunflower.

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Sheila Colla

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A green sweat bee on an echinacea flower.

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Sheila Colla

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A common eastern bumblebee.

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Sheila Colla

We have a love of honey bees in North America. Beyond what they provide for us, there is a sense of industriousness, teamwork, and productivity we admire. When we say “busy as a bee,” we’re probably thinking of honey bees. But our native bees and pollinator species are much more diverse than their famous cousins. They have different lifestyles, needs, and habitats. And our obsession with honey bees is pushing them out, and jeopardizing their very existence. We asked Sheila Colla, a conservation scientist and associate professor at York University, about how to save our native bees. Glyn Bowerman: It seems like there’s a general awareness of the important role pollinators play in an ecosystem. Does that encourage you as a conservationist?

Sheila Colla: It does. I think it’s the result of a lot of work, though. Many years of people like myself getting out there. But there’s some concern around that framing, because it implies we should only protect things that are useful to us, because they provide some sort of ecosystem service to us, or our environment. There are a lot of wildlife out there that are just doing their own thing who also deserve to exist, even if they’re not providing a service. GB: You’ve said we take a special liking to honey bees, sometimes to the detriment of the environment. Can you explain what, exactly, is the problem with the cultivation and preservation of the European honey bee? SC: There’s been a lot of confusion around the beekeeping industry and the decline of

Sweeter Than Honey

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GB: What do we lose if we lose a species like the rusty patch bumblebee.

bees. The bee industry has its own struggles to make as much profit as possible. Those struggles include disease outbreaks, a lack of places to bring millions of honey bees in hives to feed off when they’re not pollinating— because crops pollinate at different times of the year, so hives will be moved around to different crops, and they need space to feed on pollen and nectar in that time. And we’re talking about tons of bees, like you heard about the truck falling over with millions of bees on it. So, the honey bee industry has their own issues, and people confuse that with what’s going on with their native bees. Managed bees are more exposed to agricultural pesticides, so most people think that’s the major problem. But our native bees have different concerns. In Canada, we have 865 species of native bees. Most of them are solitary, many of them cannot sting you. None of them make honey. Most of them aren’t even yellow and black—we have a lot of silver, blue, and green bees. So a lot of what people think about in terms of bees is basically incorrect, if you’re thinking about the number of actual native bees we have. And the kinds of threats they’re facing are different. We haven’t studied all of those species, but for the ones we have studied, like bumblebees, we know climate change and introduced disease from the managed bee industry are probably the top two threats to wild populations. More locally, you get things like habitat loss and pesticide use. But, in terms of describing patterns of loss, climate change and introduced diseases

(kind of like COVID for bees) are the main threats. When we introduce managed bees, they bring diseases our native bees have not co-evolved with, so it can hit them pretty hard, which is why we think the rusty patch bumblebee is now endangered. GB: Can you tell us a bit more about the rusty patch bumblebee? SC: In southern Ontario, we have about 20 species of bumblebees. And in the ‘70s, ‘80s, early ‘90s, the rusty patch bumblebee was one of the most common species. If you saw 100 bumblebees in the field, about 15 of them would have been the rusty patch bumblebee, it was the most common species. It emerged early April and finished up in October—different bumblebee species come out and finish up their colonies at different times. They had a really long colony cycle, so it was a really important pollinator of both spring and fall plants. And we have records of it from downtown Toronto, St. George Street, from student collections in the ‘90s. Now it’s basically disappeared. The last time it’s been seen in Canada was when I found it in Pinery Provincial Park, I found one individual in 2005, and one individual in 2009, and it hasn’t been seen since in Canada. There are some spots in the midwest, and a couple in the Appalachians where it still seems to be hanging on. But, in general, it’s very rare now and very patchy, and has declined from its massive range along eastern North America very quickly since the ‘90s.

SC: We lose resiliency. We have a bunch of bee species out there: some emerge early in the spring, some visit long tube flowers, some visit flat flowers, some visit blue things, pink things, yellow things. And there’s probably more than one thing visiting each one of these flowers at any given time. But, as we lose these bees, we might start losing some of these pollination services. And, as we go through climate change, we know having resiliency is important in these systems. Having a little bit of overlap so, if there is a flood, maybe a different species that nests high above ground will still be out there to pollinate. Every single species we have is important to keep our ecosystems intact. GB: A lot of municipalities and regional governments have programs in place to help, if they can, preserve species like the rusty patch bumblebee and other pollinators or, as you say, even nonpollinators. What are we getting right, and what do we still need to understand about this attempt at preservation? SC: There’s still a lot of conflation around honey bees versus native bees. When the Toronto pollinator plan came up, it was just someone who cared about honey bees who went to their councillor saying, “I think the City should do something about bees.” And it was only because the City staff knew, from long relationships with myself and other colleagues that, if we’re going to do a pollinator policy, we should consider native bees in that. And the Toronto policy is actually one of the few that doesn’t focus on the European honey bee in North America. There’s a lot of policy out there that promotes honey beekeeping. A lot of times, when you see a ‘save the bees’ policy, it means open up space for urban beekeeping. And cities are not deserts for biodiversity, when it comes to insects. Cities can be refuges from climate change a little bit—people water their plants, if a tree gets broken in a storm it can generally be replaced. So it’s a bit buffered from the smaller things related

Sweeter Than Honey

to climate change. Generally, they’re pretty good places in terms of pesticide use, so insects tend to be more protected. And they used to be places where there was not a lot of managed bee diseases. But as urban beekeeping has grown, and it’s grown largely because people are worried about bee populations and think this is a sustainable thing to do, now we have high densities of European honey bees in cities which have limited flowers available. But we also have these diseases coming in harming our native bees. So the biggest thing we need to learn is distinguishing between beekeeping and bee conservation, because they’re not the same thing. GB: Is it possible to do both in the city? SC: Not with the same policies. You can try to mitigate some harm. We do that a lot with livestock: we test manmade livestock for diseases regularly, if there is an outbreak, we manage that. But for some reason honey bees are exempt from all of that. In general, people just think they’re good, so we can have five hives on the top of the CBC building, those bees can go out and forage in their 15-kilometre radius, and there’s not too much concern around what diseases

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they’re spreading or how they’re impacting native wildlife. In general, livestock tend to be more contained. GB: In in my own little corner of the city, I have a small backyard, and my partner and I have tried to plant species that attract pollinators. What do I need to know about my garden, and how can I best encourage a diversity of species? SC: Planting as many native plants as possible in whatever area you have available to you, and trying to get things that bloom early in the spring and later in the fall—the critical periods are when the bees come out of hibernation in the spring time, when they’re on the verge of starvation, and when they’re building up their fat bodies to go into hibernation in the fall, which is why goldenrod and aster are such important things for hibernating insects and also for monarchs about to fly over the Great Lakes. And insects generally go towards what’s more common in an area so, if you’re trying to select some plants, it might be worth seeing what your neighbours have, and getting a few of those as well. Bumblebees are landmark navigators. Honey bees rely on the sun, and do the waggle dance, and they

communicate to each other where all the best pollen and nectar is. But bumblebees will memorize a landscape and learn one or two types of flowers. So they’ll be like, “I’m a common milkweed bumblebee pollinator,” and then they’ll just go to all the common milkweed, they’ll make a trap line and go around to all the common milkweed plants until those are done for the season, then they’ll choose another plant. So, even if you only have two milkweed plants, but your neighbour has two, and so on, that really helps these insects, because they’re out searching certain types of plants. I really like trees and shrubs, because they have a small footprint. So, if you don’t have a lot of space, you can have hundreds of flowers in a single tree or shrub, even though it doesn’t take up a ton of space. GB: Sorry, you said “waggle dance?” SC: Yeah, honey bees use the position of the sun, go back to their colony, and they do a dance that somehow uses the position of the sun to describe a direction that bees should fly to go and maximize whatever the best pollen and nectar sources are at that given time. And, as far as we know, native bees don’t have that kind of communication, which also makes honey bees really good competitors and why they’re so successful in places where they’re not supposed to exist, because they actually tell each other where the best plants are. Whereas our native bees need to go out and find it themselves. 04/

A half-black bumblebee.

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Sheila Colla

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A common eastern bumblebee on an aster.

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Sheila Colla

BIO/ GLYN BOWERMAN IS THE EDITOR OF GROUND. HE’S A TORONTO-BASED JOURNALIST WHO WRITES ABOUT URBAN AFFAIRS, AND HE HOSTS THE SPACING RADIO PODCAST.

Book Corner

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Cover art for the Natura Urbana book.

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Courtesy of the MIT Press

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Book Corner

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TEXT BY NATASHA VARGA

Matthew Gandy’s recent book Natura Urbana: Ecological Constellations in Urban Space dives deep into the interrelationship between urbanity and ecology. The book is thoroughly researched and well-argued, with theories and personal experiences from the author’s own lengthy history of research. As a professor in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Geography, his research topics cover landscape, infrastructure, biodiversity, environmental history, and epidemiology. This breadth of knowledge is evident in this thoughtful and topical book; which sets out to challenge our conceptions of ecology in the urban context. Natura Urbana opens with an intriguing chapter on zoonotic disease and ‘synanthropic ecologies’—those that thrive in relation to the human environment. The author then moves into the urban wilds of London and Berlin, where he intertwines his own thoughtful observations with relevant theories on the intersection of nature and urbanity, focusing especially on his personal connections with the spontaneous vegetation and ecosystems of these two cities. This device grounds the sometimes highly theoretical text in a real lived experience. When reading the

book, it’s interesting to note that Gandy himself isn’t a landscape architect, though he explores many concepts related to the field—an example of this being the discussion surrounding the idea of ‘wasteland aesthetic.’ He notes that our current use of this landscape aesthetic in projects like the High Line and Duisburg Nord exert a choreographed control over natural systems, but often seem to forget that their aesthetic success lies in their ecological complexity. The text deftly links the scientific study of ecosystems and urbanism into their historical and political contexts, revealing correlations and relationships which are often overlooked. The topics covered seem to span all aspects of social and environmental discourse, from Marxism to feminism and 17th century apothecaries, leading the reader into a profound exploration of subject matter in the areas of landscape, ecology, and social science. The book’s nuanced exploration of ‘invasiveness’ and its association with the idea of ‘nativeness’ doesn’t shy away from difficult political connotations of the terminology. While the final two chapters, “Forensic Ecologies” and “Temporalities,” lean into a fascinating exploration of

the moral and legal complexities that arise from evaluations of biodiversity and conservation in the urban context. Ultimately, Natura Urbana is a dense, but engrossing read that weaves together the social and scientific elements that shape an urban landscape. The author’s sanguine and thoroughly referenced writing is a complex narrative that ultimately ends on a hopeful note: our focus is shifting away from an anthropocentric view of urban landscapes and towards the non-human elements in our cities. Gandy asks whether this new perspective shift away from the colonial and anthropocentric view of urban landscapes can lead us to a more equal and sustainable future. Though the book’s subject matter is expansive and, as a result, not always directly pertinent to the design field, it is a compelling read for any landscape architect who may be interested in a deeper conversation about the interplay between society, science, and the urban wilderness.

BIO/ NATASHA VARGA IS A GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER PRACTICING IN TORONTO. HER PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND HAS FOCUSED ON MID-SIZED PROJECTS IN THE URBAN REALM; HAVING GAINED EXPERIENCE WORKING FOR FIRMS IN BERLIN, COPENHAGEN, AND LONDON.

Notes

Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

Rick was inducted as a CSLA Fellow in 2001. We have noted some of the information from his FCSLA biography below:

events Join OALA’s annual fundraising Family Ski and Snow Day event at the Alpine Ski Club in Collingwood, Ontario, February 9, 2024. The event brings friends, family, and colleagues together for a day of winter fun while raising money for the universities of Guelph and Toronto endowment fund. Registration has already opened. Early bird pricing ends January 5th, and registration closes February 5th. For more information about the event and ticket pricing, check out: oala.ca/events

nominations The OALA Honours and Awards are the highest recognition the Association can bestow on its members and the general public. Each OALA member plays an important part in the integrity and success of the program by identifying and nominating deserving candidates for the various awards. OALA members are invited to nominate deserving fellow members and others for awards and honours, to be presented at the 2024 OALA Awards Ceremony. The multiple award categories and eligibility can be found at: oala.ca/OALAAward-Nominations. The deadline for nominations is January 15th, 2024.

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Rick was born in Montréal, Quebec, and graduated from Michigan State University in Landscape Architecture in 1969. He undertook graduate studies at the University of Guelph from 1998 to 2000. During his 50-year career, he was based in Montréal, Toronto, and Collingwood. Rick’s career began with the construction of Expo ’67. He then worked in Montréal and Toronto for multidisciplinary firms. During this time he prepared the initial Master Plan for Forillon National Park, served as Municipal Advisor to the Dhofar Development Department in the Sultanate of Oman, and was responsible for the design of the Prince Arthur’s Landing waterfront development in Thunder Bay. In 1981 he opened his own firm with partner John George. Moore-George Associates Inc. provided consulting services primarily to the public sector from 1981 to 1997. Waterfront development, parks and open space, and urban design became the firm’s focus. They collaborated on several notable projects including the North Bay and Kenora waterfront developments, Port Credit Harbour, and Toronto’s SkyDome (Bobbie Rosenfeld Park). At the time, waterfront redevelopment was a new frontier in Ontario, and Rick played an important role in promoting and transforming derelict lands to create important public realms. Moving to the resort community of Collingwood, Ontario in 1997, Rick started a landscape design-build firm. He was also responsible for the landscape design of Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario.

in memoriam Richard (Rick) Moore, FCSLA The OALA is saddened to announce the passing of Richard (Rick) Moore on August 5, 2023. Rick became a full member of the OALA in 1976 and retired in 2009.

Rick was elected to the OALA Council in 1985 and served as President from 198687, immediately after the passing of the Landscape Architects Act. He served as CSLA President in 2005. 01/

Call for Award Nominations

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Courtesy of OALA

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Family Ski & Snow Day

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Courtesy of OALA

Notes

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Berczy Park, and many others. His career began in the early 1990s with landscape art installations that shattered the conventions of landscape design in Canada, and with projects that deployed strong design narratives, the techniques of conceptual art, abstraction, and the bold use of colour.

in memoriam

David Tomlinson, OALA Emeritus, CSLA

Claude Cormier, OALA, FCSLA

The OALA is saddened to announce the passing of David Tomlinson, on September 8, 2023. David was a Full Member – Emeritus since 1999. He joined the OALA as a full member in 1976.

The OALA is saddened to announce the passing of Claude Cormier on September 15, 2023. He joined the OALA as a full member in 2010.

David’s career began in England in 1964, where he held several positions as a landscape architect, before immigrating to Canada in 1973. He became a full OALA member in 1976. David’s career and postretirement work exemplified the role of landscape architects as stewards of the landscape. David made a significant impact within the Town of Aurora. He worked tirelessly, documenting the flora and fauna of the Marsh Creek East Aurora Wetland Complex, which contributed to the province declaring the site a provincially significant wetland. His advocacy in protecting the area from development and his proposal for an urban wildlife park eventually led the Town of Aurora to name it the David Tomlinson Nature Reserve (2020). David served on the town’s Environmental Advisory Committee and various environmental working groups and was paramount in establishing the citizen science group Nature Aurora. He also steered the Aurora Community Arboretum with his master plan and countless volunteer hours. He was awarded an Ontario Lieutenant Governor Heritage award in 2011. His English cottage garden (Merlin’s Hollow) delighted many visitors as the gardens were open to the public every spring. David left a profound legacy in Aurora.

Claude Cormier was an active member of the OALA and supported the profession of landscape architecture in Ontario in many ways. He was a volunteer advisor to many young members. He also shared his vision with students through his lectures, books, and studio visits. He added to that support when he made a $500,000 commitment to his alma mater, the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto to support Master in Landscape Architecture (MLA) students. Claude was inducted as a CSLA Fellow in 2008, and, with his firm, won many awards, including the 2023 CSLA Jury’s Award of Excellence for The Ring in Montréal. In June, Claude celebrated the opening of the firm’s project, Love Park, in Toronto.

The recent renaming of his firm of 15 professionals to CCxA marked the passing of the torch to his long-standing collaborators Sophie Beaudoin, Marc Hallé, Guillaume Paradis, and Yannick Roberge.

new members Ontario Association of Landscape Architects is proud to recognize and welcome the following new members to the Association: Madolyn Armstrong

Reesha Morar

Michael Boucher

Roderick Sean Nailer

Kira Burger

Kristina Patterson

Christopher Calabrese

Adam Persi

Hugh (Hui) Chen

Curtis Puncher

Jude Gaboury

Alexandre Dos Santos

Stephanie (Graham)

Gullivar Shepard

Goncalves

Joel Sypkes

Adam Hoover *

Luke Van Tol

Mike Hukezalie

Jenny Trinh

Rosa Maria Jerez *

Albertus Viljoen *

Lindsay Smith (née: King)

Kathleen Watson

Taylor Kirsh *

Rachel Weston

Leigh Lichtenberg

Laura Wood

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

From an announcement by his firm, CCxA: His lyrical, conceptual approach to designing public spaces leaves a colourful and deeply original imprint on North American cities. He is the creative force behind many of Montréal and Toronto’s best-loved public squares and urban parks—some of the most joyful and critically acclaimed in Canada, such as Place D’Youville and Dorchester Square, the Pink Balls and their 18 Shades of Gay, Clock Tower Beach, The Ring at Place Ville Marie, HtO Urban Beach, Sugar Beach,

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Richard Moore

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Courtesy of CSLA

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David Tomlinson

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Anna Lozyk Romeo

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Claude Cormier

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Will Lew

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Artifact

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Wagon Landscaping is an opportunistic Los Angeles firm that designs in challenging landscapes like pavement and parking lots. In the 11th district of Paris, they transformed a paved courtyard into the Asphalt Jungle. The project goal was to repurpose asphalt to accommodate living things.

They start by cutting and removing the asphalt to expose the compacted sandy gravel base. Next, fluffing the compacted gravel with a jack hammer loosens the substrate so they can mix in compost and soil to create a habitable root zone. This newly engineered soil composition, or “technosol,” provides a sufficient environment for many plant species to take root. The raised bed helps to contain the added volume of technosol and house the large pieces of broken asphalt. To highlight the materials, the smaller pieces of asphalt

run a soldier course to frame the garden and expose the rough aggregate edges. The prepared bed is seeded and planted with annuals, perennials, and a lowgrowing tree to provide shade. The once barren, paved courtyard is now a garden with aesthetic value, insect habitat, seasonality, water management, and passive cooling. This low-impact solution has activated this outdoor space to inspire more human activity as the garden invites attention.

Asphalt Jungle embodies the fundamental idea that we can always make room for nature within urban development, benefiting both people and the planet. Wagon Landscaping proved with just a few tools and organic matter that we can repurpose pavement and turn it into a garden.

04 TEXT BY MATT LUNDSTROM

Wagon Landscaping Paris, France

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Wagon Landscaping asphalt rehabilitation project in Paris, France.

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Yann Monel

BIO/ MATTHEW LUNDSTROM IS AN MLA STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH, AND GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER.

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