Ground 36 – Winter 2016 – Data by Ground Magazine

Landscape Architect Quarterly

Features Harvesting What We Sow

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Data Drones

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Flying High

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Pathways

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Data-Driven Design

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Round Table Furtherscape

Winter 2016 Issue 36

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Contents

Up Front Information on the ground

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Data: Harvesting What We Sow The Pickering airport lands

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Text by Sheila Boudreau, OALA, and Bonnie McElhinny

Data Drones

President’s Message

Editorial Board Message

President’s Message

Editorial Board Message

Winter is upon us, and so ends another year. The promise of spring and summer continues to make us look forward to the future. Throughout my career as a landscape architect, I’m often asked if I look forward to the lull at this time of the year. As landscape architects, you all know that there is no such thing as a lull in our field of work. Yes, we work with Mother Nature and all her fine greeneries, but warm weather and greens aren’t the only tools in our box of creation. Besides, Mother Nature never takes a break, and neither does landscape architecture.

As we look ahead to the year 2017, we have much to celebrate and focus on, but there are also many challenges.

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Compiled by Lorraine Johnson

Flying High Drones and design Eric Gordon, OALA, interviews Bill Gurney, OALA 16/

Pathways On Indigenous landscapes in Toronto Text by Jon Johnson 18/

Data-Driven Design Research into green roof performance

During the winter, I do my planning for the next year, checking out projects coming my way and the resources I’ll need. It is also a time to complete those designs and details that are critical to the construction and installation planned for the spring and summer. I also plan to be outdoors in the winter to remind myself that the projects we design and build need to work 365 days of the year and do not rest. Our projects are used, shared, everevolving, and growing to meet the needs of the public and our clients, while respecting the surrounding conditions and environment.

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Text by Liat Margolis

Round Table Furtherscape Moderated by Christopher Charlesworth 26/

Business Corner Engineering change Katie Strang in conversation with Cory Jones 32/

Notes A miscellany of news and events 36/

Artifact Time and movement TEXT by lorraine Johnson 42/

Winter 2016 Issue 36

There are no exceptions to winter. It is part of our environment and we work with it and in it just as we do in the spring, summer, and fall. I look forward to winter as it inspires me to be creative to bring the beauty of this season to the public. I hope, too, that you’ll be inspired to see the opportunity to create great places for winter use. We are lucky to have four seasons, and we are also fortunate to be able to work in all their conditions. And that is what’s great about landscape architecture and being a landscape architect: we have the knowledge, skill, and opportunity to work with and for Mother Nature and all her glory. Doris Chee, OALA oala President president@oala.cA

A number of themes have been recurring at Ground Editorial Board meetings. Canada’s 150th anniversary brings many significant projects, which we will be highlighting in our pages over the coming issues. But it is important to note that this 150th national birthday means different things to different communities, and Ground will be highlighting this. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports and calls to action connect with landscape architects in Ontario. As a Board, we are continuing to look for projects that advance reconciliation and that highlight collaboration with Indigenous communities, professionals, and territories. The theme of this issue is data. We explore questions such as: how are data and technology changing the profession (through the use of drones or LIDAR for gathering site data and the use of sensors for managing the maintenance of the landscapes of the future, for example)? In the Round Table, several interesting futuristic disruptions are considered: what are the central themes that, as landscape architects, we need to consider while forging ahead into uncertainty and/or sustainability? As always, we look forward to hearing from you. Please let us know what you want to see covered in Ground, as well as innovative ideas for engagement on these topics, and, most importantly, if you are interested in contributing. Our upcoming themes are Spectrum, The Commons, and Spontaneous. Ruthanne Henry, OALA Chair, Editorial Board magazine@oala.ca

Masthead

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Editor Lorraine Johnson

2016 OALA Governing Council

Photo Editor Zhebing Chen

President Doris Chee

OALA Editorial Board Shannon Baker Eric Gordon Ruthanne Henry (chair) Jocelyn Hirtes Robert Patterson Denise Pinto Phil Pothen Todd Smith Katie Strang Beatrice Saraga Taylor Dalia Todary-Michael Shawn Watters Jane Welsh

Vice President Jane Welsh

Web Editor Jennifer Foden Art Direction/Design www.typotherapy.com Advertising Inquiries advertising@oala.ca 416.231.4181 Cover Noël Nanton of typotherapy, courtesy of Eric Gordon at Optimicity. See page 16. Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published four times a year by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects. Ontario Association of Landscape Architects 3 Church Street, Suite 506 Toronto, Ontario M5E 1M2 416.231.4181 www.oala.ca oala@oala.ca Copyright © 2017 by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects All rights reserved ISSN: 0847-3080 Canada Post Sales Product Agreement No. 40026106 See www.groundmag.ca to download articles and share content on social media.

Treasurer Chris Hart Secretary Sandra Neal Past President Joanne Moran Councillors Stefan Fediuk Kendall Flower Associate Councillor—Senior Maren Walker Associate Councillor—Junior Justin Whalen Lay Councillor Linda Thorne Appointed Educator University of Toronto Peter North Appointed Educator University of Guelph Sean Kelly University of Toronto Student Representative Leonard Flot University of Guelph Student Representative Lauren Dickson OALA Staff Executive Director Aina Budrevics Registrar Ingrid Little Coordinator Sarah Manteuffel

OALA

About

About the OALA

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects and provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas and information related to the profession of landscape architecture. Letters to the editor, article proposals, and feedback are encouraged. For submission guidelines, contact Ground at magazine@oala.ca. Ground reserves the right to edit all submissions. The views expressed in the magazine are those of the writers and not necessarily the views of the OALA and its Governing Council.

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

Upcoming Issues of Ground Ground 37 (Spring) Spectrum Deadline for advertising space reservations: January 24, 2017

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Advisory Panel

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

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TO view additional content related to Ground articles, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

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FPO

Up Front

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Laneways

innovative design A laneway is a bit like the back door of a house—a private, hidden place used by those who know of it. But laneways are different, too—public places for access to garages, short-cuts through the street grid, backdrops for leisure activities, and more. Landscape architect Victoria Taylor, OALA, views laneways through a lens of opportunity. Interested in the strength and resilience of the plant life found in these out-of-the-way urban corridors, Taylor has been looking intently, for years, at how we can take our cue from the hardy “weeds” growing through pavement and asphalt and use natural processes to enhance water infiltration. Her goal is to reconfigure the laneway landscape through design alert to ecological function. This past summer, Taylor, with a diverse group of collaborators, including the David Suzuki Foundation, landscape contractor EcoMan, the City of Toronto, Councillor Mike Layton, and community groups such as the Laneway Project, worked on a pilot to test alternative ideas for laneway design. Their efforts were focused on a site in the west end of Toronto, near Ossington and College streets, where regular maintenance of the pavement was already scheduled. Instead of simply replacing the surface with new concrete, they negotiated with the city to cut a narrow slit, or puncture, 80 cm wide, through the centre of the laneway. With the puncture as their canvas, and with volunteers from the community, they planted a “crack mix” (developed by Taylor, Jonas Spring, and Sam Benvie) of 15 species such as goldenrod and chicory. Says Taylor, “these plants are hardy and will survive in compromised urban spaces.” Crucially, these plants can take car, bike, and foot traffic.

Up Front: Information on the Ground

Already, after just one short growing season, the central puncture in the laneway is showing signs of life. “Over time, there will be more and more seed migration into the crack,” notes Taylor, “and more spontaneous germination.” But just as important for Taylor as the increased biodiversity of plant life is the enhanced water infiltration. The city regraded the laneway, slightly, so that rainwater and runoff from the garages flows naturally into the central planting. (The long-term goal is to install rain barrels on the garage downspouts.) It is this water-diversion aspect of the project that most excites Taylor: “The functional benefits of channelling rainwater away from the overburdened municipal infrastructure is key.” Filtered through the planting, any water flowing in the laneway now recharges groundwater rather than filling up catch basins.

Taylor, who has much experience working with community groups, attributes some of the success of the project to involving neighbours early on in the process. “You can’t do things like this alone. The more you get stakeholders involved, the better.” She emphasizes the need to make planting events fun and celebratory: “Even a construction site can be a party!” Likewise, clear lines of responsibility are important; for example, laneway neighbours committed to a watering schedule due to the fact that the planting was done during a particularly entrenched drought. Perhaps the biggest conceptual shift that this laneway project encourages relates to the plants themselves. “We’ve taken plants that are historically considered to be weeds, and we’ve used them in a public planting that is designed to be beautiful and that will provide habitat for pollinators,” says Taylor. In other words, with elegant simplicity, a colonized crack in an out-of-the-way place becomes a small beacon of sustainability. Scaled up in laneways throughout cities, the impact could be huge. Text by Lorraine Johnson, editor of Ground.

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The laneway puncture pilot project in a Toronto laneway is a design intervention to re-strategize the existing flow of rainwater into the central drainage channel of the laneway. By taking advantage of existing grading the project enhances water infiltration and increases opportunities for biodiversity and habitat through seed germination and spontaneous seed colonization.

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Victoria Taylor

TO view additional content for this article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

Up Front

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04 INVASIVE SPECIES

ontario’s new legislation On November 3, 2016, the province of Ontario became the only jurisdiction in Canada to enact standalone invasive species legislation, when the Invasive Species Act came into force. Invasive species are causing significant harm to our natural areas—the forests, prairies, wetlands, and lakes that provide many ecosystem services, including food and shelter for wildlife. Invasive species degrade these areas and monopolize resources such as light and nutrients that native plants and animals require to grow, thus impacting the intricate linkages that make ecosystems strong and resilient. Studies show that when invasive plants take over an area, they reduce food sources such as moths and other insects that animals such as songbirds depend on. The Invasive Species Act is a significant step in Ontario’s on-going efforts to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species. The intent of the Act is to provide an enabling

legislative framework to better prevent, detect, respond to, and, where feasible, eradicate invasive species. It also will promote a shared accountability (between the government, landowners, and the public) for managing invasive species and uses a risk-based assessment approach to determine which species are likely to be the most harmful to Ontario.

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Garden plants such as periwinkle can invade natural areas and outcompete native species.

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Hayley Anderson

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Japanese knotweed can invade—and degrade—riparian zones.

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Ken Towle

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Garlic mustard removal and management is a major task in Ontario’s natural areas.

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Courtesy of Ontario Invasive Plant Council

Up Front

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However, the Ontario Invasive Plant Council (OIPC), like many other stakeholders, has some concerns regarding the proposed regulations under the Act, and also some suggestions on how the Act could be improved. The government’s risk-based assessment approach will determine which species should be listed as either prohibited or restricted. Prohibited species are essentially banned in Ontario—no person shall bring them into the province, possess, transport, propagate, buy, sell, lease, or trade prohibited species. (Species proposed thus far include water soldier, water chestnut, hydrilla, and some fish and animals.) For restricted species, no person shall bring them into provincial parks and conservation reserves, or deposit or release them in Ontario; species proposed thus far include dog-strangling vine, phragmites, and Japanese knotweed.

the Act. It is important that the MNRF communicate with these organizations as soon and as much as possible about how the Act may impact them.

water lettuce, water hyacinth, and parrotfeather. The OIPC recognizes that it’s important to protect our economy and support those working in a related industry, but certain high-risk species being managed for their economic value should not be completely disregarded.

Unfortunately, the risk-assessment process described by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) will not consider species currently sold or traded or species that are generally present in Ontario. This raises some concerns, as many invasive plants currently sold in Ontario have demonstrated highly invasive characteristics. Some of these species include periwinkle, goutweed, lily of the valley, and Norway maple. Aquatic horticultural invasive plants are of special concern because of the damage they can cause to our waterways. Some of the aquatic invasive plants being sold in Ontario include

When any new Act comes into force, one question always asked is the level of enforcement that will be put in place to ensure the Act and its regulations are being followed. The Act itself is strong and has potential to significantly reduce the spread of invasive species. However, if no additional resources are provided for enforcement or to support others who may be able to assist with enforcement, its effectiveness will be significantly reduced. It seems that municipalities and conservation authorities are often the first line of defence against concerns and questions from the public. There is no clear indication as to what support conservation authorities and municipalities will receive, if any. The MNRF needs to work more closely with municipalities and conservation authorities to further identify what they can do in their own communities to support and complement 07

Despite the above, there are some strong aspects of the Act. It is positive to see many species listed as prohibited that aren’t found in Ontario yet, to reduce the chance of them becoming established in Ontario. If we can prevent invasion, we will save a lot of time and resources in the long run. The Act also gives officials broad flexibility to regulate pathways of invasions, such as boating and trade. The MNRF has also recently emphasized that they want to continue to work closely with stakeholders, including nonprofit organizations such as the OIPC, so we can provide advice on listing species and possibly assist in creating regional management plans to target certain invasive plants causing significant impacts across various communities. The OIPC applauds the Ontario government for passing the Act and fully supports it. We intend to work closely with the MNRF where possible to support them in implementing it. Text by Kellie Sherman, Coordinator of the Ontario Invasive Plant Council.

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Pesticides are sometimes used to control invasive species.

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Courtesy of Credit Valley Conservation

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Dog-strangling vine in Orono, Ontario

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Ken Towle

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Wild parsnip can cause injury to humans as well as to natural areas.

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Theodore Webster

Harvesting What We Sow

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Harvesting What We Sow

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02 Text by Sheila Boudreau, OALA, and Bonnie McElhinny

The Pickering Airport Lands are a haunted, and haunting, landscape of bulldozed hedgerows, razed barns, ghost houses, and partly excavated First Nations towns. They are like a place caught in time, caught in an administrative limbo. For farmers in the area, some with ancestors who settled in the early to mid-1800s, the crisis began in 1972 when the government of Canada announced it would expropriate 7,530 hectares of land in Markham, North Pickering, and Uxbridge, most of it with prime Class 1 agricultural soils, for an international airport. The project was put on hold three years later. Tom Mohr of the Ontario Archaeological Society notes that under what was then a newly passed Ontario Heritage Act, rescue excavations were conducted in 1975 and 1978, documenting a Wendat town from the 1400s, which would have housed some 2,000 individuals in approximately 35 longhouses, surrounded by palisaded walls. In the 38 years following the 1972 expropriation, the Pickering Airport Lands became an oddly empty space, occupied, but not fully, and not widely, known. The advocacy group Land over Landings says that a business plan for the airport has never been publicly shared. In 2013, in the interest of expanding the Rouge National Urban Park, the only national urban park in

Canada, 2,023 hectares were transferred to Parks Canada. An additional 2,104 hectares were committed in 2015 to the park, the mandate of which is to support nature, culture (including and especially Indigenous histories and contemporary cultural and ceremonial practices), and agriculture. Helene Iardas, OALA, a landscape architect who works for the City of Toronto, recalls fondly how her parents “immigrated from Europe, excited about their new life and an opportunity to own and farm land.” They purchased their property in Green River in the early 1960s, and successfully grew strawberries, as well as annuals of such high quality they were planted in the famed civic gardens lining University Avenue in Toronto. Iardas’ formative years were spent on their farm near the Rouge River until the land was expropriated. Both she and her sister entered the urban planning field, likely due to the trauma of this experience. Looking back, Iardas sees the expropriation as similar to the “slum clearance” approach decimating communities in the U.S. She recalls that the proposed airport was seen by some as an opportunity for economic prosperity, which divided the community squarely against those who were emotionally rooted in the lands—generations of farmers proud of the accomplishments of their ancestors. Some families decided to remain and farm—but on the government’s

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Rouge River

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Sheila Boudreau

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Poet Maureen Scott Harris did a reading during the October 2016 tour of the Pickering Airport Lands, organized by Sandra Campbell.

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Sheila Boudreau

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Rouge National Urban Park

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Sheila Boudreau

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Sandra Campbell, organizer of the October 2016 tour of the Pickering Airport Lands

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Sheila Boudreau

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terms, with cash crops and annual leases. This was viewed as an unsustainable approach and a necessary evil, fabricated to deal with absentee government landownership issues and the uncertain future of the lands themselves.

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Tapscott Farm corn harvest

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Sheila Boudreau

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Rouge National Urban Park

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Sheila Boudreau

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Land over Landings sign at the Robertson Farm

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Sheila Boudreau

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Lunch at the Robertson Farm during the October, 2016, tour

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Bonnie McElhinny

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Rouge River

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Sheila Boudreau

While some local trade associations and developers associate prosperity with airport development, residential development, and the jobs they associate with this, others, including some local MPs responding to constituent mandates and activist organizations such as Land over Landings, are trying to tell new stories about economic prosperity that pivot around a range of uses for primary agricultural land. The literary critic Philip Round has written, “Without stories, a landscape is just so much rocks and sand and gravel, so many board feet. The same is true of us. Without stories, we ourselves are incomplete, on the land, not of it.” Some of the new stories focus on establishing the lands as a food hub, featuring organic farms, micro-farms and incubator farms, establishing agricultural research and educational facilities, and also generating tourism through walking, cycling and driving tours, culinary tours of local restaurants, bakeries, breweries, and pubs. These stories are also about connecting Lake Ontario to the local (North Durham) aquifer, preserving the watersheds of the Rouge River and Duffins Creek, and ensuring these rivers do not become,

like so many others in Toronto, buried or channelled by concrete—living rather than “lost” rivers. Sandra Campbell, who lived in the area when she wrote The Movable Airport in 1973, organized a unique bus tour of the area, held on October 15, 2016. The sunny fall day began with a welcome fire ceremony held by Mohawk healer and leader Cindy White/Kawennanoron, followed by music, dance, poetry, and local food. Campbell writes that caring about the land relies on affection, and affection hinges on familiarity; artists, she argues, are those best able to engage hearts and minds in ways that enable us to sew anew. A booklet shared on the tour, Abundance: A Harvest of Texts for the Pickering Lands, contains 14 poems about water and land by poets Maureen Hynes, Maureen Scott Harris, Mary Ruttan Matthews, and Nicholas Power. During the tour, we listened to the poems, and danced on the lands, through the dying goldenrod and the vibrant asters, across the rusty bridge over the Rouge. As Iardas mused, “There’s a loss of connection to everything that came before.” There are yet other stories still to be told, by other, original inhabitants. Iardas recalls her mother’s treasured collection of Native American arrowheads, grinding stones, and unidentified round tools found whenever their fields were cultivated. She

Harvesting What We Sow noted that the Pickering Museum has interesting information on the rich cultural and environmental inventories of the area. The standards for archaeological excavations, for preservation of cultural landscapes and protection of ossuaries (or burial grounds), and for consultation with First Nations communities have changed since the 1970s. The most recent report on the Pickering Airport Lands incorporates consultations with two of the ten First Nations that may have a stake in the site. There are continuing questions about the implications of an airport for the archaeological sites, for environmental offsets, and for economic relationships with First Nations. This sense of meaningful connection and deep-rooted obligation to care for the land—from First Nations, from other former and current inhabitants, from poets and

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dancers and other artists—goes beyond what can ever be conveyed on a land-use planning map, where property lines are drawn with colours denoting in simple, abstract, and often mutually exclusive terms urban, agricultural, or natural heritage areas. Given growing concerns over climate change and food security, one has to question the wisdom of developing an airport in this area, and who, really, would be the best stewards of the Pickering Lands. For many, this is not a question at all, but a matter of advocating for sound decisionmaking by the federal government, in keeping with its own climate change and infrastructure strategies that emphasize economic development with green infrastructure. Meanwhile, the fate of the remaining 3,884 hectares of unprotected Pickering Lands still held by Transport Canada, clearly with ties to First Nations peoples, remains unknown.

Note: On November 28, 2016, the Minister of Transport released the Report of the Independent Advisor on the Economic Development of the Pickering Lands, which reports on consultations with business, government, conservation, agricultural, aviation interests, as well as with First Nations. The report is available at: http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/ontario/ report-pickering-lands.html. BIOs/ Sheila Boudreau, OALA, is a landscape architect and urban designer at the City of Toronto with more than twenty years of professional experience in both the public and private sectors. She represents the OALA on the Green Infrastructure Ontario Coalition Steering Committee, and acts as an advisor for Ryerson urban water courses related to blue/green infrastructure.

Bonnie McElhinny is an associate professor of anthropology and women and gender studies at the University of Toronto. She teaches courses and does research on water, anti-racist, feminist, and de-colonial approaches to place, migration and multi- culturalism, and language and social justice. Her most recent co-edited book is Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility.

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Thanks to everyone who responded to our e-blast requesting your thoughts and/or experiences with drone technology and how it relates to your work. We asked if you’d used drones for promotional purposes (for example, for after shots or flyovers), habitat identification, environmental assessments, research, or any other reason. We also asked for your thoughts on the future usefulness of drone technology and how it might relate to your practice. In the following pages are the responses we received.

Compiled by Lorraine Johnson

NOTE: According to Transport Canada, in order to use an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) for any kind of work or research, you must hold a Special Flight Operations Certificate (SFOC). This applies to all UAVs used for anything but the fun of flying, no matter how much they weigh. For more information, see www.tc.gc.ca

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Earthscape has just begun to use drones for promotional purposes to photograph playgrounds after completion. Drones allow for a perspective that cannot be shown otherwise, except in the 3D design phase. —Alex Waffle, MLA, Earthscape, a custom playground design-build firm 01-03/

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Batawa Natural Playground in Quinte West, Ontario Courtesy of Earthscape

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Gateman-Milloy Inc. has started to use drone technology for flyovers of our larger projects. For example, progress on Henderson Memorial Park in Bradford, Ontario, which is a 20-hectare site currently under construction, is difficult to track using traditional photo records. A monthly flyover can provide all parties involved with the project, including the client and consultant, an efficient and detailed view of the work. This includes visual perspectives of land-forming, surface treatments, and structures. At completion, the resulting footage comprising approximately 12 months of consecutive progress will be stitched and used for marketing. —Mike Dawson, Lead Project Manager— Site Development and Landscape Construction, Gateman-Milloy Inc.

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Henderson Memorial Park in Bradford, Ontario Henry Baillie-Brown

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Aerial orthomosaic at 90m. Multi-spectral variety: Near-Infrared, Visible, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) Tim O’Brien

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Digital model of site, enlarged

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By now, people understand that drones aren’t just a fad for hobbyists, but rather are a common tool for an increasing number of useful applications in private, public, and educational realms. My first experience with drones was when I chose to investigate their potential value to landscape architecture through environmental mapping for my Master’s thesis.

Tim O’Brien

What I was interested in looking at was potential opportunities for drone technology to assist environmental understanding beyond the production of basic aerial imagery. I conducted a comparative study between three methods of investigating a small wetland landscape—two of which were conventional. The methods were ground-level field surveying, drone-facilitated mapping using multi-spectral cameras and digital modeling software, and analysis of commercial satellite imagery.

The drone-facilitated method afforded several benefits; three-dimensional models of the landscape were generated and were able to be manipulated, relative vegetativehealth maps were developed, and real-time high-resolution imagery was simultaneously collected. The study exposed an opportunity for drone technology to support traditional methods of environmental mapping by offering an affordable, convenient, and precise technology. My study merely scratched the surface of this potential, but proved that there is value for landscape architects, both for educational purposes and professional applications. The technology can be intimidating, but I encourage all students and professionals to embrace it as I did, and to explore the seemingly endless possibilities for which we can pair this technology with our knowledge of the landscape to better our world. The experience will surely be a positive one, too. —Tim O’Brien, OALA, IBI Group

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Our firm, Scott Torrance Landscape Architect, a division of FORREC Ltd., recently used drone technology by The Sky Guys to photograph some of our work at the Scarborough Centre Public Library and Civic Centre. We designed the 1,550m2 biodiverse green roof for the library, the streetscape, and Civic Green, connecting the library and civic centre. As the green roofs were not accessible by foot, drone photography was an ideal way to capture views of the finished green roofs and an overview of the entire site. Capturing the project from above enabled us to show the integration between architecture and landscape. Our firm designs quite a few green roofs, so we would likely continue to use drone technology to obtain promotional photographs that complement images taken at ground level by our regular photographers. —Tina Tassiopoulos, Business Development Coordinator, FORREC/Scott Torrance Landscape Architect 11/

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Panoramic view of the green roof at the Scarborough Centre Public Library and Civic Centre Courtesy of Scott Torrance Landscape Architect Ortho-aerial photograph of a VicDom property taken by drone flyover; the drone also collected detailed topographical information, which was used for the site plan required by the Aggregate Resources Act for extraction. GeoOptic Client drawing combined with image captured by drone

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Courtesy of SnowLarc Landscape Architecture Ltd.

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Elgin Mills Estate Lots

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Courtesy of SnowLarc Landscape Architecture Ltd.

At Skelton Brumwell, we use drones to collect topographic data for our aggregate clients. We have used both rotary and fixed-wing type drones on different sites and both were capable of producing accurate information. Drones are proving to be a very attractive alternative to on-ground survey teams and aerial surveys conducted with light aircraft. We have found that drones often outprice the competition substantially because of the efficiency of information-collection by the machines. After the site has been flown, a detailed digital elevation model is produced in metre-by-metre grid intervals on the ground. Typically, for an existing features inventory we opt for 3-to-5-metre spacing grids because the data generated by the larger grid interval is more manageable yet still very accurate. At this level of detail, we can create quite accurate Aggregate Resource Act site plans and calculate extractable volumes of material for clients. As an additional benefit, drone survey records a high-resolution, georeferenced aerial photo for use in CAD 3D models. These aerial photos are of significant value to clients who are licenced and completing Compliance Assessment Reports for their pit or quarry because it effectively delineates the disturbed area, as well as the extent of progressive rehabilitation. Volumes of remaining and stockpiled material can also be calculated from topographic information created. The reverse is also possible; we have used drones to survey existing pits and quarries for prospective fill projects to calculate volumes. —Landon Black, Skelton Brumwell

I have my limits, we all do. Mine is height— the fear of, to be more accurate. I remember James Melvin, OALA, taking the entire team at PMA up to the viewing platform at Mississauga City Hall. As I stood five cautious feet back from the railing I began to grasp how incredible it can be to see a project from the air, and understand its relationship to its surroundings, and see firsthand as plan views come to life. Luckily for me, today’s technology allows me that same bird’s-eye view with both feet firmly planted on the ground. At my office, we use drones as part of our initial reviews and to gather high-quality visual data to communicate master plan ideas to clients. Drones provide a fantastic vantage point from which to discover otherwise invisible cavities in trees, and they capture fantastic images for promotional material. As a business owner using drone imagery for commercial purposes, hiring a certified drone pilot makes the most sense. I don’t need to worry about maintaining expensive equipment, plus I always have access to the latest technology. This approach also provides peace of mind, giving me access to this unique perspective, while operating within the confines of Transport Canada’s regulations. —Stephanie Snow, OALA, SnowLarc Landscape Architecture Ltd.

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We specialize in green roofs and have had drones photograph our finished work. This technology is excellent at capturing aerial perspectives at an affordable price point. Before drones, the only way to get these sorts of pictures was with a helicopter, which wasn’t feasible in urban areas. To view pictures of our green roofs taken by a drone, please visit the following link: http://vertla.com/green-roof-service/ green-roofs/. —Jason Rokosh, OALA, Principal Landscape Architect, Vertical Landscape Architects Inc.

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We use drones for aerial photos and siting. And we are also using LIDAR [Light Detection and Ranging, a remote sensing method] surveying on very rocky sites. Amazing technology. —Virginia Burt, OALA, Virginia Burt Designs

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LIDAR scanning of a large Muskoka rock outcrop enabled both architect Peter Rose + Partners and Virginia Burt Designs Landscape Architects to review site conditions at a much more detailed scale than a traditional survey. Accuracy is to 1/8”.

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Toronto green roof designed by Fox Whyte Landscape Architecture & Design; green roof contractor Vertical Landscape Architects Inc.

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Scanning by Tulloch Engineering

Bob Gundu, 10 Frame Handles

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Drones and Design Eric Gordon, OALA, interviews Bill Gurney, OALA, senior design manager at New Line Skateparks

Drones (non-military, multi-propeller, computer-stabilized, radio-controlled aircraft that can carry and operate small payloads such as a camera) are an increasingly familiar sight in our skies today, and are now servicing landscape architects in new, exciting ways [see pages 10-15 in this issue]. Drone technology has advanced a long way from its origins in Nicola Tesla’s radio-controlled vehicle patent in 1898, to the everyday toys and tools that can be purchased at your local RadioShack. In particular, the last few years have seen a steep rise in civilian recreational use of drones, with an estimated one million sold in the 2015 holiday season in the United States alone. Mostly, drones are now known as unique tools for photographers and videographers to capture aerial footage of increasingly spectacular quality. One of the most attractive qualities of drones is how easily they can be fitted out to perform a multitude of tasks, including: biological

and geological sample collections, wildlife management, crop inspection, and even livestock herding, just to name a few. Many of the tasks previously done at great expense by helicopters or airplanes are now being performed by drones. This unprecedented, affordable access to the sky is being exploited by landscape architects and affiliated professionals to gather all sorts of aerial data. We spoke with Bill Gurney, OALA, senior design manager at New Line Skateparks, about how he has been using drones, and what he thinks of their integration into our profession. Eric Gordon (EG): In what way do you use drones at New Line Skateparks? Bill Gurney (BG): To date, we have used drones basically for photography and filming of in-progress construction work or finished construction work. EG: Is that something you do for your own marketing purposes, or as a service for your client’s use? BG: It’s for our own documentation records, as well as presentation materials. It would apply to our marketing efforts or any other reasons

we might be putting a proposal together, or for public presentations. Interestingly enough, just last week, a client of ours sent a drone photograph of our recent park in St. Thomas, Ontario. It was the client who sent that photo to us. EG: So, you’re getting feedback by drone as well! BG: Well, our client was excited enough to source and share that photo with us, where more often than not, it is something that we would acquire and share with our client. EG: What application of drone technology are you excited about or hoping will be further developed? BG: Firms that offer services you can use!

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3D terrain generated from a drone-mounted photogrammetry survey on a 6-acre property

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Site in St. Thomas, Ontario

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METTKO Site in Fort Worth, Texas Jeff Bower 3D terrain generated from a drone- mounted photogrammetry survey on a 6-acre property Eric Gordon

Is there any expectation that you would get any kind of different information that you are not already able to get by survey? EG: Would you say that it’s not so much about the content of the data as it is about the ease, speed, or cost of gathering it? BG: Exactly. Are we getting any different information or are we just getting the same information in a different way by a different method?

EG: What do you think the implications will be for professional surveyors if the data they are currently collecting can soon be collected at the same level of quality in an hour by a series of drone photos and an algorithm? BG: I think surveyors have had to keep pace with the times in the past, and will do so again. They adapted to incorporate new technology into their services before, and the drone may just be another tool for them. In the end, these sorts of technologies tend to require a person to interpret the data anyhow, and that could still be the surveyor.

At this point, I have not had any experience using drones for data collection. Specifically, I was asked by our recent client if I have had any experience with drones providing survey information; but no, I haven’t. If there’s investment in that technology and service firms that are going to provide that, I can see it having tons of applications—a few limitations, but tons of applications, as well. EG: I recently encountered one of those limitations when experimenting with a company offering a 3D drone survey using photogrammetry (gathering 3D data from aerial photos). Mine was one of their first projects, and unfortunately in the end the model’s accuracy was very poor and we had to abandon the effort. They subsequently abandoned their service, which was very disappointing as they seemed so close to offering a wonderful service.

As the quality or accuracy of these applications improve, do you see them replacing any of your current practices?

EG: It’s nice to think there will be a place for us humans in the robotic future…

BG: From a photography and filming aspect, I think there are many applications, and everything is working great right now. It offers you that whole perspective of photography that you don’t usually get, and it’s really informative that way. That’s where my expectation would be in terms of the best application at this point. When I think ahead to these data-collection opportunities, I wouldn’t say I’m skeptical… the question I have is: what data are you going to collect from a drone aerial survey that isn’t data you are already getting by a different means?

BG: Ha! I guess I don’t see drone technology as being very revolutionary in that way. BIOs/ Eric Gordon, OALA, is principal and designer at Optimicity and a member of the Ground Editorial Board.

Bill Gurney, OALA, is senior design manager at New Line Skateparks.

We’re all trying to get a digital topographic relief. You can get that by a conventional survey, and you may or may not be able to get it from a drone more quickly or more efficiently. 05

Pathways

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On Indigenous Landscapes in Toronto Text by Jon Johnson

Pathways

I have often heard Toronto described as a “young city.” Indeed, the age of the EuroCanadian city is only a bit older than 200 years. However, this represents just a tiny fraction (about 1.5 percent) of the area’s vast Indigenous heritage, which extends at least as far back as the end of the last Ice Age more than 13,000 years ago and which is still unfolding in the present. Undeniably, the growth and development of the colonial city over those 200 years has led to dramatic changes in the landscape, changes that have too often muted rather than amplified the city’s significant Indigenous heritage. Yet the Indigenous heritage of Toronto is still evident in the urban landscape, and significant swaths of the city’s contemporary form have been shaped by millennia of land-based Indigenous Knowledge and accomplishment. The ancestors, stories, and place names of the Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Anishinaabe peoples who have each called Toronto their traditional territory still permeate the land and whisper their lessons to those who pay attention.

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Toronto, for instance, is commonly understood to be a Wendat or Haudenosaunee term that translates to “where the trees are standing in the water.” The term refers to a fishing weir, a blockade of stakes constructed across a narrow waterway used to catch fish. A French map from 1688 labels what is now Lake Simcoe as “Lac Taronto.” On the same map is noted “Les Piquets,” which refers to the presence of a fishing weir located at the Narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching. Remnants of the fishing weir, which has been dated to about 5,000 years old, can still be found underwater at the Narrows today. The fishing weir was also used as a meeting place by the Wendat, where they would trade and discuss important matters with diverse Indigenous others. Anishinaabe peoples, who were allies of the Wendat, also used the fishing weir as a fishing and meeting place and still meet at the weir today. The use of the weir as a meeting place for diverse Indigenous nations may be the reason why Toronto has also been commonly interpreted to mean “meeting place.” Historians tend to eschew

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Oil painting by George Agnew Reid (1860-1947), “The Short Portage—The Carrying Place, La Salle on the way over the Humber River to the Holland River and on to Lake Simcoe”; the Carrying Place routes and other trails facilitated a large amount of trade and movement throughout Southern Ontario, both by First Nations people and by colonizers. Archives of Ontario

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the interpretation of Toronto as “meeting place,” but it is important to note that this interpretation is still resonant among many of the city’s Indigenous residents. The fishing weir at the Narrows was connected to Lake Ontario (an anglicized version of a Haudenosaunee term that translates to “beautiful/handsome lake”) by three important portage routes that ran along the Humber, Don, and Rouge rivers and eventually met up at Holland Landing, just south of Lake Simcoe. From there, trails followed rivers, shorelines, and other natural features to Nottawasaga Bay and Georgian Bay and joined up with other routes to the north, east, and west. Collectively, the trails that connected Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario were known as the Toronto Carrying Place portage, and they facilitated a large amount of trade and movement through Southern Ontario. It is commonly understood that the French explorer Etienne Brulé was brought down the Humber branch of the Carrying Place trail by his Wendat guides in 1615, which would make him the first European to see the north shore of Lake Ontario. It is likely that these routes also eventually brought the name Toronto to the north shore of Lake Ontario.

The Toronto Carrying Place trails continued to be important during the post-contact period, particularly during the early fur trade. The Toronto Carrying Place routes facilitated the Wendat’s ability to establish themselves as middle-men in the fur trade between the French and other Indigenous nations. In the mid-17th century, the Haudenosaunee pushed into the area in large part due to the area’s strategic importance in the fur trade. After they had ousted the Wendat from the area, the Seneca established villages along the Humber and Rouge rivers—the western and eastern branches of the Toronto Carrying Place—to take full advantage of these routes. Toward the end of the 17th century, the Haudenosaunee were themselves pushed out of the Toronto area by Anishinaabe nations allied with the Wendat, and the Mississaugas thereafter established villages along the Carrying Place trails and elsewhere. The first European buildings erected in the Toronto area were French fur-trading forts along the Humber River; the first was called Magasin Royale at what is now the community of Baby Point, and the second was called Fort Toronto and was located farther south along the Humber Carrying Place trail at what is now a Petro-Canada station along

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Carrying Place plaque along a City of Toronto Discovery Walk at South Kingsway Zhebing Chen Map of the Toronto Purchase, a disputed exchange between the Mississaugas of the New Credit and the British crown regarding lands in the Toronto area City of Toronto Archives

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The relationship between these savannas and Indigenous trails is not coincidental. The savanna areas were easy to move through and were rich in abundance of game, fowl, and medicinal plants that were important to the Indigenous peoples who lived in the area. Indigenous peoples thus engaged in controlled burning, a practice for managing and expanding savannas in the Toronto area and elsewhere in the region. One of the Mississauga names for the Don River was Wonsotonach, which has been interpreted to refer to a place swept by fire, perhaps in direct reference to the practice of controlled burns along the river. The savannas of Toronto, along with much of the rest of Southern Ontario, are Indigenous ecosystems.

Carrying Place plaque Zhebing Chen The site of Fort Toronto, the second European building erected in the Toronto area, along the Humber Carrying Place trail, is now a gas station on the South Kingsway. Zhebing Chen

now Dundas Street and Bloor Street, and headed toward the west end of Lake Ontario and beyond. In the downtown area, Davenport Road still follows the base of the bluff rather than the Cartesian grid of the majority of Toronto’s planned streets.

the South Kingsway. It is these trails and their importance to Indigenous peoples that led to European interest in the area and the eventual establishment of the settlement of York. The north-south Toronto Carrying Place trails were also cross-cut by east-west trails in the Toronto region. Perhaps the most prominent of these east-west trails was the trail that ran along the base of a bluff that once formed the shoreline of the ancient post-glacial Lake Iroquois. This trail was known, mapped, and used by early European settlers, who eventually expanded the trail into what is now known as Davenport Road. To the east, this trail crossed the Don River near what is now Bloor Street and led to the east end of Lake Ontario. To the west, it likely crossed the Humber River at two points, near what are

Although much of Toronto was thickly forested, the Carrying Place routes and other trails ran through significant swaths of savanna that punctuated the denser forested areas. Perhaps the biggest savanna in the region began at the mouth of the Humber River and continued all the way up to around Lawrence Avenue. The Humber River trail ran right through the middle of it. Other large savannas were located at what are now the Beaches area and Rouge Park. The Davenport trail ran through the Beaches savanna east of the Don River, while the Rouge River portage ran northward through the Rouge Park savanna. A relatively smaller fourth savanna was located at what is now the Rosedale and Deer Park areas to the west of the Don River. The Don River portage went through the Deer Park savanna. The area of Deer Park was called Mashquoteh by the Mississaugas, which is an Anishinaabemowin word describing a meadow or prairie environment.

European settlement in the area led to the suppression of fire, and the savanna lands were subsequently developed or allowed to grow over into forest. However, some of the original Humber savanna still survives in High Park, Lambton Park, and South Humber Park. The savanna in High Park is currently being revitalized by park staff through the reinstitution of controlled burns. The expansion of the city may have dramatically altered the pre-colonial landscape of Toronto, but the legacy of millennia of Indigenous land-based engagement is still visible in the form and function of the urban landscape. Despite land surrenders and other colonial strategies to remove Indigenous people from European settlements, Indigenous people have continuously lived in, visited, and traveled through the Toronto area up to the present. Some estimates suggest there are about 70,000 Indigenous people now living in the Toronto area. The best maps available for Toronto’s rich Indigenous land-based legacy are the stories that Indigenous people still tell of Toronto. BIO/

Jon Johnson, PhD, is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University and an organizing member of First Story Toronto, an organization that, since 1995, has been engaged in researching and preserving the Indigenous history of Toronto through tours, mapping, and many other initiatives.

Data-Driven Design

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Research into Green Roof Performance Text by Liat Margolis

Data-Driven Design

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For landscape-based technologies that are in constant interaction with a range of biotic (e.g., pollination) and abiotic (e.g., climate) systems, it is essential that design guidelines and performance benchmarks emerge from an understanding of the local environment. In other words, empirical research and post-construction evaluation undertaken in distinct climate and ecological regions will help to generate the quantitative data necessary to develop more nuanced and locally relevant policies and practices. Secondly, it is essential that discrete categories of performance, such as water capture, thermal cooling, air quality, plant growth, and biodiverse habitat, are simultaneously evaluated and compared to identify overlaps, potential synergies, or even conflicts.

Environmental performance is increasingly becoming a yardstick by which contemporary built landscapes are measured for their success. However, research shows that in some cases a gap exists between intended and actual performance, which points to the importance of having continuous monitoring capabilities, integrated data acquisition systems, and feedback processes throughout the design phase and lifetime of a project.

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Green roof technology has become an important component of green building standards due to the environmental benefits they provide, including mitigation of stormwater runoff into sewers, urban heat island effect, and habitat fragmentation. Motivated by

The University of Toronto Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory (GRIT Lab) is an experimental setup collecting green roof performance data on the roof of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Courtesy of GRIT Lab

such potential benefits, in 2009 Toronto adopted a green roof bylaw, which requires the installation of green roofs on new buildings greater than 2,000 square metres. Although such legislation represents great progress for sustainable city building, it is important to note that at the time of its launch, only a few empirical studies were conducted in the region to offer a critical evaluation of the bylaw’s recommendations and requirements. In fact, studies worldwide have found that not all green roofs are made equal, and the performance metrics of green roofs are greatly influenced by local environmental conditions and choice of growing media composition, depth, planting, the use of supplemental irrigation, and other factors. Starting in 2010, the University of Toronto Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory (GRIT Lab) constructed an experimental setup on the rooftop of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design to continuously monitor a number of green roof systems configured in accordance with the Toronto Green Roof Construction Standards. The experiment focused on four performance categories—stormwater capture, thermal cooling, vegetative cover, and biodiversity habitat (with a focus on pollinators)—and four design parameters: growing media composition (mineral vs. wood-based compost), depth (10cm vs. 15cm), planting (Sedum vs. grasses and herbaceous flower-

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ing plants), and irrigation (none; automated; on-demand, using soil moisture sensors). The overarching objective was to determine which design factors are most significant to the above performance categories. The GRIT Lab research facility includes 33 test modules, 24 of which were relevant to this experiment. Each bed was instrumented with an array of sensors that record temperature, soil moisture, and water discharge. Measurements were recorded every five minutes and then compared to the onsite weather station data consisting of solar radiation, temperature, rainfall, humidity, and wind. In addition to the automated collection of data via sensors, plant cover, density, and canopy height (biomass) were manually recorded throughout the growing season, from May to September. Several key findings highlight the necessity of re-examining green roof practices in Toronto. First, the biologically derived growing media (with a large proportion of wood-based compost) exceeded the mineral-based media (with a low percentage of organic matter) in water capture, thermal cooling, and sustaining plant cover and diversity. It also proved to be significantly more effective for water capture than the mineral media particularly when pre-wet (whether through irrigation or due to a prior rain event). As intended, the grass and herbaceous planting sustained its growth over the past five years in the biologically derived media, much more so than in the mineral media.

The difference between the Sedum and grass and herbaceous planting was quite apparent: Sedum maintained its cover regardless of the growing conditions, which explains why it has been the plant of choice for construction standards, while the grass and herbaceous planting is highly dependent, first, on irrigation and, secondly, on the choice of media. That said, a notable finding was the relation between planting and pollinators: the Sedum provided greater habitat for non-native bees, and the grass and herbaceous plants attracted both native and non-native bees. Given Toronto’s ambitions to increase native wild bee populations, the choice of planting becomes an important issue. Irrigation proved to be a significant factor for all three performance criteria—water, temperature, and plant growth. While irrigation is the most significant negative factor for water capture, reducing capacity by as much as 20 percent, it was a positive factor for increasing thermal cooling and for maintaining plant growth and diversity. In fact, some of the non-irrigated grass and herbaceous test modules have lost up to 100 percent of their cover, which also led to the loss of growing

media due to wind erosion. Comparing the three studies side by side allowed our research team to recognize an obvious conflict: supplemental irrigation reduced waterretention capacity but increased thermal cooling, vegetative cover, and biodiversity. However, since Toronto’s green roof bylaw is intended for new construction, which in most cases will include the installation of a rainwater cistern, there are opportunities to synergistically design the two technologies as a closed-loop system, achieving water conservation, runoff reduction, thermal cooling, and a robust biodiverse planting to support native pollinator habitat. That being said, additional studies are needed to determine the optimal sizing of both technologies and the potential reduction of waterborne pollutants via green roofs. This will serve as one of the primary inquiries in the upcoming GRIT Lab research facility on the new Daniels Faculty building at 1 Spadina Crescent in 2017.

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A rendering of the GRIT Lab roof

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Courtesy of GRIT Lab GRIT Lab sensor wiring Courtesy of GRIT Lab

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The specifics of green roof configuration, when multiplied across a city region, can make a tremendous difference in the effectiveness of flood reduction and addressing climate change adaptation goals. It can mean the difference between a substantial reduction in surface temperature due to evapotranspiration (with a correlated reduction of urban heat island effect), and the loss of vegetative cover, leaving the exposed growing media to emit as much heat as a black membrane roof. It can also mean the difference between supporting native wild bees or non-native ones. Clearly, many options exist and have yet to be developed for growing media, plant communities, and irrigation techniques. But if the overall goal of green construction is to achieve net-positive designs, it is critical to select materials and maintenance practices that maximize the effectiveness of green roof performance on multiple fronts, while simultaneously minimizing their carbon footprint. BIO/

Liat Margolis is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. She is the director of the Green Roof Innovation Testing Laboratory, which received the 2013 American Society of Landscape Architects Excellence Award in Research.

5 For more details on GRIT Lab research findings, go to http://grit.daniels.utoronto.ca/ contact/peer-reviewed-articles. To explore the time series data on temperature, water, and plant growth, visit the GRIT Lab Performance Index: http://grit.daniels. utoronto.ca/green_roof_image_index.

Acknowledgements The GRIT Lab research discussed above was undertaken by Professors Liat Margolis, Jennifer Drake, and Brent Sleep, Dr. Scott MacIvor and Jenny Hill, with assistance from Benjamin Matthews, Curtis Puncher, and Matthew Perotto. The Performance Index tool was designed by Andrew Hooke, Vincent Javet, and Issac Seah. The research was made possible through grants from the City of Toronto, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Ontario Centres of Excellence, MITACS, RCI Foundation, and Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation, and with support from Tremco Roofing, Bioroof Systems, Flynn, DH Water Management, Scott Torrance Landscape Architect, Toro, Siplast, IRC Group, and the University of Toronto Facilities & Services.

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A meadow bed and infrared radiometer Courtesy of GRIT Lab The GRIT Lab Performance Index allows for comparisons under various scenarios; here, conditions affecting the performance of meadow plantings are shown. Courtesy of GRIT Lab A rendering of the green roof bed layers at the GRIT Lab Courtesy of GRIT Lab A rendering of mast and sensor instrumentation for GRIT Lab data collection Courtesy of GRIT Lab

TO view additional content for this article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

Round Table

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The word “data” conjures up images and projections about technology, surveillance, and performance metrics—factors figuring into our landscape designs more than ever before. Landscape architects research, plan, design, and advise on management for both human and non–human systems, and often also take a broad view of context and issues larger than landscape but informing design nonetheless. When faced with some interesting futuristic scenarios, what tools/processes/ responses might the profession put in place to deal with, among other things: climate change, global distribution of wealth, social justice, food security, artificial intelligence and automation, the future of work, the Internet of Things, etc.? The future is coming and landscape architects will be required. In the spirit of cross-collaboration, our Round Table paired landscape architects with allied professionals to discuss and debate these issues. We presented the panel with various scenarios and time periods, and asked for projections. The result was the following rich and varied conversation, expertly moderated by Christopher Charlesworth of HiveWire.

Are You Ready for the Future?

Moderated by Christopher Charlesworth

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Victoria Bell, MUD, OALA, is a graduate of the University of Guelph in landscape architecture and the University of Toronto in urban design. Her work in the private sector focuses on creating resilient and adaptive spaces for urban sites. She engages community stakeholders and underserviced populations through her work and research examining the influences of cultural traditions and modern infrastructure on shaping interstitial urban spaces. Sheila Boudreau, OALA, is a landscape architect and urban designer in City Planning at the City of Toronto, with more than two decades of professional and private practice experience. She produces city-wide guidelines, standards, and innovative pilot projects, and coordinates various multidisciplinary, multistakeholder groups. She also represents the oala on the Green Infrastructure Ontario Coalition, is on the Toronto Public Health’s Shade Policy Committee, and acts as an advisor to Ryerson Urban Water through supporting research, course work, and special projects. CHRISTOPHER CHARLESWORTH holds an MBA from the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, the University of Toronto, and an Honours Bachelor of political science from the University of Western Ontario. Christopher has worked as a management consultant in Indonesia, Canada, and the United States across several practice areas, including financial services, marketing, and social media. As Co-founder and CEO of HiveWire, Christopher works to create value for clients by applying HiveWire’s crowdfunding tools and techniques to their strategic objectives. Stewart Chisholm is a registered professional planner with the ontario professional planners institute with more than 15 years of experience in community development and engagement. As Manager of Toronto Community Housing’s ReSet program, he works with multiple stakeholders, community organizations, and resident groups across Toronto to transform sites by combining physical renewal with enhanced resident-led programs and services. He has also worked extensively in the non-profit sector where he designed and implemented national urban sustainability programs. He is a regular guest lecturer and has published in peer-reviewed journals. Stewart holds a Master’s degree in regional planning from the University of Waterloo. Steven Pacifico is a sustainability professional with more than 20 years of experience working in the environmental sector with corporations, governments, and NGOs. Steven currently leads Energy Exchange, a division of Pollution Probe, which is dedicated to advancing energy and climate literacy in Canada. Energy Exchange sees energy literacy at the core of a sustainable future for Canada. Steven has also worked for The Delphi

Group; the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Canada; the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association; and the Falls Brook Centre. Steven has a Master of Environmental Studies from York University and a Bachelor of Environmental Sciences from the University of Guelph. Steven regularly guest lectures at universities and colleges throughout Canada. Susan Robertson is a Registered Professional Planner with the Ontario professional planners Institute and a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners. with more than 10 years of experience As an environmental planner, Susan utilizes collaborative approaches for planning projects that focus on watersheds, First Nations, heritage, trails, and civic engagement. With a diverse background in the private, public, and NGO sectors, Susan is the sole practitioner of her consultancy People.Plan. Community., located in the historic Williams Mill, in picturesque Glen Williams. Brendan Stewart, MLA, OALA, CAHP, is an Associate and a landscape architect and heritage planner at ERA Architects Inc. He holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph and a Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. At ERA, Brendan is involved with a number of landscape and urban design projects and initiatives in and around Toronto, as well as projects in Newfoundland, Gothenberg, Sweden, and Edmonton. Often working on significant cultural heritage and postindustrial sites, Brendan brings a keen knowledge and understanding of cultural and design history and cultural landscape theory to his work. He is a director of the not-for-profit Friends of Allan Gardens, a regular guest lecturer, critic, and instructor at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University, and a former editorial board member of Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly. Yvonne Yeung, OALA, graduated from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and is an urban designer, planner, landscape architect, and LEED-accredited professional with a specialty in neighbourhood development. As a Senior Urban Design Planner with the City of Markham, her projects include the Yonge Street Subway Corridor Redevelopment, Buttonville Airport Redevelopment, Langstaff Gateway Urban Growth Centre Redevelopment, Markham Public Realm Strategy and Speaker Series, Markham Bird Friendly Guideline and Implementation, and Markham Public Art Policy Implementation. Yvonne previously worked on numerous award-winning projects with companies including Urban Strategies, The MBTW Group, and HASSELL. she has served on the City of Toronto Public Art Commission Review Panel, the Editorial Board for Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly, and the membership committee for the Urban Land Institute Toronto District Council.

Round Table Christopher Charlesworth (CC): Data is a common thread through each of the topics we’ll be discussing. Data informs the decisions we make collectively. For example, with climate change, every study that comes out shows that our models should be more pessimistic than they are, and, at the same time, gives us tools to understand how to effect change with that data. With social justice, data relates to surveillance capitalism—that is, the use of data in channelling, or monitoring, all of us all of the time (even right now in terms of where we are, with location-based devices, and how that can play a role in either limiting or enhancing social change). Lastly, with the Internet of Things, data has moved into the real world in all of our lives in a much more tangible sense, with devices that are constantly broadcasting a stream of data, giving us new capabilities to project our desires and wants into the world, but, at the same time, coming with new risks and new challenges. So let’s start with climate change. Yvonne or Sheila, I’m wondering if you’d like to kick off the discussion and talk about your personal experience and how that has been reflected in your work with regard to climate change and the tree canopy. Sheila Boudreau (SB): Looking forward— that’s what landscape architects do. When we plant a tree, we’re thinking ahead 150 years already. If we lose ten percent of the tree canopy, how do we deal with that? A lot of my work is about bringing water to trees, blue-green infrastructure, more soil for trees, so that the trees we plant are healthier and can sustain longer lives and multitask for us, cooling the city and so on. Fifteen years is a very short-term retrofit project. My projects are transportation projects, so I’m usually looking at 75 years. If I have a project happening and I don’t get in there and plant trees, I won’t have that opportuntiy again for probably another 50 to 75 years, so you automatically have to think ahead. CC: The latest models are indicating that even if we were to adhere to the Paris Agreements and meet those targets, we would still have only a fifty-fifty chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. What opportunities do landscape architects have to play a role in that, given those time frames?

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SB: We talk a lot about planting trees and numbers of trees, but what we’re not talking about is how to maintain them, take care of them, and be good stewards of them. Trees need to be cared for by all of us; it can’t just be what the city is doing. The best thing we can do is create healthy growing conditions and educate and increase awareness. I see that as the biggest challenge. Steven Pacifico (SP): I can’t do the work that I do unless I feel optimistic about the future. A great capacity of humanity is to be hopeful and resilient in times of scarcity or adversity; we’ve always met the challenge. There will probably be some significant course correction, but I’m fairly optimistic about some of the policies we’re putting in place today. A couple of things that make me even more optimistic are disruptive technologies that can work with nature and create massive carbon sinks that can actually reverse the effects of climate change. Thirty years ago, we could never have imagined carrying a computer in our pockets, and today we have that. A lot can happen in thirty years. SB: We could have trees that tell us they need watering, through bioengineering or sensors. SP: There’s so much potential in biomimicry to use natural systems as models, and the more we study this the more we’re going to realize that we can work within the carrying capacity of the earth. Yvonne Yeung (YY): As designers, we need to be much further ahead than other disciplines so we can dream and also communicate clearly a holistic vision, because a lot of this research and motivation is based on a sense of urgency with a compelling vision for possible solutions. I’m also a planner, and in planning terms fifteen years is short-term planning and twenty-five years is long-term; however, when it comes to environmental planning, we need to be thinking of fifty years and a hundred years ahead. There is already a sense of urgency towards the loss of tree canopy at an alarming rate. It is time for us to communicate to our citizens what that means, how it degrades air quality, and how our profession can think outside-the-box to make up for it effectively and efficiently. Maybe there will be some innovative products through collaborating with bioengineering to improve air quality,

but there’s much more than that. There’s the unique, authentic quality of the greenery, the seasonal changes, and the biodiversity that the tree canopy can offer. SB: Can we develop building typologies that catch rain in balconies with trees on them? I’ve seen this in the Netherlands, they’re already doing it, how can we learn from precedents like that and start trying now to encourage change in the way we protect trees? CC: Do we have enough information to be able to communicate the urgency of the need for change? Victoria Bell (VB): As a profession, I don’t think we advocate enough. We sit in our silos, a lot of the time, and we think everyone else knows this information and we don’t get out there and actually tell people. We are very good communicators, but we don’t actually do it. How can we take those skills and develop them into something that’s usable for getting this message out? YY: People understand numbers and consequences if the accumulated impacts are communicated in measurable terms. Targets need to be specific and measurable, and bench-marking is important for municipalities when they provide approval for projects. But there seems to be limited opportunity to go back and monitor if the development is still hitting the targets efficiently and effectively. As landscape architects, can we also measure 01/

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The March for Jobs, Justice & the Climate, held in Toronto in July, 2015, brought a large coalition together to support a new economy that works for people and the planet, with social justice and environmental justice as fundamental principles. Veronica Manco

Round Table the effectiveness of how a development might improve oxygen levels efficiently and the consequences of not achieving a target such as this? CC: There’s almost a need for continuous data gathering, continuous monitoring, continuous advocacy work, and those things actually go hand in hand in order to effect change. SB: You can’t advocate on your own. There’s more power in numbers, so you need to have other disciplines. Brendan Stewart (BS): The Danish architect Jan Gehl has developed a model of practice that is built on research and advocacy, and that offers valuable lessons. Using the example of street design, we need to use the methods that decision-makers care about. As Gehl points out, we need to learn from how traffic engineers study the way cars move through streets so that the impact of interventions can be measured, before and after. When you apply this measurement-based approach to the pedestrianization of our streets and public spaces, as Gehl has done, you have a much more quantifiable set of metrics that you can point to and say, look, removing some parking in favour of a wider sidewalk didn’t negatively impact commercial activity on the main street, and it created the following new positive outcomes, for example. CC: The whole smarter cities movement means that we can gather data and capture a constant data stream, but so often it is about things like infrastructure-based traffic, rather than addressing the real problem of climate change. SP: We have to be critical of the data. We might think we have good data but we actually don’t know what we don’t know. A big part of the problem is that everything we talk about is from the business standpoint, and we don’t account for ecosystem services, even though they could provide us with our business cases. We need to understand the monetary value of ecosystem services. Susan Robertson (SR): I believe that there is an outstanding and often unaddressed ethical issue with the quantification of natural services.

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SP: I do too, but decisions happen in a business, capitalistic context, so I think you need to talk in that language…The whole reason we price carbon today is so that we can account for it… Stewart Chisholm (SC): My personal opinion (I’m not speaking for Toronto Community Housing) is that it boils down to political will because political leaders are not really leaders, they’re followers. You have to build up that groundswell of support. We talk about green infrastructure a lot, but I look forward to the day when green infrastructure doesn’t exist any more, and it’s just infrastructure. There’s still a ways to go with that, but I think there’s progress being made. But we need to think about how we change political will so that we have support. CC: Can the profession of landscape architecture take on the role of stewardship, of changing language and communication, and use that stream of data to engage with other professions? SC: There’s so much data out there. How do you take that data and convert it into a message that’s compelling to different audiences? SB: You can do it on a smaller scale. If you have a pilot project and you’re looking at water capture, or whatever it is you’re measuring, you could share that with the public. I’m working with the school board on one of my sites and the problem is getting the resources to get the monitoring and the evaluation program in, in the first place, because everyone agrees that green infrastructure is important, but actually dedicating people to it, to make it happen, is problematic. YY: Every four years you get new sets of decision-makers via an election, so it is important to think and communicate what is achievable within a four-year time frame without losing sight of the long-term goal. It would be great if we could come together with engineers and planners to provide a set of tools to communicate to our decisionmakers what is achievable within a four-year time frame, so it’s measurable. That’s one part of it. Another part is that there is a gap in resources. For example, good soil quality, not just space, is directly linked to tree growth but we don’t have a clear implementation framework for that. We have requirements for certification of trees by an ISA but the certification of soil is a missing piece.

28 I’m trying to imagine a world where we set standards wherever there is a need. Take the example of property standards. With a bylaw, officers go around and check people’s front yards and if the grass exceeds a certain height you get a notice. What if you also got a notice if your tree is not performing and hasn’t reached a certain calliper size, and then you provide homeowners and developers with a very easy set of tools so that the tree will be healthy and reach a certain size? SR: In the late 1990s, the former Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation did that exactly. They went to the newly developed houses located on the pinch-point of the moraine in Richmond Hill with a kit on how to live sustainably on the moraine, to help new homeowners learn about and appreciate the sensitivity of the lands that they live on. CC: Our next topic is social justice. In North America, we build more housing for our cars than we build for people. Housing has a direct impact on the environment. Is affordable housing a human right? BS: I would say yes. But, in pragmatic terms, I think we need to work on all of these complex issues by focusing our projects on creating strong connections and relationships between communities and landscapes. Housing needs to be affordable, but we also need to live in an enriching environment. I practise in the realm of cultural heritage conservation, and I think about social justice issues through this lens: how do we create places that enrich us socially and culturally, and how do we do this in the face of emerging technological forces that arguably alienate us further from each other and from the physical landscape? We shape places and places shape us, whether that’s in a physical public realm or, increasingly, in this new technology-mediated world with augmented and virtual reality. Our major cities are increasingly shaped by global capital, which creates real challenges for making housing affordable. These forces bring a form of urbanity with all kinds of dynamism and diversity, but we don’t have the same relationships to place that we maybe would like to have, or have had for most of human history. We are much more transient, and less rooted in our landscape today. I

Round Table think we’re living in a moment of revolution on a scale that I don’t think any of us can really fathom. CC: This resonates strongly for me, because I live in a part of Toronto—Liberty Village—that has very little public space. There’s no public school, no community centre, no high school, no common gathering area, no central square. There are small parks, but they’re basically dog bathrooms. There’s a parking lot and a private commercial space, and that’s it. SR: I believe that affordable housing should be a human right. NIMBYism is often the biggest barrier to affordable housing, so we would have to be able to balance public opposition to providing affordable housing. CC: There was an interesting study that came out of New York City last year in which they tracked cellphone types, and mapped it across New York City, and they were able to see socio-economic usage patterns based on cellphone technology: those with iPhones were in a high socio-economic bracket, those who did not have a cellphone or who had older devices were typically in a low socioeconomic bracket. So they were able to see some interesting data at a very granular level. SC: Again, I’m not speaking on behalf of Toronto Community Housing (TCH), but what I’ve observed is that affordable housing is breaking down social barriers between more impoverished people and middle-class people. A real coup was when private supermarkets and banks opened up in Regent’s Park [an area with social housing] with very little prompting from TCH. NIMBYism is rampant but you can change that mindset by bringing people together. One landscape opportunity for that is community gardens. We’ve been using them at TCH not just for the gardens themselves, though there are benefits, but to break down social barriers. When people are gardening together, it goes a long way to building community; there’s something humbling about having your hands in the soil and working towards a shared goal. But on a larger scale, looking at all these properties TCH has that are so underdeveloped, there’s a huge opportunity for micro-enterprises, for businesses, for residents to take ownership to become a bit more economically empowered.

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SP: The next generation is starting to challenge our ideas through the sharing economy and I really hope that this idea of sharing services and resources really takes off in a way that creates the social justice we need. SB: I worry about the quality of life for the youth who are living in apartments and may not have access to park space. SC: I have nothing against high-rises in an appropriate place but as a quick-fix solution to achieving density targets, I think it’s just lazy. You can achieve extremely high density from mid-rise. And there are lots of high-density developments in Europe with very few high-rises. I think we have to push the development community a little bit more. SR: The city in the park notion—the idea that you’re going to build these huge vast high-rises up into the clouds and you’ll have the valley space all around you—that just didn’t work. In the 1970s, crime exploded because there were no eyes on the street. Even as early as the 1900s, Patrick Geddes was talking about how high density with tons of green space doesn’t work, because there needs to be some sort of multiplicity of use to make a community function. So we knew it then but somehow forgot it. YY: I’m wondering if there’s anything we can do by looking at the provincial policy statement from the Planning Act, which governs how we’re dealing with sensitive land uses such as daycare and schools within urban areas. How do you evaluate whether or not the built environment around it is compliant with those? There are measurable targets for noise, but what about air quality? How do we determine that air quality is adequate at a street level in all weather conditions? That would take in a whole environmental expertise from a landscape architecture perspective. CC: The situation right now is that people have much more unstable employment, with contracts, and people are leveraging the Internet to work directly from home. So people are experiencing our traditionally built environment with augmented reality, where there is an overlay of technology in their interplay with the built environment. What is the role of landscape architects in terms of how we design for these shifting types of use?

YY: When it comes to open space, we have not yet planned for a future in which the economy is based on shared usage, or for the fact that people are meeting outside for purposes other than leisure. We need to design these outdoor spaces so that they provide sufficient daylight access, along with enough shade, micro-climatic, air quality, and acoustical quality. Maybe in the future, in fifty years, when we look at the intended uses for open spaces, we’ll say, well, you can also do business there. That would require clearer performance measures and property standards for the outdoor environment. SP: In fifty years, though, the conventional office tower will not be the conventional office tower; it will be an energy-generating station, an information-storing station, and—now we’re jumping into the Internet of Things— battery storage. There’ll probably be collaborative work spaces; we might not need office space any more. A lot of the infrastructure we need today will probably not be needed in fifty years, like roads for example, because people won’t need to commute as much. What can we do with that space? BS: It comes back to the idea of the relationship between communities and the land, and there’s no value if that connection has been lost. We shouldn’t lose sight of the things that are deeply human. There’s a strong relationship between the liveability of urban environments and natural processes, even if some of them are highly compromised.

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High-rise developments are not necessarily the only way to achieve urban density targets. Eric Sehr

Round Table

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There’s a correlation, some theorists think, between environmental sustainability and beauty, and the idea that we’re much more prone to take care of something if it affects us. There’s a role for design in everything we’re talking about, especially affordable housing and densification. Every square inch of the city only gets more important and needs to be more carefully considered than ever before. SR: I work closely with First Nations as part of the Credit Valley Trail project, which I’m leading in partnership with the Greenbelt Foundation, for which I have a First Nations Roundtable that is dedicated specifically to thinking about how to tell the story of the Credit River, to think about ways we can bring the Credit River to life along this 113-km trail, from the mouth of the river to the headwaters—from Port Credit to Orangeville. The First Nations represented included Six Nations, the Mississaugas of the New Credit, and the Huron-Wendat. What they told me is that spirit is with you all the time, and spirit is the land. They don’t think of compartmentalization of land.

SB: Either we do learn these ways or we have a problem with our future.

I was just, oh wow, that approach to land in traditional land-use planning would change everything, including how decisions are made.

VB: How do we fit technology, like augmented reality, into this? Does that actually have a place when we’re talking about meaning of the landscape and our connection to it?

SP: There’s something really important happening right now in Canada with Indigenous relations; we’re healing a wound that’s been with us for many generations. You can see this in the energy sector, across the country, and in water protection. There are some big precedents being set right now, and it’s an opportunity for leadership.

CC: That is an excellent segue into our third topic of the evening, which is the Internet of Things. Our experiences of connectedness are taking place within the backdrop of massive change. Just a few years ago, autonomous vehicles were science fiction; now, we have Elon Musk saying that we’ll have completely self-driving vehicles within the next three years. Toronto is investing billions in building subways, but we have this technology that’s going to be incredibly disruptive and will allow for personal, pod-based transportation. At the same time, we have devices coming into our homes, our toasters, fridges, ovens that are now connected to the Internet. Just recently, half the Internet in the United States was taken down by people taking over these unprotected Internet of Things devices and leveraging them to create a denial-ofservice attack.

SB: Indigenous people remind us that at one point we were all connected, we were all related. And that extends to the land— I’m in relationship with the land that is actually my family. SC: Currently, how we approach land development is to clear anything that resembles an ecosystem, build tract houses, and then re-establish the landscape. How could we build the land in a respectful way, in a way that reflects the unique identity of the landscape?

This incredible shift is happening right now and incredibly quickly. With the advent of surveillance capitalism, we have companies buying and owning the stream of data that comes out of our lives, in order to manipulate us and sell us things. Advertisers are starting trials of facial recognition advertisements.

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A visualization of virtual public space Ecosistemurbano A First Nations Roundtable is advising on the Credit Valley Trail project. Susan Robertson

Round Table SP: It would be foolish not to consider this new digital landscape because there’s a major opportunity present—autonomous vehicles, telecommuting, these are things that can really reduce our carbon and energy footprints, and allow us to reconceive public infrastructure. There’s also a major risk, in terms of security, with these new technologies. CC: We’re on the cusp of the Internet going from glorified websites to being places that you’re able to actually visit, as a public place. What will the public space in a virtual environment look like in the future, and is there a role for landscape architecture to play in creating that virtual commons? BS: That’s a fascinating question, and it’s at the heart of what we do, historically. The founding father of North American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted, wrote a lot about the role and importance of the public realm in shaping a healthy society. He wrote about the need for parks as an antidote to physically, socially, and psychologically unhealthy industrial cities. He thought great city parks should provide a whole variety of different opportunities for landscape experiences, including what he called “gregarious space”—grand civic spaces like the mall in Central Park, where everybody from all parts of society can gather in large numbers in passive activity and be exposed to each other. I think there’s an important role for landscape architects in applying this thinking to the virtual commons. SP: The question for designers is: how do you do adaptive design in order to anticipate the massive changes that are coming, and how can we build infrastructure that can have multipurpose uses for things and that can be adapted over time to emerging technologies? CC: The idea of cyborgs in about 150 years sounds fantastical, but with developments in mind/machine interface, there are actually very few obstacles. Just this year, a woman got a chip implanted and was able to control a simulator for a jet fighter with her mind. So this idea of the Internet as a place, that idea of connection and how we connect with each other, and how we engage with this virtual space right now seems a bit fantastical but is actually where the technology is.

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SB: But we’re still humans, psychological beings, and the question is, how do we still meet our human needs in this new reality? Computers, autonomous cars, and the like, will never take away our fundamental human nature. SC: There’s a huge connection to resilience through social capital. Just after Hurricane Sandy there was research on which communities in New York fared the best, and it was the ones where people knew each other. Technology will play an important role but there is still something about the face to face that we as humans thrive on. SR: For my generation, the car has been the ultimate social isolator in terms of community design, something that has totally changed geography and redefined our communities. It’s separated people from each other, negatively impacted our environment and the way our communities interact. I wonder if the Internet will be for the future what the car is to us. VB: But the nature of the Internet is that it can be a gathering point. I don’t think it’s an isolator, but it definitely has the ability to influence how we occupy space. BS: Isn’t it the case, though, that where connections are made, they don’t necessarily relate to the close geographic proximity that defines historic human interaction? When we go to a coffee shop and we’re all looking at our screens, that’s the isolator. On the other hand, we’re connecting with people from around the world. There are different scales going on, but I really do think that if we don’t know the lady who lives upstairs, we’re doomed. SC: I don’t think we can quite compare the virtual community to the real one. Not to dismiss the virtual—if you have a rare illness, for example, and you can find people all over the world with your rare illness, that’s huge, but it’s not the same as knowing the dog walker down the road. SR: The human connection is rooted in resilience. CC: We’ve gone from talking about the role of the profession in terms of the need for advocacy, for leveraging data, for gathering more data, for forming partnerships with other community groups, to talking about

social justice, and to the Internet of Things and the massive amount of change we’re facing. Let’s close with a word of reflection from each of you. YY: Resiliency. There’s a scientific reason why we need to design our cities in a different way. In case of a blackout, within an hour some of the older towers can get above 40 degrees Celsius, so it’s no longer safe for seniors and kids to be there. When we design towers we should look at vertical walkability and community, so you can commute by stairs: every ten floors would have a green space, a social space, for implementing green infrastructure right there. And we can also establish social resiliency through leveraging data, so that we can be mindful of the seniors living alone near us, and near families with young children, so that we can build friendships and share experiences. SR: My one-sentence take-away from this discussion is based on cautious optimism. VB: Mine: divergent, decentralizing, resiliency. SP: I think it’s really important that the profession of landscape architecture and design articulate a vision and a set of goals or aspirations as to how the profession wants to operate as a collective. If you don’t have a vision, you have nowhere to walk towards. Every conversation should be couched in terms of what our vision is. SR: My take-away: we can do better than what we’re doing now. YY: Partnership. To implement good ideas, we need very strong leadership and also a partnership between landscape architects, engineers, and planners. SB: Moving towards any sustained future requires that we adapt and collaborate; we have to figure out a way to do it. SC: Citizenship is collaboration, striking a vision about humanity. We need to do a better job of thinking of ourselves collectively, and stewardship, and that’s part of our relationship and obligations to each other and to our environment—that’s it! With thanks to Denise Pinto and Todd Smith, OALA, for conceptualizing and organizing this Round Table.

Business Corner

Community Capacity Building

Katie Strang in conversation with Cory Jones, of Neegan Burnside Ltd.

Neegan Burnside Ltd. is a First Nationsowned and -operated civil engineering group specializing in water and wastewater treatment in small municipalities and First Nations communities. In 2011, Neegan Burnside released the National Assessment of First Nations Water and Waste Water Systems, a landmark report cited in the 2016 Liberal budget. Although regional studies of the state and needs of water systems in First Nations communities have been conducted before, this is the first national-level study. Editorial Board member Katie Strang recently spoke with Cory Jones, P.Eng, president of Neegan Burnside. Katie Strang (KS): Let’s start with your background with Neegan Burnside.

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Neegan Burnside Ltd. is a majority Aboriginal-owned engineering and environmental services firm committed to assisting Aboriginal (First Nation, Métis, and Inuit) communities, agencies, and industries to meet their development and economic goals while remaining sensitive to culture, values, and beliefs. Courtesy of Neegan Burnside

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Cory Jones (CJ): I was first introduced to the Burnside Group in the late 1980s. I was a teenager at that time, living in my home community of Neyaashiinigmiing, a First Nation on the Bruce Peninsula. Burnside came in to do our water systems and I was introduced to some of the project managers during construction. Later, I went to school for engineering and, in my third year, Burnside called me up and offered me a job. So I’ve been with them for twenty years, initially as a summer student and then working my way up from there to become president of the company. It was almost surreal. And I’m not bragging, but I’ve never had to send out a resume for a job.

KS: Neegan Burnside does a broad range of projects, from water treatment to habitat mapping, all across the country. Are there any big regional differences that stand out between projects in Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario? CJ: There’s large scale and there’s small scale, but the most important work is at the level of the communities themselves. We tend to work on the principle that each community and the people in it are unique, so when you talk about regional differences, we go down a little further than that, down to the level of the community itself. Even neighbouring First Nations communities can have historical differences that you have to be aware of and work within. You’ve got to be aware of that historical point of view, and that you can’t know everything. So when we’re establishing relationships with a new community, we go in there to learn, even before we start work on the project, before the technical work. We want to learn how the community thinks about itself, and what they want, and what they need, and we try to deliver that. You can’t just treat it like another municipal client, you have to be willing to listen and understand where people are coming from.

Business Corner

finding out what’s the best for this situation, not just what’s new and cutting edge. It really just comes down to the way you set up the equation of what’s important. For example, you won’t see many new wastewater treatment sewage lagoons being built in municipalities. There are lots of reasons that a small Southern Ontario municipality doesn’t think they make sense; they take up a lot of space, people consider them an eyesore. They may want a lower-footprint mechanical treatment system instead of a lagoon. But it’s a solution we consider for First Nations communities, if they’ve got the land, because it’s easy to maintain and simpler to construct. KS: As a firm whose main clients are First Nations communities, how do you ensure that non-Indigenous team members are engaging with a respectful attitude?

But if you want to talk about regional differences between Northern and Southern Ontario, let me tell you, the plane rides are much more interesting up north.

CJ: Some companies do things like cultural sensitivity training. That’s not something that we have formalized here. Instead, we work in teams, so we’ll have someone who is a veteran of working with the Indigenous community go with team members who might not have had exposure, and it’s kind of an organic learning process.

KS: Knowing that there will be ongoing access challenges, how do you approach the longevity of the systems you’re putting into very isolated communities?

We feel that if we get too formalized with it, it becomes general. Every community we work with is unique, so we don’t want to flavour the experience with generalities that make you think a specific training course can cover all the things you need to be aware of in a specific community.

CJ: A lot of that comes from experience. You have to think about the project long-term. Down here for instance, in Southern Ontario, if you’re building a new school you can put in the most sophisticated heating system you want, because you know that servicing it won’t be difficult. You can find somebody local who you can keep on staff to maintain the system for you. In a remote northern community, operation and maintenance become bigger factors in the determination of the design.

We get a lot of repeat business, so we know a lot of clients directly, and we ease our people into it. At the same time, it comes back to

Engineers and architects are meant to be problem solvers. It isn’t just about knowing the Building Code. It’s about thinking holistically and looking at the larger picture, and

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Moose Deer Point First Nation, 70 km south of Parry Sound, Ontario, has been under a boil-water advisory for several years, as the current water supply is considered unsafe. The development of a new water treatment and distribution design system in the community will provide potable water that meets the Ontario Drinking Water Standards. Courtesy of Neegan Burnside

having the right people on your team. Some people are technically fantastic, but they may want to stay behind the scenes, they may not want to go to sites. We set up our teams so that the people who can best service the client and work with our team back here are in a position to do that. We will not send someone who has no experience into a community, on their own. We just won’t do that. KS: Capacity building also seems to be an important part of the practice at Neegan Burnside. How would you recommend that another firm that offers similar services develop capacity building if they don’t do it already? CJ: For us, capacity building with communities takes a couple of different formats. There’s the project-type capacity building, like doing the studies that help communities justify expanding their services and building new facilities; and then there’s capacity building on the individual level. When we are doing projects within communities, we try to utilize local people as much as we can. It might be something as simple as assisting us with surveys or using rental equipment from the community. We even try to structure construction tenders in such a way that community members are given opportunities. In our small way, when we’re involved on the consulting side we try to leave as much money in the community as we can. If you’re doing a big school project in Northern Ontario, for example, and you’re not hiring a contractor in the community, you’re hiring someone from Winnipeg or Thunder Bay,

Business Corner then they’re coming in and taking 95 to 99 percent of the money back out. So my advice to other companies would be to try to find ways to help the community to build opportunity and skill sets in the course of your project. KS: Is there a particular project that comes to mind where there was a capacity-building element, of either kind, that had a particular impact? CJ: Right now, we have a project in the Paul First Nation, about an hour west of Edmonton, where we have a local inspector who has worked with us for over a year and learned the entire system as it goes in. There’s potential that he might become the permanent operator based on the knowledge that he’s gained during the project. We wanted to hire him to continue to work for us in other communities in Alberta, but he wants to stay in his home community. That’s good, too, because it can be hard to find operators for water treatment plants. If we know that somebody we have worked with is becoming the operator, it makes us feel a lot better about the end result of the project. KS: Could you give some insight into the process behind the National Assessment of Water and Waste Water Treatment? That seems like it must have been a really involved process. CJ: Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada has commissioned regional studies before, also to try and prioritize the needs for water treatment, but we believe there

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were difficulties when they tried to bring past studies together. The different reports weren’t consistent with each other in the way the systems were reviewed. By having one consultant run the study, the results would be consistent across the country. The thing is, there are over 600 communities across Canada, each requiring a visit in person to assess the facilities. It required multiple teams, multiple times in the field— the logistics were probably the most difficult part of it. In the end, we were 20 months working on the project, start to finish, and with the amount of man-hours it required here, we drew heavily on our association with RJ Burnside as well. As well as a consultant, we ran into the issue of encountering some systems we weren’t allowed to review, because we had done the design on them. So just to make sure there wasn’t any conflict of interest, we would have a sub-consultant go in and review those specific systems. KS: Do you feel that having that comprehensive and comparable data has led to change or the prioritization of projects? CJ: It’s definitely given the federal government a tool to make the priorities, but it’s hard to say if the report has changed their thinking or the way they’re moving forward because we’re not involved on the federal side. I think that Liberal call to action (regarding the boil water advisory) put a strong spotlight on the water issue, and we are starting to see water projects come out throughout the region, but we can’t tie them directly to the study. I’m sure somebody is reading it and gleaning information from it. We’ve seen a couple things, including pilot

projects, which have given us hope that the federal government is going to move forward with improving the water quality. The point wasn’t to go in and ask what’s wrong with this system, and what needs to be fixed, although it does include that. It was a risk assessment, and it was based on the number of risk factors that were identified to us, like, what is source water? Is it groundwater? Is it surface water? What is the level of training of the operators? It allows you to develop a risk level, and that was how they were going to prioritize projects. You could have a risky system that doesn’t necessarily have a boil water advisory. It could be that the community is doing a great job of maintaining their system and keeping it running, but they’re still at risk of something going wrong.

Business Corner

KS: That makes sense, I feel that boil water advisories are a symptom, but not the only one.

might not be a permafrost area or a transition area much longer. How does that affect your design?

CJ: There are lots of difficult situations leading to boil water advisories, and some of them have simple solutions. For example, if a community has a system that isn’t worn out, but might be 10 to 15 years old, their residential water demand might have outstripped what the plant was designed for. Part of the design process might involve what we call chlorine contact, the amount of time water has to be in contact with chlorine before it can be deemed potable water. But if the community water demand has increased beyond the planned storage capacity, the water may be moving through the system before it gets the full treatment that it is supposed to. So that can lead to a boil water advisory, and it might be a simple fix for that community. However, in other communities the water quality might be incredibly bad because the system was not designed for the kind of turbidity levels we’re seeing in the water. It might be related to climate change; we’re seeing suspended solid levels increasing a lot in Northern Ontario, especially in the spring, through more flooding and erosion.

KS: Is there anything you’d like to include as a final thought?

Climate change is a complicated factor, because we don’t necessarily know where it is going to end up. You have to start thinking about climate change as part of your projects. For example, if you’re in a transition area or a permafrost area, you have to consider that it

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CJ: I’m thankful to have the opportunity to do anything I can to move education along, or provide information that helps somebody better understand the situation First Nations are in, because I really do feel that education about the situation is key to understanding and solving the issues in First Nations communities. Sometimes you get caught up in the engineering, but when you see the difference that some of our work makes in a First Nation community, it’s hard to describe, even for myself. I’ve even had the opportunity to work in my own community. Two years ago I got to be the project manager for our new school, so I got to replace the school that I went to. It was phenomenal to see the difference between the 1965 building that we all attended and a brand new facility that is more tailored to the needs of the students. KS: That sounds like a great way of coming full circle. CJ: I feel really blessed to have worked with First Nations communities. I really feel that. BIOs/ Cory Jones, P.Eng, is president of Neegan Burnside.

Katie Strang is a Ground Editorial Board member.

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Neegan Burnside has completed more than 1,500 projects for more than 300 Aboriginal communities and agencies throughout North America, not only working with, but also employing Indigenous people and providing training. Courtesy of Neegan Burnside Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre, in Sioux Lookout, in the northwest corner of Ontario; the community curently is serviced by two hospitals, one for Indigenous people living in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and one for non-native persons in Sioux Lookout and surrounding areas. Courtesy of Neegan Burnside

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Artifact

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01 text by Lorraine Johnson

Who hasn’t watched the swooping, swirling movements of starlings and felt swept away by their flight? Dr. David Galbraith (best known for his day job as Head of Science at Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton) has recently been experimenting with video grabs, filtered through software—designed for astronomical photos—that integrates individual frames into a single image. The results are mesmeric. As Galbraith describes it: “We see individual birds or flocks moving through the air and occupying space momentarily. By integrating these video frames, we can get a sense of their overall use of space. The starlings in these images keep to a remarkably consistent ‘envelope’ of space over the trees in which they are perched.” Movement in stillness, and stillness in movement—Galbraith shares a central preoccupation of artists through the ages. BIO/ Lorraine Johnson is the Editor of Ground.

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David Galbraith’s recent experiments with video grabs are an attempt to capture movement in a still image. David Galbraith

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