SAMANTHA MIOTTO
landscape architecture portfolio
unearthed soil movement | Black Creek, Toronto
archaeological ruins of tulum cenote morphology | Tulum, Quintana Roo
counter monument to the mmiwg2s+ University of Toronto
continuous edges bird sanctuary | Riverdale Park, Toronto
sewerscape filtering Black Creek | Smythe Park, Toronto
professional samples GRIT Lab | Ground Magazine
CONTACT PROFILE
Toronto, ON, Canada
(647) 818-6455
samantha.miotto@mail.utoronto.ca
LinkedIn: samantha-miotto-300235112
EDUCATION
Master of Landscape Architecture
University of Toronto | 2020 — 2023
· Cumulative GPA 4.0
Architectural Design | Honours Bachelor of Arts
University of Toronto | 2014 — 2019
· Cumulative GPA 3.63
· Received High Distinction for a double major in Architectural Design and Environmental Geography.
SKILLS
Adobe Creative Suite
Rhinoceros 6/7
AutoCAD
Sketch-Up
Vectorworks
ArcGIS
Grasshopper
Microsoft Office
3D Modelling
AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
John E. (Jack) Irving Prize
University of Toronto | 2023
Claude Cormier Award in Landscape Architecture
University of Toronto | 2022
Up Front Author, Vol. 56 - Home - Winter 2021 Issue
Ground Magazine, OALA | 2022
ULI Hines Student Competition
ULI Hines x University of Toronto | 2022
OALA Scholarship
OALA x University of Toronto | 2021
University of Toronto Fellowship
University of Toronto | 2020 — 2021
Dean's List Scholar
University of Toronto | 2019, 2018, 2017
Meditation Pavilion
Lulu Lemon x University of Toronto | 2018
Specimens & Fragments Exhibition
University of Toronto | 2018
Determined and optimistic, I enjoy working both independently or with a team. I consider myself both responsible and accountable. Punctuality, with a strong work ethic to successfully complete tasks efficiently is an asset. My educational background in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, pairs with a scientific background, all of which I believe are positive attributes to put towards my career in landscape architecture.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Reed Hilderbrand
Intern | May August 2022
· Led research, field work, and lab work on Cambridge urban soils;
· Prepare research and drawings for client in the form of site analysis, design iterations, and details;
· Participate in internal and client meetings and presentations;
· Engage in site visit duties (e.g. photography, site analysis, communication with design teams, trades, and clients).
Green Roof Innovation Testing (GRIT) Lab
Research Assistant | May 2021+
Multidisciplinary research linking landscape architecture, hydrological and structural engineering, biology, and ecology through green technologies (green roofs, green walls, and photovoltaic arrays). Tests parameters such as biodiversity, stormwater retention, life cycle cost, and environmental benefit.
· Conducting an end of life study of 27 green roof beds after 10 years of operation. Data collection includes: biomass cover, spontaneous species, soil depth, and growing media.
University of Toronto x Daniel's Faculty
Teaching Assistant | January April 2022, 2023
· Preparing course materials, tutorials, and holding office hours;
· Providing guidance and feedback to aid in students' design development.
North Design Office x University of Toronto Research Assistant | May September 2021 Research assistant for North Design Office.
· Grant and funding outreach for upcoming projects;
· Creation of technical drawings using AutoCAD and Adobe Suite software, photography, and photo editing.
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
OALA Truth and Reconciliation Workshop
Facilitator | August 2021
The second in a series of continued education workshops to address, with OALA members, Indigenous cultural awareness, meaningful engagement and partnerships with First Nations in Ontario. The second workshop's main focus aligned with the TRC Calls to Action.
*References available upon request.
An investigation into soil policy and management framed through the construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. The project recognizes soil as a non-renewable resource on the timescale of human life, through borehole studies and contaminant migration from landfills, industrial activity, and the notorious Kodak factory.
Unearthed closes the loop and changes the pattern of soil mismanagement in Toronto. Black Creek becomes a hub to handle the excavated soils of future urban infrastructure projects through remediation, regeneration and reuse, effectively reducing carbon emissions and contaminant spread from soil transport. Acknowledging soil as a living, self-contained ecosystem, the cycle of fractured soil movement is broken to shift the human-soil relationship going forward: to care, to engage, and to heal.
For a more extensive uncovering of soil mismanagement in Toronto, please visit our website at: https://blackcreekunearthed.cargo.site/.
Selected for The Annual 2023
Illustrator | Photoshop | Rhino | ArcGIS
Collaborative: site research, diagrams and masterplan axonometric
Individual: remaining (Recreate proposal)
SECTION STUDIES
02 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RUINS OF TULUM
An academic study of Tulum’s ancient Mayan ruins requiring an artificial narrative that connected the landscape to the site’s cultural roots. At its height, the Mayan settlement of Tulum was a sacred site for rituals. Underground caves of freshwater, cenotes, played a major role in rituals, connecting the Mayan’s three layers of the cosmos: water, earth, and sky. Like the palace of El Castillo above ground, a cenote below the ruins has an opening facing eastward towards the sea. At dawn, the sun’s light pierces the window of El Castillo and the cenote beneath, creating a perfect alignment between sky, earth, and water below.
Illustrator | Photoshop | Rhino | ArcGIS | Blender
Individual Work
Addressing the ongoing tragedy of Murdered Missing Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirits+ in Canada, a counter-monument wall threads through campus, starting West at the First Nations House and leading East towards Parliament Hill. Each area has unique ways of sharing truths, with structure and program built relative to the human body. The wall encourages students and visitors to learn, share stories, write promises to action, and physically contribute to the spaces within and around the wall. Focus is on three spaces along West Campus: Biindigaw (entrance), Mikawendaagozi (remember), and Agamiing (at the water). In each instance, one side of the wall is for collective activism and one side is for personal collection. Guided by the ways in which women and two-spirits have not been acknowledged in arts and medicine, language and planting reclaim Indigenous presence on campus.
Nominated for the CSLA Student Excellence Award 2022
Illustrator | Photoshop | Rhino
Collaborative Work: District Plan | Individual Work: remaining
By creating a space that has presence and permanence, a physical connection between Parliament and Indigenous communities on campus is established, to ensure that this call for justice is answered. The design proposal is intended to console and provoke emotions, and demand interaction to advance action against the genocide that Indigenous women, girls and 2-spirits are facing.
A study of Riverdale Park’s current design challenges translated into a design proposal that would unfold over one generation. Proposed design transforms the park into an urban bird sanctuary, creating habitat to reintroduce meadow and woodland birds along the Don River watershed. Circulation immerses the viewer in different microenvironments via the elevated or ground-level pathways. Woodland and meadow edge conditions normally viewed as undesirable habitat were combined to become desirable. When applied along the river, patches work to improve migratory paths and nesting spots, effectively reducing and reversing population decline for Ontario’s meadow and woodland birds.
Illustrator | Photoshop | Rhino
Individual Work
The pre-existing wooded area by the ponds is already quite established and could work to the design’s advantage offering high-nesting trees such as crack willow, elms, and cottonwoods. The proposed tree species build off of what exists to create a fully suitable habitat for breeding and nesting periods, and attract birds along the edges of paths to generate more humannature interactions. Meadows were designed with taller grasses concentrated to the center, where birds nest away from predators, encircled by wildflowers, shorter grasses and sedges, and understory trees, to offer food in the form of seeds, nectar, and berries. The human experience is illustrated above. The park offers educational opportunities to the public, as well as a reestablished connection to Toronto’s ravine systems and their associated ecosystems.
Transforming Smythe Park into a water treatment space that operates as part of a larger network of rainwater infrastructure, the park tackles three types of water movement: surface runoff, stormwater outlets, and infiltration. Pulling back six culverts which discharge untreated stormwater into Black Creek, new bioretention ponds intercept and treat contaminated water before it meets the creek, through multiple stages of phytoremediation. To supplement this strategy, the programmatic spaces are altered topographically by pushing and pulling the ground to build a series of mounds and depressions that disperse, hold, and slow down the flow of water. The depressions and retention ponds provide flood mitigation, while the undulating forms as a whole aim to slow water and celebrate it while it undergoes treatment.
Selected for The Annual 2023
Illustrator | Photoshop | AutoCAD Collaborative
Interventions rely most heavily on a planting scheme that prioritizes phytoremediation, without sacrificing aesthetic. Planting is separated by wet-loving species, focused in the bioretention ponds, and upland species that can withstand both drought and excess moisture. Species were selected additionally for seasonality, food and habitat, and a palette of cool tones interspersed with pops of colour, texture, and branching structure to create year round interest.
SECTION A TURBULENT PLAZA
SECTION B
BIORETENTION CELLS
A major flood-able feature in the park is the polishing meadow, which the model depicts during high flood activity. The spontaneous vegetation that has thrived in the flagstone cracks is immersed, and visitors can get close to explore the micro-environment that is created by natural flooding conditions. Sewerscape embraces the influx of water in Smythe Park, while trying to prevent water pollution along a portion of the Black Creek, effectivly reducing the potency of pollutants that migrate into Lake Ontario and its tributaries.
06 GREEN ROOF INNOVATION TESTING (GRIT) LAB
The GRIT Lab is a multidiscplinary research lab, at the University of Toronto, linking landscape architecture, hydrological and structural engineering, biology, and ecology through green technologies. It aims to investigate the environmental performance of green roofs, green walls, and photovoltaic arrays, with the intention of advancing the city’s policies surrounding green technologies.
Research included species and amendment datasheets, reviewing cistern functionality, inventory of instruments, and an end of life sampling three years after maintenance shutoff. Daily sampling documented changes over time in biomass, spontaneous species, soil depth, and destructive sampling for root analysis (ongoing). Currently, the team and myself are analyzing ten years worth of sampling data, along with the end of life sampling, and are writing a paper speaking to the longevity of green roofs in Toronto, and objectives to consider as a designer.
