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01
LandscapeArchitect Quarterly
12/ FeaturesArt + LandscapeArchitecture
22/ Round TableArt in PublicSpaces
Winter 2008
Art +LandscapeArchitecture
Contents Masthead
04/ Up FrontInformation on the Ground
08/ inSITENorth Design Office
Art + Landscape Architecture:
13/ From Milan to Toronto
14/ Visioning Art
16/ Taking Flight
18/ Artists Out Front
20/ Letter From BerlinCultivating the View
22/ Round Table Four Perspectives on Art in Public Spaces
24/ NotesA Miscellany of News and Events
34/ ArtifactConstructed Shoreline
EditorLorraine Johnson
Copy EditorPaulina Carbonaro
ProofreadersPaulina Carbonaro
Helen Powers
OALA Editorial BoardAndrew B. Anderson
Paulina Carbonaro
Victoria Carley
Heather Heagle
Lorraine Johnson (chair)
Fung Lee
Domenic Lunardo
Daria Nardone
Mike Palmer
Helen Powers
Lisa Shkut
Netami Stuart
Yvonne Yeung
Art Direction/Designtypotherapy+design inc.
Advertising SalesHeather Heagle
416.231.4181
CoverImage courtesy of North Design
Office, from their urban revitalization
project with the group Cleveland
Public Art
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 407
Toronto, Ontario M5E 1M2
416.231.4181 www.oala.ca
Copyright © 2008 by the Ontario
Association of Landscape Architects.
All rights reserved.
ISSN: 0847-3080
2008 OALAGoverning Council
PresidentArnis Budrevics
Vice PresidentLawrence Stasiuk
TreasurerGlenn O'Connor
SecretaryJill Robertson
Past PresidentLinda Irvine
CouncillorsTom Ridout
Stephanie Snow
Fiona Rintoul
Lay CouncillorLorraine Johnson
University of Guelph Appointed EducatorSean Kelly
University of Toronto Appointed EducatorJohn Danahy
Associate Councillor-SeniorColin Berman
Associate CouncillorSarah Culp
University of Guelph Student RepresentativeJohn Duthie
University of Toronto Student RepresentativesTonya Crawford
Victoria Taylor
OALA Staff
Executive DirectorHeather Heagle
Registrar & MembershipCoordinatorKaren Savoie
Winter 2008Issue 01
OALA
About Welcome to Ground: Landscape Architect
Quarterly, published by the Ontario Association
of Landscape Architects.
Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly 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. Contact us at [email protected].
We reserve the right to edit all submissions.
The views expressed in the magazine are those of the
writers and are not necessarily the views of the OALA
and its Governing Council.
Message from the EditorIt has been a great pleasure, over the past six months,
to work with the Editorial Board—a very enthusiastic and
engaged group of volunteers—to develop the new OALA
magazine, Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly. We’ve
had lively debates (sometimes feisty, always fruitful) and
many, many meetings. If there’s one thing that has char-
acterized the Editorial Board’s work, it is the synergy of
collective decision making focussed on a positive goal: to
produce a vital publication that OALA members are
proud of, find interesting, and feel compelled to read
from cover to cover.
With this issue, we are launching a new name and a
new design. Many thanks to typotherapy+design inc.,
a boutique graphic design studio in Toronto, for helping
us shepherd the magazine to this new incarnation.
typotherapy embraced the project, crafting custom type
fonts, and, with input from the Editorial Board, helped
build a flexible editorial structure to accommodate a
variety of stories and formats. We are particularly
pleased to report that the magazine is printed on 100
percent post-consumer, processed chlorine-free paper.
On behalf of the Editorial Board, I encourage you to
send us your comments and feedback.
LORRAINE JOHNSONCHAIR, OALA EDITORIAL [email protected]
Editorial
About the OALAThe 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 gov-
ernments, professionals and developers of the stan-
dards and benefits of landscape architecture.
Formed in 1968, the OALA celebrates its 40th
anniversary in 2008.
Visit the Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly section of the OALA website, www.oala.ca, for more articles on thetheme of art and landscape architecture:
• Going Public with Art: Municipal Policies, by Helen Powers, OALA, CSLA
• Toronto's New Green Gateway: A Canadiana Showcase, by Paulina Carbonaro
.01
Messages 03.01
Editorial VisionGround: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published
by and for OALA members.
Our goal is to• inspire, inform, surprise and challenge;
• promote the profession of landscape architecture;
• reflect the breadth and depth of landscape
architectural practice;
• point in new directions.
Upcoming theme issues include:• International Work—Spring issue, released in May
• Awards—Summer issue, released in July
• Reflections on the Profession—Fall/Winter issue,
released in December
If you have story ideas you'd like us to consider, projects to
submit, or any feedback, positive or negative, please contact
us at [email protected].
President’s MessageThe OALA Council is proud to present our new magazine, Ground:
Landscape Architect Quarterly, the result of tremendous efforts by the
Editorial Board under the direction of Lorraine Johnson. Everyone has
worked diligently to revise our magazine so that it can best reflect
our association and profession, with editorial content that mirrors the
diversity of our work and landscape architectural issues in Ontario.
The design of this magazine is the product of extensive research.
The name is thought provoking. The font was custom designed for
the OALA. The template is a modular, flexible design that allows
for continuing editorial refinements as the Editorial Board’s work
progresses. The OALA welcomes your comments and input to
Ground. Kindly submit your thoughts directly to [email protected].
This year is indeed proving to be a very exciting one for the OALA.
It is a pleasure to announce that the combined membership count
of all full members, emeritus, associates, and affiliates in the
OALA, has surpassed 1,000—a millenary milestone. What a
moment of celebration! This is one of several accomplishments
that will be recognized at our upcoming OALA 40th Anniversary
Conference and AGM, which has been aptly themed “Realizing
the Dream.” Registration for the 2008 conference in Waterloo,
Ontario, April 17-19, is available on-line at www.oala.ca. Book
now and make plans to come celebrate together.
OALA’s enthusiasm and our great spirit of participation continue to
grow. We have enjoyed capacity attendance at recent Continuing
Education Seminars, and now everyone can download seminar
notes through our website for further information. I would like to
especially thank our industry sponsors that make these educational
sessions and our social ski day events possible. The OALA has
also partnered with LABash 08, at the University of Guelph, an
event that offers the opportunity to introduce and welcome more
than 500 prospective new members to our association. Cheers to
the great volunteer and student input that helped to make this
event successful.
Come out and participate in the growth of your association!
Your input can make good things even better.
ARNIS BUDREVICS, OALA [email protected]
Up Front 04.01
Up Front:Informationon theGround
It’s a tree steeped in history and mystery.
Known only from the fossil record and
thought to have been extinct for millions of
years, the Wollemi pine made headlines in
the mid-1990s when an Australian hiker
discovered a small grove in a remote
canyon just 100 kilometres from Sydney.
Looking like a fern on steroids, its adult bark
resembling bubbling chocolate, Wollemi
pine is one of the world’s rarest trees, with
fewer than 100 adult trees and 200 to 300
seedlings in the wild. In an effort to protect
the remaining stand, researchers have
been propagating Wollemi pines (collecting
seed cones by helicopter) and making
seedlings available to botanical gardens.
A seven-year-old specimen arrived at the
Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington in
2007 and is now on view in an interactive
exhibit, “The Tree that Time Forgot.”
Educational panels, videos and other primi-
tive vegetation (dawn redwoods, ginkgos
and ferns) bring the world of the Wollemi
pine alive for visitors—the effect is close to
Jurassic! (See www.rbg.ca for exhibit
details.) For those interested in buying a
specimen, an American distributor plans to
start selling Wollemi pines this summer—
see www.ancientpine.com. In the mean-
time, you can read the story of this prehis-
toric tree in a book by James Woodford,
The Wollemi Pine: The remarkable
discovery of a living fossil from the age
of the dinosaurs.
Garden festivals are important cultural
events that stimulate discussion of new
ideas and contemporary thought.
Cornerstone Festival of Gardens, located
in California’s Sonoma Valley, is a gallery-
style garden exhibit inspired by the
International Garden Festival at
Chaumont-sur-Loire in France. The concept
for the festival was created by Peter
Walker and includes a series of ever-
changing garden exhibits on the nine-acre
property. Selected landscape architects and
designers focus on themes and ideas to
uncover new directions in garden design
and art. Claude Cormier, for example,
gave life to a diseased tree that was slated
for removal by emphasizing its stoic form
and attaching 70,000 sky-blue plastic balls
to its branches. The blue tree thus became
a constant marker from which to gauge
the light of the ever-changing sky.
The Cornerstone Festival of Gardens cele-
brates the connection between art, land-
scape architecture, and nature. In addition
to the gardens, a gallery further presents
information on the process of the installa-
tions. For more information, see
www.cornerstonegardens.com.
TEXT BY SHAWN GALLAUGHER
01 PLANTS
jurassic pine returns
02 FESTIVALS
art in the garden
0B
0A
Up Front 05.01
CONTACT, the world’s largest photography
festival, will transform Toronto into a city-
wide art gallery featuring photographers
from around the world on May 1-31. One
of the many public installations includes
renowned artist Rodney Graham’s virtual
forest on the columns underneath the
Gardiner Expressway using his iconic
images of inverted trees. For more infor-
mation about other CONTACT installations
and feature exhibitions, visit
www.contactphoto.com.
It has all the hallmarks of a science fiction
fantasy, or, rather, nightmare. Since 2002
the emerald ash borer has been chewing
its way across southwestern Ontario,
leaving a trail of dead or dying trees in its
wake. From Windsor to the recent discovery
in Toronto, the pest has been devastating
natural hardwood forests and planted
stands of street trees—more than ten
percent of Windsor’s boulevard trees have
fallen prey to the pest, and Toronto’s esti-
mated 450,000 ash trees are vulnerable.
There is currently no control measure
for the pest, though research is well
underway to develop an effective
insecticide, and Ontario’s Ministry of
Natural Resources has applied for
emergency registration of one such
product, azadirachtin.
In the meantime, should landscape archi-
tects avoid specifying ash trees in planting
plans in the province? Crystal Ernst, a pro-
gram officer in the forest pest emergency
section of the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency, says that “CFIA does not have an
official stance on what species people
should be planting.” However, there are
“regulated” areas where restrictions apply,
0E
03 EXHIBITIONS
a virtual forest
04 HORTICULTURE
ash tree threat
related to moving firewood, for example.
(See www.cfia.ca for more information.)
When pressed, Ernst offers a personal
opinion: “If you’re in southwestern Ontario
near any of the affected areas that are
regulated [Essex County, Municipality of
Chatham-Kent, Lambton County, Elgin
County, and parts of the City of London], it
would not be advisable to plant ash trees.”
What of the future for ash trees in other
parts of the province, considering the
inevitability of the pest slowly making its
way beyond the southwest? “The insect
moves very slowly,” says Ernst, “and we
wouldn’t expect to see it in Thunder Bay,
for example, for ten or 15 years. By that
time, we hope that the research catches
up and we’ll have some way to treat it.”0C
0D
0A/ Wollemi pine exhibit
IMAGE/ Royal Botanical Gardens
0B/ Claude Cormier's contribution to the Cornerstone Festival of Gardens
IMAGE/ Shawn Gallaugher
0C/0D/ Rodney Graham's virtual forest under the Gardiner Expressway
IMAGES/ CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival0E/ Emerald ash borer-infested tree
IMAGE/ Ken Marchant, CFIA
Up Front 06.01
0C
0A/0B/0C/0D/A planting plan based on Eric Satie's music
IMAGES/ Micheline Clouard
05 TRENDS
musical planting plan
Of all the senses engaged by the work of
landscape architects, sight, smell, and touch
are the most obvious, but sound can certainly
be added to the mix. Micheline Clouard, OALA,
CSLA, recently developed a project for Hydo-
Quebec with an unusually evocative aural
element: the planting plan along Highway 10
between St. Cesaire and Hertel is based on
Eric Satie’s music. “Each side of the highway is
designed to represent the pianist’s left and
right hand,” says Clouard. “We have created an
alignment of trees rooted within the rhythm of
the landscape yet surprising in its variations.
The resulting harmony of this series of ‘bars’
adds texture to the landscape.” While the goal
is to reduce the visual effect of the existing
electrical towers, the effect of this highway
planting may well be music to motorists’ ears.
0B
0A
0D
Up Front 07.01
Dufferin Grove Park is a unique park in
the west end of the City of Toronto. It has
been the subject of much academic
research and was the winner of the Great
Community Place Award in the inaugural
Great Parks/Great Cities Awards program
of the Urban Parks Institute at Project for
Public Spaces. CELOS, a research group
related to the park, recently received an
Ontario Trillium Foundation grant that
provides the opportunity to share ideas
and programming tools developed at
Dufferin Grove Park so that they can be
adapted to other parks across Toronto.
We will be undertaking a research exercise
with the intent of developing a body of
information with respect to the success
of Dufferin Grove Park as an engaging
nucleus of social activity. (It is our under-
standing that the park has not been
formally studied by landscape architectural
professionals.) The study will commence in
March 2008 and extend over a one-year
period. The results will help to inform pro-
fessional landscape architects and other
designers of neighbourhood open spaces
that are intended to respond to the social
needs of local communities.
For more than a decade, the Ontario
Ministry of the Environment and
Environment Canada have recommended
that stormwater management ponds be
designed to discourage wildlife use, due to
concerns over the build-up of contaminates
and the resulting toxicity to wildlife
species. However, a recent 60-page
report prepared by the Aurora
Environmental Advisory Committee
Naturalization and Wildlife Working Group,
chaired by David Tomlinson, Emeritus
Member, OALA, CSLA, asserts that “Rather
than trying to design stormwater ponds to
repel wildlife...it is more practical to accept
the fact that wildlife will inevitably be
attracted to these ponds.”
In a series of very detailed design recom-
mendations, the report outlines the many
ways that engineering and landscaping
consultants can modify their designs to
create urban wetland habitat that is safe for
wildlife such as birds, reptiles, amphibians,
insects, and mammals. In-depth
sections on vegetation management in
general, and trees, shrubs, and wildflower
meadows in particular, are included, as
are details on monitoring for pollutants.
The wealth of practical information in the
report will be of use to anyone designing
stormwater ponds, and to community
groups interested in assisting with (or
lobbying for) follow-up maintenance
and monitoring of existing ponds.
“It is hoped that this study and these
recommendations will influence the future
design and management of stormwater
ponds,” says David Tomlinson. For a copy
of the report, titled Town of Aurora
Stormwater Ponds Vegetation and Wildlife
Study, see www.e-aurora.ca.
The specific focus of the study will be
social health related to environmental
design. We will analyze how well the
park is utilized and how it contributes
to community health in consideration
of the following:
• Social inclusion and social cohesion
• User groups and social networks
• Programming, activities, and
seasonal use
• Historic development
• Physical qualities/design,
facilities, amenities
• Aesthetics
• Physical and social context
• Governance, management, and
community associations
• Accessibility and safety
• Economics, funding, and employment
• Creativity and art
• Identity and vision
If any OALA members have information or
insights regarding Dufferin Grove Park that
would assist us in our research, we would
appreciate hearing from you. Please
contact Real at [email protected] or call
416-759-7529. Information will be posted
at www.bREAL.ca.
TEXT BY REAL EGUCHI, OALA, CSLA, AND PAUL YOUNG, OALA, CSLAURL/ WWW.BREAL.CA
0E
06 RESEARCH
success in the park 07 STORMWATER PONDS
design for wildlife
0E/ Town of Aurora stormwater pond
IMAGE/ Aurora Environmental Advisory Committee
North Design Office is a landscape architecture, urbanism, and
design firm based in Toronto. The firm was established in 2005
by partners Pete North, an Associate Member of the OALA, and
Alissa North, also an Associate Member. Their work ranges in
scale from site-specific art installations to architecture and urban
design, with an emphasis on landscape architecture. The office is
committed to the idea that well-designed urban environments
and open spaces create vibrant communities and ecologies.
Pete North is an Assistant Professor in the Landscape Architecture
Program at the University of Toronto. He teaches graduate design
studios, site technologies, and brownfield reclamation courses. He
graduated from the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Program
at the University of Toronto in 1997 and received a Master in
Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard’s Graduate School
of Design in 2001, where he also studied contemporary sculpture
in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.
Alissa North is an Assistant Professor in the Landscape
Architecture Program at the University of Toronto. She teaches
graduate design studio, visual communication, and history, theory
and criticism courses. She graduated with Honours from the
Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Program at the University of
Toronto in 1998. She received a Master in Landscape Architecture
degree with distinction from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design
in 2003, where she was awarded the Jacob Weidenman Prize.
No
rth De
sign
Offic
ePeter and Alissa North talk
to Ground about theirapproach, current projects,and how they jump-started
their young practice
01
INTERVIEW BY FUNG LEE, OALA, CSLA
01/02/03/04/ North Design Office's project for Cleveland Public Art, showing summer (01/04), night (02), and winter (03) views
IMAGES/ North Design Office
inSITE 08.01
02
03
inSITE 09.01
Fung Lee: Your recent entries for the international competitions,
Point Pleasant Park in Nova Scotia and Gateway National Park in
New York State, were both runners-up—congratulations! They
both involved designing the ecological strategy versus developing
a solution, which is a noted shift in the current approach to devel-
oping large-scale landscapes from a previous generation of land-
scape architects. Why is this approach to design more accepted or
attractive now than before?
Alissa North: I think that part of it is that it’s kind of a necessity
in the world right now, with the way collaborations work, and
environmental concerns, and budgets, and all those things. It’s not
really an aesthetic approach.
Pete North: It might not be high on the list of priorities but you
have to accept that the aesthetics are going to be different. I think
primarily that there are smaller budgets today and for competitions
there’s often not a whole lot of money. The budgets mean that
you have to be strategic in terms of how you phase a project over
fifteen, over twenty, or even fifty plus years, so this phased
approach means that there are new ways of thinking about
how to implement these strategies.
AN: It’s a recognition that maybe the way we were designing
in the past was not necessarily correct or beneficial from
all perspectives.
PN: The hope is that over time it’s strengthened from an economic
point of view and it’s strengthened from an ecological point of
view, in terms of having more time to adapt and transition into a
thriving ecology. Through grad school, we both took a course
by Neil Kirkwood and part of his focus was why landscapes fail,
why too many designs are only around ten years old, and why
certain projects only look good for the first photo opportunity.
We feel strongly that working with the site and working with the
different energies in the site, there could be stronger and
longer-lasting solutions.
AN: Yes, it’s definitely a different way of thinking, where there are
layers of analysis that then inform that solution, versus where it’s
mostly based typically on the programming.
PN: It’s like the site has the solution already…and the project is
really just finding out what’s there, and what it wants to be.
FL: You both had extensive training and work experience in the US
as well as in Canada. Do you think Americans treat or look upon
their landscapes differently from Canadians?
PN: I think it does come down to the vastness of the country,
which is a huge difference between the US and Canada. In
Canada there’s a feeling of something beyond, something
greater, and a strong connection to the seemingly vast
north…not many countries can say they have that.
FL: What are you working on now?
AN: Cleveland is a big exciting project on the horizon.
PN: The project in Cleveland is with Cleveland Public Art (CPA)
and they are an amazing group of people who are using art as
the mode of urban revitalization and re-energizing sites within
Cleveland. This project is a two-year installation and is right smack
in the downtown core. We are also working on a project that is a
little more architecture based—it’s a façade improvement utilizing
new materials and technologies to help reduce heating and
cooling costs, as well as sound mitigation. There are a few fun
residential projects as well.
AN: We also have a couple of exhibitions on the horizon:
one here in Toronto at the Harbourfront Centre and one in
Texas this November [2007].
PN: The exhibition in Toronto asked us to find an urban public
space in Toronto that we would consider not very successful,
a space that we would consider successful, and then choose a
space to redesign or reinvent in some way. So it was not an
exhibit where you just show your past completed work, but it
was more interactive than that.
AN: The exhibition in Texas is in association with a symposium
that’s looking at new strategies for New Orleans, whether it’s
economic or ecological, but in the end, it looks at strategic ways
of re-envisioning New Orleans.
04
inSITE 10.01
FL: As your practice develops, do you see yourselves continuing to
pursue design competitions and temporary installation work?
AN: Yes, for sure. Part of what’s interesting for us is that it provides
us with that forum for research, so we consider ourselves really
fortunate that we kind of have this hybrid teaching/office practice.
We pursue work more for what interests us and less for the
money, so competitions are these amazing possibilities.
Most competitions are about exploration.
FL: What is the North Design Office mantra?
PN: Don’t do it if you don’t love it or is it….
AN: Only do it if you really believe in it. If we can sustain that
mantra throughout our career, I think we’ll be really satisfied.
BIO/ FUNG LEE, OALA, CSLA, IS A SENIOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND PRINCIPAL AT PMA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS.
inSITE 11.01
01
0 1/ From Milan to Toronto0 2/ Visioning Art0 3/ Taking Flight0 4/ Artists Out Front
Art +LandscapeArchitecture
Art + LandscapeArchitecture
12.01
01
0 1/ From Milan to Toronto0 2/ Visioning Art0 3/ Taking Flight0 4/ Artists Out Front
FromMilan toToronto
0 1 /
The renovated Princes’ Gates, the monumental entranceway to
the Exhibition Place, were unveiled more than a year and half ago,
following a $1 million improvement program. It was the creative
vision and winning design scheme of Toronto-based MBTW Group
and Italy’s Sering + Sistema Duemila that helped to give this historic
site a sophisticated new look. Faced with issues such as new
condominium developments in the area and daunting Lakeshore
Boulevard traffic, what the two design firms proposed was a piazza
defined by a gesture of twinning Toronto with Milan.
“With a large amount of informal seating elements and the Princes’
Gates itself in the background, we now have a dramatic meeting
and gathering place for the local community,” says Yvonne Yeung,
OALA, CSLA, of MBTW Group.
Arranged in a diagonal pattern, rectangular benches made of
black Italian marble and grey Canadian granite, united by a light
strip, provide flexible seating. Each engraved with a name of a
province and an image of its provincial tree, the benches are also
works of art connecting the Toronto community to Canada and to
Italy. Eight X-shaped steel and bronze light fixtures along Strachan
Avenue also symbolize this twinning expression.
The palette of paving materials used in the square recalls a classic
theme that highlights the importance of the monument in an Italian
style. The floor is animated with contemporary LED lights inserted in
Canadian granite. To allow for temporary closure to traffic during fairs
and exhibitions, stainless steel bollards were put in place at each of
the three borders. To help further minimize traffic around the gates,
Strachan Avenue was reduced to three lanes. Trees were planted
alongside the gates to help provide a traffic barrier.
“Extending the notion of the plaza across the driving surface at the
entry to the gate was very important,” notes Yeung. “The old plaza
was divided by an asphalt driveway into two sections. The new
scheme uses the Italian Piazza approach to tie it all together, still
satisfying the City’s maintenance requirements. The plaza is done
with large, weighty vehicular precast concrete pavers that are
bordered with a concrete band to avoid shifting.”
Phase Two of the project, which has not yet been completed,
includes the installation of ten bright columns along Lakeshore
Boulevard. Constructed of Eastern White Pine, each column will
also represent a Canadian province. Their sequential spacing
along the road takes its cue from an Italian mathematician,
Leonardo Pisano (1175-1240), who is credited for the decimal
system used in Europe today.
Although the landmark gates saw their share of pedestrians before,
people couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the approaching cars,
venturing only a few metres away from the majestic structure to snap
a picture before they felt compelled to run towards its walls for safety.
But that’s not the case anymore—the gates have been reclaimed.
BIO/ PAULINA CARBONARO, MARKETING COORDINATOR AT JANET ROSENBERG + ASSOCIATES, IS A FREELANCE WRITER AND A MEMBER OF THE OALA EDITORIAL BOARD.
How art, landscapedesign, and historyrevived the Princes’Gates
02
03
01
01/02/03/ The renovated entranceway to Exhibition Place, a Toronto landmark
IMAGES/ MBTW Group
From Milan toToronto
13.01
TEXT BY PAULINA CARBONARO
Visioning Art
They’ve collaborated on various projects together over the past
decade and clearly share a comfortable camaraderie. Projects
have ranged from sculpture commissions being installed in various
healing gardens/residential projects designed by Visionscapes
Landscape Architects to building small gardens for friends. Hard
labour (hauling rocks to build a stone wall) to creating award-winning
gardens built by landscape contractors all contribute to the diversity
of projects these two professionals have worked on together and
as individuals.
When stone sculptor Walt Rickli and landscape architect Viriginia Burt,
OALA, CSLA, principal of the firm Visionscapes Landscape Architects,
tell stories of their collaborations, they quickly ease into shorthand,
completing each other’s sentences—a conversational duet.
Burt sees her work as “bringing people into the present moment,”
and few things focus attention better than a six-ton boulder sculpted
into an arresting form. Rickli’s mission is to “blend natural stone
and human spaces” with a diversity of work that ranges from
outdoor water sculptures to large carved stone figures and custom
interior stone sculptures. Burt and Rickli have worked on numerous
projects and their collaborative methods can provide guidance to
other landscape architects and artists thinking of working together.
“I give Walt—and the many other artists I work with—a concept,
not a detailed drawing. I say, ‘This is what I’m dreaming of; what
do you think?’ Any artist loves to be able to say, ‘oh, you want it to
feel like that…’” To this, Rickli adds a cautionary note: “There are
different kinds of artists. Some may be great at ideas but not at
fabrication. You need to be able to recognize an artist’s strengths
and limitations.” Continues Burt, picking up on Rickli’s idea: “It’s my job
as landscape architect to create all the circumstances for success.”
There are challenges of implementation that get tucked into the
mutual knowledge bank of their collaboration, and influence future
projects. Their respect for each other is clear, and both stress its
importance to projects. “Our basic philosophies are in alignment,”
notes Rickli. “Ego gets tossed out—we’re working for the best of
all concerned. Creating something meaningful is most important.”
Burt calls this “an alignment of intention,” and sees it as the
cornerstone of successful collaboration between artists and
landscape architects: “When you have a clear intention of what
you and your client want to achieve, always ask yourself, is that
material, detail or sculpture going to align with that intention?”
BIO/ LORRAINE JOHNSON, LAY COUNCILLOR OF THE OALA AND CHAIR OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD, IS THE AUTHOR OF TEN BOOKS, THE MOST RECENT OF WHICH IS AN EDITED COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, THE NATURAL TREASURES OF CAROLINIAN CANADA: DISCOVERING THE RICH NATURAL DIVERSITY OF ONTARIO’S SOUTHWESTERN HEARTLAND.
URL/ TO VIEW WALT RICKLI’S WORK, VISIT WWW.WALTRICKLI.COM. VIRGINIA BURT’S COMPANY VISIONSCAPES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.SPIRITHEALINGGARDENS.COM.
Sculptor Walt Rickli andlandscape architect Virginia Burt align theirintentions, the key to collaborative success
01
0 2 /
Visioning Art 14.01
TEXT BY LORRAINE JOHNSON
04
02
01/ Installation drawing of Rickli's sculpture "Water Leaves" at a healing garden designed by Virginia Burt
IMAGE/ Virginia Burt02/ Rickli's sculpture marks the
entrance to a cancer centre garden in Ohio
IMAGE/ Walt Rickli03/ A residential garden in
Burlington, designed by Virginia Burt
IMAGE/ Virginia Burt04/ "Water Leaves" graces
Norma's Garden at theGathering Place in Cleveland
IMAGE/ Virginia Burt
03
Visioning Art 15.01
01/ Stone in the butterfly garden spells out the word "moth"
IMAGE/ Neil Fox02/ Entry plaza and arbour
at the MOTH Gardens, Downsview Memorial Parkette
IMAGE/ Scott Torrance03/ Night view of the
seating area
IMAGE/ Neil Fox
0 3 / 01
02
03
Taking Flight 16.01
Downsview Memorial Parkette is a small triangular oasis of
green sandwiched between two busy urban roadways and the
Downsview airport in north Toronto. Located near the corner of
Keele Street and Wilson Avenue, it is also the site of a collaboration
between sculptor Jeannie Thib and landscape architect Scott
Torrance, OALA, CSLA, who worked together on the winning entry,
MOTH Gardens, in a City of Toronto design competition. Their
design takes its cues from the character of the surrounding
community (predominantly Italian), aviation history (the famed
Tiger Moth airplane flew in and out of the Downsview airport), and
Thib’s family background (her mother was a Moth pilot). MOTH
Gardens opened in June 2006.
The project was led by Jeannie Thib, who approached Torrance
during the final phase of the design competition. “The City really
wanted this to be a collaborative effort for the park,” says
Torrance. “They definitely wanted a strong artistic involvement.
So this was a little different than what typically happens in a
project, where the artist’s involvement gets minimized.”
According to Torrance, he and Thib “just hit it off right away. We
had a good connection. We augmented each other’s approach.”
In particular, Torrance helped Thib understand the issues involved
in developing a parkette through site analysis, design principles
and precedents.
“No matter who you work with, if it’s collaborative, people have
a role to play,” says Torrance. “You have to find a way to look at
each other’s strengths. You have to be a listener and not always
reject ideas, but rather think about the bigger picture all the time.”
Torrance also points out that he and Thib seemed to abandon
the typical language of their professions and use a more basic
and common style of “lay’” language with each other. This clarified
the process not only to themselves, but also to the public and the
politicians they dealt with. “It was definitely an advantage that we
didn’t use terms like site analysis or urban design—we talked
about the experience we were trying to achieve,” says Torrance.
As in any project, there were surprises. Torrance, for example,
hadn’t anticipated the practical side of artistry: “Artists work with
their hands, so they are used to thinking about constructing things,
whether it’s a painting or constructing a sculpture. That really
helped the project. Helping to solve problems is ultimately what
we are all doing.”
Scott Torrance is maintaining the collaborative momentum,
working with artists on several new projects. His latest work is
with metal-artist John Dixon on the development of the Railpath
Linear Park in Toronto.
BIO/ AN ASSOCIATE MEMBER OF THE OALA, LISA SHKUT (BLA, MLA) WORKS FOR THE TOWN OF WHITBY AND IS ALSO A MEMBER OF THE OALA EDITORIAL BOARD. PREVIOUSLY, SHE WAS IN PRIVATE PRACTICE IN NEWFOUNDLAND, MANITOBA, AND ONTARIO.
An artist and landscapearchitect celebrate aviation history with a soaring design
TakingFlight
Taking Flight 17.01
TEXT BY LISA SHKUT, OALA, CSLA
Artists OutFront
18.01
0 4 /
Artists Out Front
In a twist on common practice, artists SusanSchelle and Mark Gomesled the design for theBloor-Spadina Parkette
The competition for the design of the Bloor-Spadina Parkette
in Toronto was unusual because artists rather than landscape
architects were the lead designers on the project.
The Bloor-Spadina Parkette was the last installment of the
Toronto Transit Commission’s redevelopment of Spadina Avenue.
Rina Greer, the art consultant for the TTC who was responsible
for art development along Spadina Avenue, spearheaded the
competition, which was won by artists Susan Schelle and Mark
Gomes. When they were short listed and subsequently proclaimed
the winners, Schelle and Gomes knew that it was probably the first
time in Toronto that artists would be responsible for designing a
park. Schelle credits the City for being brave enough to trust artists
to pull it off.
To Schelle and Gomes’ credit, they understood the implications
of an artist-led design project, and, after having roughed out their
initial concept, they sought a landscape architecture firm to work
with, engaging Ferris and Quinn (now defunct and the two
partners have since established their own individual firms).
“We approached them because they had done a lot of work for
the City already. To be honest, there weren’t as many landscape
architecture firms at the time who were sympathetic to what we
were trying to do—this was in the early nineties—and Ferris and
Quinn were open to us,” explains Schelle. “There are more firms
out there now that are more experimental. We designed every-
thing that we wanted in terms of the concept, planting, pathways,
and in collaboration with John Quinn [OALA, CSLA] we also worked
out the organic configuration of the park.”
The driving narrative of the design is the concept of the game
board, and all four corners of the intersection were originally
included in the narrative. Working from the north-south orthogonal,
a checkerboard spilled out across all four corners of Bloor and
Spadina. Since completion, the Jewish Community Centre on the
southwest corner and the banks on each of the north corners of
Bloor Street have been redeveloped and none of the game board
aspects were replaced. The well-known dominoes, at eighteen
inches high, were intended to be used as benches right from the
beginning. Schelle is explicit that she and Gomes frequently build
functionality into their artworks—it is meant to be walked on and
sat upon. That the dominoes are stacked randomly as if still in play
is an attempt to animate the corner and prevent it from becoming
a dead space.
A telltale sign of Schelle’s inexperience in landscape architecture
is her remark that “there were a lot of weird things we had to
consider.” Presumably these are things that landscape architects
encounter on a daily basis. So for the nuts and bolts of executing
the design at the heavily trafficked corner, they relied on the
expertise of John Quinn. From incorporating the air vents coming
from the adjacent underground streetcar tunnels, to controlling
sightlines and visual obstructions to traffic at the intersection, and
to selecting drought-resistant plant material, Quinn was their
ultimate resource for determining what would and wouldn’t work
on the site. Additionally, they collaborated with Quinn on the overall
configuration of the design, and they worked together on the
concrete bridge that bisects Spadina and on creating the intimate,
Japanese-influenced gardens.
TEXT BY PATRICIA SHARPE, ASSOCIATE MEMBER
Schelle is an advocate of artist/landscape architect collaborations
and she points out that mutual respect and the checking of egos
are mandatory prerequisites: “The collaboration can be mutually
beneficial because landscape architects have expertise that artists
don’t have and artists can make aesthetic decisions that might be
slightly out of the norm.”
BIO/ PATRICIA SHARPE IS AN ASSOCIATE MEMBER WHO HAS WORKED AS AN ART CONSULTANT IN THE PAST.
01
02
03
04
01/02/03/04/ The design of Bloor-Spadina Parkette is based on the concept of the game board, with playful elements included throughout
IMAGES/ Susan Schelle
Artists OutFront
19.01
Letter fromBerlin
20.01
Cultiva
tingthe
Vie
w
The Temporary Gardenshave been a part of theGerman cultural landscapesince the first installationtook place in 1997. Nearlyevery summer, approxi-mately twenty different andunusual installations of gar-den art seek to changepeople's perceptions andexperiences of inner-citypublic space
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a vast and disused area
dominated the historic centre of Berlin. The majority of citizens
as well as many municipal politicians called this wasteland a blot
on the cityscape. In the mid-1990s, David Sprenger, the Berlin
chair of the Federation of German Landscape Architects, along
with some of his colleagues, conceived of the Temporary Gardens
project as a way to fill this “vacuum” in the inner city.
Their conception pursues two aims. The first is to encourage
landscape architects to offer critical commentary on the municipal
policy of urban development in Berlin. As an alternative to the
historical reconstruction of Berlin’s inner city and the complete
denial of urban development during socialist rule, the Temporary
Gardens stress the hidden qualities of the existing site. This project
takes the many identities and meanings of the place as a starting
point for unexpected conceptions for possible future development.
In contrast to the often self-interested plans of planners and
investors (groups that have rarely been attentive to the unique
atmosphere and needs of the places they have developed), the
designers of Temporary Gardens seek inspiration from dialogue
with neighbours and everyday users, and from their individual
experiences and perspectives. This new approach purposefully
02
TEXT BY STEFANIE HENNECKE
01
Letter fromBerlin
21.01
deals with the “material” of the space, the unpredictable, even
accidental situations that such spaces nurture, as well as the pos-
sibilities of establishing new spatial and theoretical connections.
Each installation, often set up in neglected urban areas, aims at
initiating a process of questioning its surrounding—its form, its
usability and its meaning.
The second goal of the Temporary Gardens is the search for
professional identity: how can landscape architects initiate and
influence fruitful changes in the 21st-century Berlin? The Temporary
Gardens of the last 10 years are an archive of questions and
answers posed and offered by young landscape architects in the
hopes of making vital contributions to the city and in searching
out and refining their own self-image.
The process of organizing and building the Temporary Gardens is
essential to the whole project. The gardens provide a platform for
people to work, discuss, and celebrate together. After the call for
ideas, a jury of landscape architects and municipal representatives
chooses the projects to be realized. The selected teams then work
together as a single unit on the project. The initial ideas are
refined during a workshop, and the sites for the single installations
and the choreography of the whole event are laid out together.
The designers talk to visitors, invite them to “use” the installations,
or give a guided tour of the project. Visitors experience this special
team spirit while, for example, waiting for grilled sausages from
the “Subscription-Barbecue,” taking a sunbath in a grass-deckchair
on the median strip of a main road, enjoying a vertical garden
created by sunflowers printed on cloth covering all satellite dishes
of a 30-storey apartment-building, or admiring the “subway plants”
—huge balloon-flowers growing from subway ventilation shafts.
The response to the Temporary Gardens in Berlin has been
enormously positive, especially considering the project’s minimal
budget. The number of residents, tourists, and design professionals
visiting the Temporary Gardens runs into thousands and increases
every year. The trade press sometimes criticizes the Temporary
Gardens as being too “ephemeral.” However, the Temporary
Gardens are not intended to be long-term redesigns of spaces
but are instead aimed at transforming the perceptions of these
previously suspect and neglected spaces. A few chairs and a
flowerpot can be enough to transform a curb into an urban place.
A coloured leaf and petal floating by the river can attach a lasting
poetic meaning to the river and banks in the course of only a few
minutes. An open manhole in the pavement where one sees
flowers instead of sewage can slow down the pedestrian stream
and bring strangers together in modes of communication both
verbal and non-verbal. Even if the Temporary Gardens are not
powerful enough to influence larger trends in urban development,
the project has had an important effect on participating landscape
architects and individual visitors. The joyful and experimental
approach to neglected urban areas has imbued these spaces
with positive experiences. The impact on visitors has proved
anything but temporary.
BIO/ STEFANIE HENNECKE IS A FACULTY MEMBER SPECIALIZING IN GARDEN CULTURE AND OPEN SPACE DEVELOPMENT AT THE INSTITUTE FOR HISTORY AND THEORY OF DESIGN, BERLIN UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS.
URL/ WWW.TEMPORAEREGAERTEN.DE
EXPORTING AN IDEA
temporary gardens expand
The first Temporary Gardens were
built by landscape architects and
students from Berlin. With their
increasing visibility, the designers
of Temporary Gardeners became
ever more international and
interdisciplinary, until the very idea
of Temporary Gardening has itself
been exported to other European
countries: in 2000 and 2001,
Temporary Gardens were found in
Le Havre, France, and in 2005 in
Tartu, Estonia. In the summer of
2008, new Temporary Gardens will
be installed in Aachen, Germany.
03
01/ "Laying Lawn" by Jens Gartelmann and Klemens Hundertmark, Temporary Gardens (2000)
IMAGE/ Yann Monel02/ "Un jardin de
yoyage – Travelling Garden" by Nicolas Pinier, Temporary Gardens (2001)
IMAGE/ Yann Monel03/ "Subway-Plants"
by Robert Schmitz-Michels and Henning Hennenkemper, Temporary Gardens (2000)
IMAGE/ Yann Monel04/ "Vertical
Sunflower-Garden--South-South/East" by Jörg Rekittke, Anna Hardenberg, Philip Paar, and Christian Wilke, Temporary Gardens (1999)
IMAGE/ Yann Monel
04
FourPerspectiveson Art inPublic Spaces
David LeinsterDAVID LEINSTER, OALA, FCSLA, IS A PARTNER WITH THE PLANNINGPARTNERSHIP. HE IS A PAST PRESIDENT OF THE ONTARIOASSOCIATION OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS AND CURRENTLY SITSON THE CITY OF TORONTO’S PUBLIC ART ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
Like the Bilbao effect in architecture,
integrated art and landscape projects are
capturing the public imagination as some
of the best examples of urban renewal
initiatives being created today. At the
highest order of city building these projects
are the kind of place makers that redefine
a city‘s identity. At a lower order, but of no
less importance, they reflect community
values, enriching the neighbourhoods they
grace and the everyday experience of
those who visit them.
Chicago ‘s Millennium Park is probably
the most notable recent example of this
phenomenon. In this case, the Anish
Kapoor Cloud Gate and Jaume Plensa
Crown Fountain, as well as Frank Gehry’s
bridge and amphitheatre, are fully
integrated park elements that are
themselves becoming recognized
symbols for the city.
This integrated approach has been
embraced by a number of enlightened
landscape architects and agencies who
see public art and landscape being fully
integrated both in terms of process and
product. At Don River Park, Michael Van
Valkenberg is working with New York artist
Meg Webster to create a focal point at the
highest point in the park. Greg Smallenberg
is working with Vancouver artist Jill Anholt
on a new park at the foot of Sherbourne
on Toronto’s waterfront. In both cases an
enlightened client, Waterfront Toronto, has
supported the collaboration as part of a
creative design-driven process. As the
leading design profession of the public
realm, landscape architects are proving
to be leaders in this important urban
renewal and identity-defining approach
to city building.
For an examination of some of the issues around the relationshipbetween professional artists and land-scape architects and to get someperspectives on the ideal process orteam role delineation that createsthe best results, we selected an artconsultant and three landscapearchitects, one of whom is also an artist, and asked them:
INTERVIEWS BY NETAMI STUART, ASSOCIATE MEMBER,AND FUNG LEE, OALA, CSLA
Round Table 22.01
What is the role of the landscapearchitect in the process of creatingart in public spaces?
In my experience, the recurring problems
that affect the public art process, including
working relationships, are that
• the artist is often seen as a
necessary requirement to win
the commission but the artist
and/or artwork is expendable
thereafter;
• landscape architects often think
public art is unnecessary since
they consider their designs to
be “artful”;
• the artist is the “outsider”
incorporated into a team that
has worked together before,
with no means of advocating
his/her role, which is minimized
in the design process;
• architects and landscape
architects often believe they can
produce the artwork themselves,
as part of their scope of services;
• architects and landscape architects
choose artists they know for the team
whereas the selection should be by art
consultants, from a vastly broader base.
I think the realities that need to be consid-
ered are primarily that artists have a vital
contribution to make to the collaborative
process that goes beyond the merely
well-designed industrial, architectural,
or landscape features.
Some of the solutions in creating a better
working process are, firstly, that the City
should require a public art consultant on the
collaborative team in the design of public
park spaces when public art is a required
component. Secondly, for smaller projects,
like parkettes, and for projects funded by
public art budgets, the team should be led
by the artist, with the landscape architect as
a consultant. This ensures that the art
concept of the park informs the layout and
landscape features.
Rina GreerRINA GREER IS AN ART CONSULTANT WHO SPECIALIZES IN INTEGRATED ART AND ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS. SHE IS THE CO-FOUNDER OF STUDIOSTAMPA INC., A DESIGN AND SUPPLY COMPA-NY THAT CREATES PRODUCTS FOR INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR SPACES.
Round Table 23.01
Landscape architects certainly are
designers, but do designers create art?
The answer depends on whether your
definition of public art includes only
sculptures, murals, and fountains, or
whether it extends to any work that
functions as a public amenity or community
beautification project.
Certainly the design of the landscape is
of vital importance to the experience of an
artistic piece. A lone statue, situated in the
centre of a stark, open plaza, could be
compared to taking a photograph of a
beautiful person in the act of chewing food
(a situation where most people are not
portrayed in their best light). Often public
opinion towards sculpture is unfavourable
because of its arbitrary existence and
lack of context with the surrounding
environment. A good landscape architect
can not only remedy this problem but,
through design, may even inspire the
actual artistic creation in the first place.
Based on this perspective, the landscape
designer is also “the artist,” as they are
collaborating together.
I think that landscape architects play a vital
role in the implementation of public art.
Most artists are not well acquainted with
obtaining engineering approvals, permits,
and general construction process.
Landscape architects also identify and
create opportunities for the installation of
public art. Artists need landscape designers,
designers need artists, and the public
benefits from both.
MICHELLE PURCHASE, OALA, CSLA, IS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT,PROFESSIONAL ARTIST, AND PRINTMAKER. SHE TEACHES ATNIAGARA COLLEGE IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE AND COORDINATESTHE ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION PROGRAM.
Michelle Purchase
One of the things I’ve learned is that there
is a distinction between public art and art
in the public realm. It’s very clear that public
art is art that follows the juried process
whereby you would tender for artist input
and go through the whole process of
selecting an artist. Another aspect is art in
the landscape, which is more along the
lines of what we do every day as land-
scape architects. I think that we are in a
position, because of our training and our
approach to site design, that we are able
to participate in both of these processes.
Public art needs a canvas and at times the
canvas can be very complicated. This is
where we can provide service to the artist:
not only in terms of our overall vision of the
site, but with the things that nobody is
going to consider when looking at the
finished piece. That’s the coordination that
goes into our work; whether it’s dealing
with structural, electrical, construction
supervision, our skills really allow us to tie
it all together.
We recently opened a parkette in
Hamilton’s Ottawa Street BIA and part
of that design incorporates both aspects of
public art. Ottawa Street is known as the
home-décor district so we did a lot of
custom design for this project that reflects
this notion, right down to the bollards look-
ing like spools of thread, manhole covers
looking like buttons, and a paving pattern
to reflect a quilt—that’s art in the land-
scape. In addition, we incorporated a
space for a piece of public art that we
will commission through the public art
process. As a landscape architect, I created
the vision, and in conjunction with others
set the groundwork for the inclusion of a
juried piece of public art. It is a huge
win-win for everybody.
David ZimmerDAVID ZIMMER, OALA, CSLA, IS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT IN THEDOWNTOWN AND COMMUNITY RENEWAL DIVISION AT THE CITYOF HAMILTON. HE HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE PREPARATION OFTHE CITY'S PUBLIC ART MASTER PLAN.
BIO/ NETAMI STUART, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, IS A LANDSCAPE DESIGNER AND CERTIFIED ARBORIST WITH PMA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS.
BIO/ FUNG LEE, OALA, CSLA, IS A SENIOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND PRINCIPAL AT PMA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
Considering all of the recent interest in
Toronto’s waterfront parks and the design
competitions shaping the area’s future,
there’s been relatively little focus on the
lake itself—its health, ecology, and long-
term prognosis. But a new exhibition in
Toronto turns the spotlight towards what
goes on under the surface. Hidden below
the waters of Lake Ontario for 18 months, a
replica of Henry Moore’s 1953-4 sculpture
Warrior With Shield has now emerged
from its temporary aquatic home to
become the centrepiece of an exhibition,
“Cuttings (Supplement),” by Simon Starling,
at The Power Plant gallery in Toronto.
The zebra mussel-encrusted sculpture,
“Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore),” is
one of nine major works by the Turner
Prize-winning artist to be included in the
exhibition, which runs from March 1-May 11.
For more information,
see www.thepowerplant.org.
exhibition volunteeringA new project, the Toronto Balconies Bloom
campaign, was recently launched by two
volunteers, Gabriele Davies and Fern
Mosoff, who are passionately interested in
seeing more balcony gardens in Toronto.
Their intent is to green the city's balconies
and to inspire increased gardening activity
across income, age, and ethno-cultural
groups. With a balcony garden competition
planned for the summer, the group is look-
ing for volunteers to help with the project,
especially as judges. For more information,
contact Fern Mosoff at magmos@sympati-
co.ca, or call 416-654-9472.
Notes 24.01
Notes:AMiscellanyof Newsand Events
On April 8, 2008, as part of The Bulthaup
Spring 2008 Lecture Series at the Faculty
of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
at the University of Toronto, Michael Van
Valkenburgh will be giving a talk entitled
“Don River Park, The Portlands Estuary,
and Other Recent MVVA Projects.” This
presentation, by the 2007-08 Michael
Hough/OALA Visiting Critic, begins at
6:30 in Room 103, 230 College Street,
Toronto, and is free of charge. For more
information, see www.ald.utoronto.ca
or phone 416-978-5038.
The University of Guelph reports a surge of
interest in students applying for the land-
scape architecture program. According to
Maurice Nelischer, OALA, CSLA, Director,
School of Environmental Design and Rural
Development, “Last year, there were 79
applications for our BLA program from
high-school students in Ontario (we had a
total of about 150 participants). This year,
after some aggressive marketing of the
profession and the program, we have
received 397 applications from high-
school students. We are expecting about
500 applications overall.” As Nelischer
points out, “Clearly there is a strong
demand to get into our green profession.”
lecture
school news
Notes 25.01
new membersThe Ontario Association of Landscape
Architects is proud to recognize and
welcome the following new full members
to the association:
Mark Ambtman
Colin Berman *
Melissa Cate Christ
Micheline Clouard *
Barry Day
Bryan Jones
Amy Roots *
Janet Sperling *
Yvonne Yeung *
Asterisk (*) denotes a Full Member not hav-
ing custody and use of the Association seal.
The OALA is saddened to announce the
passing of Rhonda Cleary (Maertens). A
full member since 1984, Rhonda Cleary
passed away in October 2007.
in memoriam
To help navigate through the voluminous
literature on “land art” and the relationship
between art and landscape architecture—
this issue’s theme—Pat Eaves-Brown (MA,
MLS, MFA, Academic Liaison Librarian,
Landscape Architecture and Fine Art,
University of Guelph) recommends the
following books:
GeneralAndre, Carl. Art in the Landscape:
A Symposium Hosted by the Chinati
Foundation, Marfa, Texas, on September
30 and October 1, 1995. 1st ed. Marfa,
Texas: Chinati Foundation, 2000.
Beardsley, John. Earthworks and Beyond:
Contemporary Art in the Landscape. 4th
ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 2006.
Gooding, Mel, and William Furlong. Artists
Land Nature. New York: Harry N. Abrams,
2002.
Prigann, Herman, Heike Strelow, and
Vera David. Ecological Aesthetics: Art in
Environmental Design: Theory and
Practice. Basel; Boston: Birkhäuser, 2004.
Reed, Peter Shedd. Groundswell:
Constructing the Contemporary
Landscape. New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 2005
Sonfist, Alan, Wolfgang Becker, and Robert
Rosenblum. Nature, the End of Art:
Environmental Landscapes. New York:
London: D.A.P.; Thames & Hudson, 2004.
Tufnell, Ben. Land Art. London: Tate, 2006.
Weilacher, Udo. Between Landscape
Architecture and Land Art. Basel: Birkhäuser,
1996.
books
awardsCanada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation’s Excellence in Education Award
honours educators in Ontario who have
encouraged students in the development of
sustainable communities by integrating
sustainable concepts and community
development into their curriculum. Dr.
Robert Corry, an Associate Professor of
Landscape Architecture at the University
of Guelph, won the award in 2007. To
nominate an outstanding educator, go to
www.cmhc.ca (keywords: Excellence in
Education). The nomination deadline
is May 31, 2008.
The Landscape and ArtistsBaker, George, Lynne Cooke, and Karen J.
Kelly. Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty: True
Fictions, False Realities. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2005.
Christo, Jeanne-Claude, Wolfgang Volz,
Anne L. Strauss, and Jonathan Henery.
Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-
2005. Köln; London: Taschen, 2005.
Goldsworthy, Andy. Enclosure: Andy
Goldsworthy. England: Thames & Hudson,
2007.
Graziose Corrin, Lisa. Mark Dion. London:
Phaidon, 1997.
Long, Richard. Richard Long: Walking the
Line. London; New York: Thames &
Hudson, 2002.
Miss, Mary, and Daniel M. Abramson.
Mary Miss. 1st ed. New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2004.
Simon, Jacques, and Femke De Lameillieure.
Articulture: Jacques Simon, Paysagiste =
Jacques Simon, Landscape Architect.
Oostkamp: Stichting Kunstboek, 2006.
Torres, Ana Maria. Isamu Noguchi: A Study
of Space. New York: Monacelli Press, 2000
For the full text of Pat Eaves-Brown’s
“Art in the Landscape Bibliography,”
visit www.oala.ca. The full bibliography
includes references to journal articles,
all of which can be found in the library
at the University of Guelph.
For informationabout advertising inGround: LandscapeArchitect Quarterly,please contact
Heather [email protected]
01
Artifact 34.01
“I moved from Saskatchewan to Toronto
five years ago, and one of the first places
that really fascinated me was the Leslie
Street Spit. It’s a nature reserve but it’s also
a dumping ground, and this combination
creates an almost alien-like landscape.
“I wanted to put something permanent
in the landscape—something for people
to ponder, enjoy, or maybe detest—and
because I’ve worked as a graffiti artist,
paint was just a natural. So I go with paint
at night and I take photos during the day.
I’m playing visual games in the landscape,
manipulating, or transforming an
industrial space, creating a new part
of the landscape.
“I hope that people who stumble upon my
work will first enjoy it and then look around
and notice more of the environment, more
about the surroundings. Maybe they’ll
even say, hey, this isn’t a ‘natural’ shore-
line, this is a constructed shoreline, and
this is a constructed object within that
shoreline. Maybe they’ll start to see the
landscape in a completely different way.”
URL/ TO SEE MORE OF NEIL MILLS' WORK, VISIT WWW.NEILMILLSIMAGING.COM
ConstructedShoreline
01/02/03/ "Untitled" from the series Altered Landscapes
IMAGES/ Neil Mills
Neil Mills is aphoto-based artist who lives in Toronto
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AS TOLD TO LORRAINE JOHNSON
