Speaker(s): Nate Wooten, Associate ASLA, RA, AIA | Yadan Luo, ASLA | Rebecca Popowsky, RLA, SITES AP
Moderator(s): Matthew J. Wilkins, ASLA, LEED Green Associate | Eric Gilbey, ASLA

OLIN Labs, the research and development group within OLIN, is a community of practice that focuses on five interdependent areas of inquiry: Ecology, Technology, Construction, Design and People. Tech Lab​ is responsible for the development and stewardship of custom design technology and workflows for landscape architecture, from parametric design and visualization workflows to mapping, analysis and communication.

This presentation will present the various modes in which OLIN designers and researchers work to develop, implement, and disseminate innovative tech solutions in our practice and beyond through: Education (which includes identification of needs and opportunities in our current practice and internal training), Development (the creation of new tools and methods to meet the needs of our practice), and Research (including external partnerships and primary research to create new knowledge in the realm of technology.) Case studies of current OLIN Labs initiatives will be used to exemplify these three levels of inquiry.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Measure software and tool usage in professional practice and evaluate needs and capacity for training and education.
2. Assess the impact of creating new custom tools and methods to solve both unique and routine landscape design problems.
3. Structure research into emerging trends in landscape architectural professional practice.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Catherine Saunders, Affil. ASLA

Social media can be an invaluable tool to landscape architects and the larger design community. One of our profession’s biggest problems is a lack of recognition by allied professionals and clients. Social media plays a critical role in how digital-savvy landscape architects control the profession’s narrative in an architecture-focused media landscape.

This presentation will provide helpful tips for creating a social media strategy, define best practices, and explore ways to crowdsource content. We’ll also share tricks for organically attracting and retaining followers, tips for improving post engagement, and ways to prove ROI through routine analytics monitoring and reporting.

Learning Objectives:

• Clearly identify which social media platforms their firms should be on (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and why.
• Analyze social media insights (data) that will tell them when the best time for posting is, what content their audience likes, and how often they should be posting.
• Understand how important reporting on social media performance is for ROI and justifying the investment of resources.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Meghen Quinn, ASLA | Bradford McKee

Landscape architects face pressure on projects to use building information modeling, or BIM, software for their designs. Risks are numerous, but advantages can be significant. Learn how one landscape architect made BIM work for her as a sole proprietor and hear answers to common questions about firing up BIM.

Learning Objectives:

• Explore why the landscape architectural profession must embrace new documentation technology.
• Learn which projects are best suited to adopting design and documentation using BIM; some projects better lend themselves to getting started with BIM.
• Understand the benefits of BIM to your practice: iterative design, integrative collaboration, improved team communication, documentation efficiencies.
• Discover how BIM can bridge generational divides and become a real-time design mentoring tool.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Christopher S. Sherwin, ASLA | Emily Schlickman, ASLA | Luke Hegeman, ASLA, LEED AP | Brett Milligan, ASLA

This session will examine how landscape architects, professors, and planners are using nascent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) techniques to map, study, and forecast complex ecologies, vegetational systems, and landscape surface strata to constructively alter the methodologies the profession can utilize with the use of emergent mapping technologies present in the UAV.

Learning Objectives:

• Overview and critical understanding of UAV’s nascent and expanding capabilities and applications for the design field.
• Understanding the use of UAV's as a predictive analysis tool for projects of various scopes and types.
• Understanding the use of UAV's for design applications
• Critical understanding of UAV’s limitations and shortcomings in respect to the design profession at large.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Kelleann Foster, ASLA | James Sipes, ASLA | Jesse D. Suders

Augmented intelligence (AI) is disrupting the complexity where designers thrive. A new era of collaboration enables shift from data overload toward data sensibility. How will capitalizing on augmented intelligence affect your practice? Your productivity? Geodesign, a unique AI, provides distinctive opportunities—learn from practitioners successfully navigating this shift.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how geospatial data provides augmented intelligence that is relevant for design practices (large and small) and opportunities how to utilize this most effectively.
• Learn the distinctive benefits and potential challenges of combining geospatial technology with landscape architecture design practices
• Be able to compare technologies that provide augmented intelligence and how best to leverage various approaches to collaboration using the geodesign approach
• Realize how landscape architecture’s skills and expertise are a perfect fit for leading geodesign teams and become inspired by these opportunities.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Ron Henderson, FASLA | Raymond W. Gastil, AICP, LEED AP | Nilay Mistry, ASLA | Chris Landau, Affil. ASLA

Expanding driverless vehicle use will force crucial recalibrations to streets, public spaces, and urban form. How can designers maintain human interests in increasingly autonomous cities? This panel of landscape architects and planning authorities will discuss initiatives to promote physical, ecological, and social sustainability through driverless technologies.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about case studies of current design research and experiments in design regarding autonomous vehicles.
• Learn public engagement strategies and scenario based approaches to design.
• Understand development of planning policies in various cities due to autonomous vehicle growth.
• Examine the role of partnerships with local industries and academic institutions in designing for autonomous vehicles.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Matthew J. Wilkins, ASLA, LEED Green Associate | Robert Anderson, ASLA | Eric Berg, ASLA, LEED AP

With today’s tight budgets, collaboration requirements and quick delivery of projects with regulatory or performance-driven guidelines, landscape architects need to work smarter, not harder. Explore the challenges associated with transitioning from traditional CAD platforms to building information modeling (BIM), new efficient workflows, and the benefits/challenges of this change.

Learning objectives:

• Learn the deciding factors that compel firms to move from general CAD to BIM and how firms transition to new design workflows, including timelines, challenges, and helpful resources.
• Identify the suite of tools and work flows available to assist and document design.
• Explore practical uses of BIM from conceptual drawings and models to construction documents and presentations.
• Understand how BIM workflows are used to complete applications for LEED, SITES, and state, local, and federal reviews and approvals.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Eamonn Hutton, Associate ASLA | Edward Krafcik, ASLA | Bobbi Nance

Learn how new hardware and software technologies are helping landscape architects innovate in the planning, design, and post occupancy assessment of parks and public spaces. In this session you will see case studies from Sasaki, Soofa, a start-up from MIT’s Media Lab, and the Park District of Oak Park, IL.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn what new technology currently exists in the market, both in hardware and software, and how landscape architects and clients are working together to deploy it in outdoor public spaces. 
• Understand the challenges in bringing new technology to parks and public spaces and how to overcome them. 
• Gain insight into how landscape architects can effectively collaborate with technology companies, and why such collaboration is valuable in the current era of smart cities and data driven decision-making. 
• Learn directly from a public sector client where landscape architects can add value in helping make smarter parks and public spaces and where there is room for improvement. 

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Kimberly Kneifl, Associate ASLA

Visual social media such as Instagram and Twitter have the potential to offer more than a chronicle of our everyday lives. They allow landscape architects to reach into a vast storehouse of visual information and extract valuable information about the general public's shared landscape experiences. An ability to collect and analyze this information can give landscape architects, urban planners, and researchers insight into how snapshots reveal individual preferences and interpretations of the built environment.

This presentation will take the practitioner on a technological journey through the Instagram API Console and its potential when applied to a real site in an attempt to answer if this type of Big Data can be used to find hidden patterns and commonalities in the landscape. Webinar participants will learn how to use Twitter’s “Streaming API” to build their own tool for site analysis, post-occupancy evaluation, and design research.

Objectives:

• Learn how Big Data is changing how the public views, collects and disseminates information about the landscape.
• Learn how technology has changed how people view the landscape and how it has remained the same.
• Learn how the tool can be applied to find hidden patterns and commonalities in the built environment.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Leehu Loon, ASLA, PLA | Eric Gilbey, ASLA | Matthew J. Wilkins, ASLA, LEED Green Associate

This session will explore how technology influences and is influenced by practitioners, educators, students, and software developers. We will have a moderated round-table discussion bringing together professional practice, education, and digital technology. This session will also focus on the practical application of off-the-shelf software to achieving production in the workplace.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the software, platforms, and processes that are being taught to landscape architecture students.
• Understand the requests that students are making for technology use.
• Recognize how professional practice influences the technology curriculum, and the expectations of hiring firms.
• Explain how the educational curriculum affects professional practice.
• Become aware of how practitioners contribute to the development of software.
• Identify new technologies that impact our products, workflows, and staff.
• Become aware of how technology companies are working with educators to promote their products.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.