Speaker(s): Jeremy Klemic, ASLA | Brian McKinnon | Greg McPherson | Kevin Wilson

This session explores the multifaceted strategies for urban forest management. Panelists will expand on the significant value of urban forests, including increased property values, energy conservation, stormwater treatment, air pollution reduction, and wildlife habitat. They will also discuss real-world solutions for preservation, planning, and maintenance to replenish aging urban forests.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how urban forests contribute to the history, functionality, and sustainability of a city or a campus.
• Understand the challenges and successes of maintaining urban forests.
• Gain insight into the landscape architect’s role in preserving urban forests alongside visionary clients.
• Examine strategies for reducing water load, increasing native landscape materials, and saving money for cities and campuses.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Briana Hensold | Laura Crescimano | Scott Gilmore | Joe Salaices

Every major city in the United States, large and small, struggles with generating effective dialogues and solutions for homelessness. Through an exploration of national data, as well as successes and challenges from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver, policies, programs and design solutions will be shared.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine an overview of nationwide data about homeless populations, to support better understanding.
• Discover stories of how homelessness is a consideration for parks professionals and designers, and what factors are at play for management, operations, design, and programming.
• Take a deeper dive into successful case studies from multiple cities, ranging from policy to programs to design.
• Learn sources to research for additional data, case studies, and resources.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Jennifer Dowdell, ASLA | Pippa Brashear, ASLA | Sara Cohen, ASLA | Andrew ten Brink, ASLA

With the proliferation of urban development in coastal cities, landscape architects have an opportunity to design urban infrastructure in a way that can simultaneously bolster aquatic habitat and create great public space. This session compares three case studies: Chicago Riverwalk, Elliott Bay Seawall, and Rebuild by Design: Living Breakwaters.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the relationship between open space design and essential aquatic habitat.
• Examine the responsibility landscape architects have in supporting marine environments in coastal and shoreline development/redevelopment.
• Compare alternative or innovative design methods to enhance or restore aquatic habitat and fish vitality in urban waterways.
• Understand the importance of collaboration between the designer, ecologist, and engineer to create urban aquatic habitat.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Marieke Lacasse, ASLA, LEED AP | Gerhard W. Mayer, AIA, LEED AP | Woodie Tescher

In the 20th century, our society gradually dedicated ever-increasing amounts of land to the exclusive use of automobiles. However, the pushback against this trend has begun. This session examines international, national, and regional methodologies to recapture land for recreation and ecological replenishment and to promote sustainable urban growth.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain awareness of land use balance in an urban fabric, and discuss ideal proportions of land for transportation, housing, office, retail, open space, and institutions.
• Use case studies to understand different mechanisms used by converted sites for community use and leveraged as open space, multimodal connectors, and tactical interventions to reclaim street space.
• Become familiar with policy and regulatory legislative initiatives influencing the reshaping of our cities’ urban form, shifting from our auto-dominated traditions to more walkable and sustainable communities.
• Learn about the legislative difficulties that are the result of pushing cars in the background and people in the foreground, and methods or tools to overcome those impediments.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Kristina Hill, Assoc. ASLA | Jenna F. Harris, ASLA | Margaret Baldwin, ASLA

Cities everywhere face the challenges of changing climate and the vicissitudes of a changing economy. This panel will present examples and principles for successfully negotiating these challenges using insights about culture and ecology in both shallow, coastal cities and fallow, urban landscapes.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify areas of professional expertise that can give landscape architects an advantage in competing for work on urban adaptation to climate and economic trends.
• Understand how rigorous design research can improve the design and resiliency of American cities.
• Identify key strategic knowledge from case studies at multiple scales that addresses landscape infrastructure, development policy, social responsibility, and ecological resiliency.
• Understand how a landscape architecture “systems approach” can create innovative designs that find strength in site history, culture, larger-scale ecosystems, and our changing environment.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Frederick R. Steiner, FASLA, SITES AP | James Corner, ASLA | Susannah C. Drake, FASLA, AIA | Charles Waldheim, Hon. ASLA | Nina-Marie E. Lister, Hon. ASLA

This session focuses on the specific contribution of landscape architects to the new interdisciplinary approach to ecological urban design documented in Nature and Cities: The Ecological Imperative in Urban Design and Planning, which is being published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about the ways in which ecological understanding can help planners respond to urban challenges like climate change with a focus on resilient urban design.
• Consider a new generation of green urban infrastructure projects with attention to public health, safety, and welfare.
• Discuss the specific role of landscape architects on interdisciplinary teams working to advance ecological urban design.
• Be introduced to an important new book, written by leading landscape architecture theorists and practitioners.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Dennis Carmichael, FASLA, LEED AP | Hope H. Rising, ASLA | Prisca Sweems, LEED AP

Cities are faced with the increasing risks of inland and coastal flooding as impacts of climate change and sea level rise are being felt. To respond to this challenge as place-making opportunities, this session conducts water urbanism case studies from multiple perspectives to offer water urbanism as an emerging approach to landscape architecture.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand water as a driving force for urban design and landscape architecture.
• Acquire a water planning toolbox of strategies for cities to respond to climate change.
• Examine ways to successfully integrate low-impact development strategies into places for people in urban settings.
• Investigate motivating and inhibiting factors underlying a water-coherent approach to urban design and landscape architecture.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Estevan Castaneda, Student ASLA

The City of Los Angeles has grown from urban sprawl, and evidentially inherent pockets of under-utilized, un-planned, or mis-used voids throughout the City. Setting up a kit of parts for reinvigorating/regenerating these spaces, this research attempts to inform and formulate different design strategies in approaching these urban voids. Whether the spaces can be enhanced in social connectivity, or improved in ecological performance, the study showcases a closer look in-between, and aim to enrich the potential growth of Los Angeles.

Learning Objectives:

• To explore various urban voids in central Los Angeles and identify their correlation to its surroundings and potentials.
• To explore design interventions that increase the usage of inactive urban spaces and promote social interactions with its urban setting.
• To recognize natural process and enhance the ecological performance in their urban voids.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.