Speaker(s): Naomi A. Sachs, PhD, ASLA, EDAC | Shan Jiang, PhD, MLA | Kirsten Staloch, AIA Associate, LEED Green Associate, EDAC
Moderator(s): Siyi He, Associate ASLA | Melody Tapia, Associate ASLA

Diagnostic post-occupancy evaluation (DPOE) is the most comprehensive strategy that evaluates the utilization of a space as compared to the original design goals and how they were translated into physical form. This presentation will introduce the scientific procedures, methodology, and application of DPOE strategy in evaluating hospital gardens’ environmental, social, and economic performances. Hospital garden spaces at two general acute care hospitals and one outpatient clinic were evaluated regarding the environmental aspects of the landscape performances, including stormwater management and tree benefits. For the social aspects, mixed methods were adopted to evaluate the levels of restorativeness for various garden areas using the Garden Assessment Tool for Evaluators (GATE) and behavior mapping techniques. Focus groups were also conducted at each hospital to further explore users’ behaviors, preferences, and satisfaction about the design of the gardens. This presentation will also discuss the spatial relationship between hospital buildings and gardens, and design features that could attract the most usage through cross-case analysis and comparisons.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the definition and meaning of diagnostic post-occupancy evaluation as a comprehensive evaluation strategy in hospital garden evaluations.
• Learn to apply various evaluation instruments such as EPA and USDA’s toolkits, as well as the Garden Assessment Tool for Evaluators (GATE) audit tool, to evaluate hospital gardens’ environmental and social performances.
  
• Understand that the location of a garden(s) on a medical campus and its spatial relationship to hospital buildings impact people’s behaviors and the usage of the interior and exterior public spaces.
• Learn instrumental design suggestions that maximize the environmental, social, and economic benefits of healing gardens in hospital environments.

Hosted by the ASLA Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Professional Practice Network (PPN)

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Sara Carr , Assoc. ASLA | Jennifer Roe | William Sullivan, ASLA | Edie Zusman

Interaction with nature has quantifiable positive effects on stress, fatigue, and even academic performance. This session discusses the latest research at the intersection of neuroscience and landscape architecture and how these studies make a case for the integration of landscape in environments for schoolchildren, the elderly, and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.

Learning Objectives: 

• Learn about the specific effects landscape has on brain activity and overall well-being, and methods of measurement.
• Understand the special implications of this research for environments for children, teenagers, and the elderly.
• Identify strategies to integrate cutting-edge research to add value to projects, particularly schools and parks.
• Discuss how partnerships can be formed between the academy and practices to implement and advance this research.

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Speaker(s): Mark Klopfer, ASLA, AIA | Rosalyn Cama | Virginia Gehshan, FSEGD | Ellen Taylor, AIA

The health care industry is the latest to understand how investment in connecting people with nature is a powerful way to reinvent itself. This session looks at how interior/exterior landscapes and other strategies for engaging nature achieve qualitative goals in better patient, family, and staff experiences and quantitatively improve patient outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify different disciplines' perspectives on nature and healing in the designed environment.
• Analyze the potential of spaces within therapeutic environments that could better convey nature.
• Understand the research of the healing power of nature, what is known and not known.
• Describe how research can inform design.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Gina Ford, FASLA | Thaisa Way, ASLA | Diana Fernandez, ASLA | Shannon Nichol, FASLA

Beauty, equity, and resilience are elements of good design and yet they are often isolated. Experienced designers will consider projects in which they designed as a means to foster equity by creating beautiful places or as a way to create more enduring and resilient designs in the public realm.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how landscapes are designed to be both beautiful and equitable
• Appreciate the role of landscape to contribute to social justice and equity
• Explore the contributions of beauty and design to improving the public realm
• Gain a deeper understanding of the role of the public realm in designing for beauty and equity

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Cali Pfaff, ASLA | Claude Cormier, ASLA | Emily Waugh | Sahar Coston-Hardy, Affil. ASLA

Words have an unparalleled power to move us, and yet few designers hone their language like they hone their craft. This session brings together a writer, landscape architect, and photographer to discuss the power of narrative in their work and how less jargon can lead us to more meaningful ideas.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to use compelling storytelling to hone design concepts
• Take away best practices for cross-industry practitioners
• Acquire tools to refine and edit design ideas, narratives and images
• Learn how to ditch jargon and speak powerfully about your work.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Rebekah Lawrence, Student ASLA | Jennifer Ren, Student ASLA

The Anacostia riverfront in Washington, D.C., suffers from a severe lack of experiential diversity. Part I of this presentation explores how dance can be successfully translated into the landscape and how choreographic dance principles are helpful tools for creating a diverse and engaging landscape composition. Many dance principles can apply to landscape design. By approaching park design as a choreographer of dance, a designer can focus on the human experiences –how materiality and the environment influence movement, senses, and emotions, creating a diverse and engaging landscape composition.

Part II of the presentation illustrates how to integrate GIS into the design process of documenting, preserving, and interpreting historic landscapes. What began as GIS mapping of the land transfer of George Washington's five farms at Mount Vernon led to a healing garden concept for the historically African-American neighborhood of Gum Springs, founded by former slave, West Ford. This presentation will educate participants on mapping techniques and dataset analysis in ArcGIS in order to integrate ecological research with cultural landscapes, providing inspiration for design decisions and practical guidance in ecological restoration.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how choreographic dance principles can be translated into landscape design at the site scale
  
• Gain a new approach to design and user experience by implementing choreographic dance principles to create contrast and stimulate movement, senses, and emotions.
  
• Understand how to formulate the right questions for dataset construction and the design process feedback loop.
  
• Utilize various methods for incorporating archival sources and ecological planting frameworks into GIS datasets.

PPN Mentors:

David Cutter, ASLA, Campus Planning & Design PPN
Kristina Snyder, ASLA, Women in Landscape Architecture PPN
Amy Wagenfeld, Affiliate ASLA, Children’s Outdoor Environments PPN

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Mikyoung Kim, FASLA | Shane Coen, FASLA | Kathryn Gustafson, FASLA

Three innovative designers discuss the importance of the iterative process in developing design ideas. Through case studies, the panelists share the inspirations that guide their work and discuss their design methods and the ecological systems and cultural meaning that emerge from their unique process.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the process of design.
• Describe the collaborative nature of design in landscape architecture.
• Discuss the unique design methods that define the work of three distinct landscape architects.
• Understand how an adaptive process yields work that has cultural significance.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Astrid Sykes, ASLA | Felicia Filer | Walter Hood, ASLA | Paul Schimmel

Museums are understood as publicly significant spaces. But rarely are they thought of as public spaces. How do we move beyond museums as white cubes and understand them as active players in a discussion about art, community, culture, and politics? This panel will consider museum grounds as unique places where culture, public space, community, and private interests intersect.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how curators, landscape architects, and public art advocates understand the relationship between art and public spaces.
• Review strategies for  designing, managing, and extending art into the museum grounds.
• Explore interactions that are unique to cultural landscape in our cities.
• Gain insight into cultural institutions as a permeable membrane between an institution and the public.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Susan Cohen, FASLA | James Burnett, FASLA | Signe Nielsen, FASLA | Kongjian Yu, FASLA

Reaching beyond constraints of their sites, landscape architects often create works that are memorable in concept and realization. This session explores ways in which the creative spirit fuels the design process in the work of three landscape architects known for their inspired designs: James Burnett, Signe Nielsen, and Kongjian Yu.

Learning Objectives:

• Discover the role of creative imagination in the design process of three outstanding landscape architects working today.
• Learn how an unorthodox line of thought, or an unexpected inspiration, can lead to unusual—perhaps magical—design solutions that meet all the criteria of professional work today.
• Understand the ways in which landscape architects find paths to problem solving and design expression by drawing on their personal histories and diverse interests.
• Be inspired to explore and expand your own sources of inspiration.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.

Speaker(s): Curtis LaPierre, ASLA, AICP, LEED AP | John H. McCarty, ASLA | Mark Meyer, ASLA | Ramiro Villalvazo, FASLA

Is the scenic quality of the public landscapes we experience daily gradually eroding and are we simply powerless to do anything about it? Learn about the issues and what landscape architects working in land management are doing to preserve scenic landscapes on public lands.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about the competing interests, cultural associations, stakes and battles over managing scenery 
• Discover the various opportunities for landscape architects to engage with the public lands professionally and personally, including the experience of a private practitioner.
• Learn about how energy projects effect public lands.
• Be informed about scenery management methods for projects on public lands.

Please complete a brief evaluation of this Online Learning presentation.