Reconnecting Landscapes: Resilient Planting Design in Ecologically Deficient Zones - 1.0 PDH (LA CES/HSW)
- Registration Closed
On sites dominated by infrastructure and impervious surfaces, landscape architects are expected to create successfully integrated, ecologically rich environments. Through a diverse selection of projects, this session will discuss how practitioners can design, implement, and advocate for resilient landscapes in spaces where ecology is feared, considered as an afterthought, or ignored altogether.
Learning objectives:
- Examine current strategies for developing ecologies and increasing ecosystem services through successful horticulture and planting design in harsh urban environments and areas that are not hospitable to vegetation.
- Understand the benefits and challenges of successional planting design and utilizing plant communities in landscapes dominated by transportation and infrastructure, as a functional, resilient, and sustainable approach.
- Learn about opportunities of performative planting as a critical component to green infrastructure and stormwater management in climate-vulnerable landscapes, and the advantages of increasing pervious surfaces in urban areas.
- Gain insight into project-based social, environmental, and economic considerations of incremental and large-scale sustainable planting design striving for big impacts and demanding a rebalance of ecology and infrastructure.
Molly Bourne, ASLA
Principal
MNLA
Molly Bourne sees landscape architecture practice as a medium to celebrate and explore the environment and our place within it. She is deeply dedicated to elevated design thinking that advances the public good. Since joining the firm in 1999, Molly has led award-winning, multidisciplinary teams on high-profile projects for waterfront parks, cultural institutions, and urban revitalization. Activating public space dialogue, tackling climate change, reclaiming industrial sites and shorelines, and protecting pollinators are her professional passions.
Developing the next generation of practitioners, Molly is a visiting lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design and volunteers with the ACE Mentor Program for New York City high school students. She enjoys engaging with the profession and public alike, speaking widely, leading site tours, and exchanging inventive ideas about how to better urban environments.
Molly’s key projects include the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, Governors Island Park and Public Space, Waterline Square, South Bronx Greenway Master Plan and Implementation, the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center Master Plan and Implementation, and the Renovation of Roberto Clemente State Park. Molly received her BA at the University of Florida.
Thomas Rainer, ASLA, PLA
Principal
Phyto Studio
Thomas Rainer is a registered landscape architect, teacher, and author living in Arlington, Virginia. Thomas, a leading voice in ecological landscape design, has designed landscapes for the U.S. Capitol grounds, Arlington National Cemetery, and The New York Botanical Garden, as well as over 100 gardens from Maine to Florida. He is a celebrated public speaker who has garnered acclaim for his passionate presentations to audiences across the U.S. and in Europe. Thomas serves as a Principal for the landscape architectural firm Phyto Studio in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Lavallee, FASLA
Partner
SiteWorks Landscape Architecture, LLC
Andrew Lavallee, FASLA, RLA is a partner at SiteWorks Landscape Architecture, LLC. He has more than three decades of experience as a designer and construction manager. He leads his firm’s technical design practice focusing on multidisciplinary public realm projects including executive landscape architecture services, specification writing, cost estimating for both construction and post-installation management, and strategic planning for construction, procurement, site implementation logistics, and post-construction site management. Andrew is also an Adjunct Professor with the City College of New York Graduate Landscape Architecture Program.