Amy Bell Segal, ASLA, Sebago Technics, Inc.

Seth Wilkinson, Wilkinson Ecological Design, Inc.

Kelsey Weir, EI, Sebago Technics, Inc.

Sebago Technics and Wilkinson Ecological Design will present approaches to design, permitting and installation of dune restoration projects in southern Maine. Sebago is a multidisciplinary engineering firm with experience in floodplain management and coastal sand dune permitting in Maine and WED is a coastal bioengineering and ecological restoration firm based in Massachusetts. In January 2024, the coast of Maine experienced significant coastal erosion and flooding during storm surges which combined seasonal high tides and heavy rain. Portland recorded water levels at 3.93 feet above MHHW, third-highest water level on record. Sebago, as well as every other engineering firm in southern Maine was inundated with calls from landowners desperate to remediate their damaged property. Sebago and WED teamed up to design and permit a sand dune restoration project for a landowner wanting to remove a damaged 100 year old cottage in a front dune, restore the eroded sand dune system, and build a new cottage in the back dune. WED will describe best practices for approaching design and installation of dune restoration, including habitat restoration, plant species selection and living shoreline applications. Sebago will review applicable federal, state and local permitting and design considerations for the dune restoration and new development.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW and 1.0 AIA CES HSW.

Jill Zick, ASLA, Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA), City of Boston

Marin Braco, ASLA, BPDA

Breeze Outlaw, BPDA

Isabella Frontado, BPDA

As City leaders have discovered renewed value in design thinking, there has been a shift in the role designers play in shaping the future of Boston. Witnessing the widening gap of environmental inequity, climate change, and displacement, planning leaders are taking a stand on designing and implementing an equitable and inclusive vision for the city. Climate Ready Boston provides a comprehensive reframing of our waterfront to prepare for the increased risk of coastal flooding. The Urban Forest Plan and the Heat Resilience Solutions for Boston imagine a city that is cooler, safer, and more biodiverse. The City is in a critical moment, where these plans become actions, and visionary ideas come to life in our built environment.

Simultaneously, the City is beginning a new era as the Boston Planning and Development Agency transitions into the City Planning Department. The move prioritizes transparency, resiliency, equity, and cultural character of place as the City strives to tackle a housing crisis, increasing extreme weather events, and deepening economic disparities.

How is the city preparing for this transition? What roles are landscape architects playing in leading the effort? How do we ensure that the built work lives up to the vision and aspirations laid out in these plans? And how do we leverage this moment to undo the legacy of injustices still visible in the city’s urban fabric?

The team from the Boston Planning and Development Agency will share work to demonstrate the breadth of roles that landscape architects play in the Agency’s Urban Design department. This includes advocating for design vision, design studies, site review, and leading neighborhood plans and city-wide initiatives.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW and 1.0 AIA CES HSW.

See the slideshow here.

Kaki Martin, FASLA, Klopfer Martin Design Group

Lucica S. Hiller, City of Somerville

Michelle Callahan, Nitsch Engineering

Ryan Corrigan, Parterre Ecological

The green infrastructure revolution is well underway. Many communities have pushed for and are integrating green infrastructure as policy, and designs have responded in kind. But where does the state of green infrastructure actually stand today? What's working, and what isn't? In order to take advantage of current momentum, we need to highlight our successes but also be honest about our failures, and the shortcomings of the current solutions.

Residential yard or city street, public or private sector projects, no matter your role or interest with green infrastructure, our panel of policy, design, construction, and maintenance experts, will share both technical information, and trends as more projects hit the streets. Join us as we work to carry on this movement successfully into the future, together.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW.

See the slideshow here.

Emily Mueller De Celis, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Herb Sweeney IV, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Neil Budzinski, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Since 2007 MVVA ( Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. ) has led a consultant team of fluvial geomorphologists, ecologists, marine engineers, soil scientists, environmental engineers and many other disciplines, on one of the most complex industrial revitalization projects in North America, demonstrating that landscape architects can and should lead large urban infrastructural projects that were once considered best managed by engineers. The $1.4 billion dollar Port Lands Flood Protection project in Toronto is nearly 300 acres and incorporates innovative solutions to challenging environmental conditions with a focus on climate change, reconnection, and human experience. In MVVA’s competition-winning vision, the Don River cuts a new mile-long course through the former Port Lands, creating a restored mouth that outfalls into Lake Ontario. When finished in 2025, this naturalized riverine corridor will eliminate existing flooding, provide 70 acres of new wetlands, create 28 acres of public parks, and reclaim 130 acres from the former floodplain for two new mixed-use neighborhoods as well as public transportation improvements. This session will explore some of the challenges and opportunities in delivering this large and complex project, beginning in the planning process and extending through construction. Thoughts on landscape architects' unique abilities to lead projects will also be shared.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW and 1.0 AIA CES HSW.

See the slideshow here.

Michelle Crowley, Crowley Cottrell

Joan DeLorey, Ames & Gough

Bennet Heart, Noble, Wickersham & Heart

John Steiger, Wealth Planning Resources

Do you have dreams of starting your own practice but don't know where to begin? Perhaps you run your own office and are trying to balance growth while maintaining quality of life and a passion for the work. Maybe you're an employee eager to understand the business issues supporting your firm so you can take on more of a leadership role. We know there are many of you long-time owners out there who are looking for an exit strategy that feels right; for all the reasons.

No matter your role or what stage of practice you're in, our group of legal, financial, insurance, and business experts will share both tactical information needed to manage your business, as well as trends we're seeing within our areas of service. We've all been working with the landscape and design communities for decades, and are excited to support you in your journey forward.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES and 1.0 AIA CES.

Gregory Tuzzolo, Managing Director, STIMSON

Stephen Schneider, Director of Horticulture and Grounds, Northeastern University

Wesley Schwartz, AIA, Associate Principal, Payette

Northeastern University recently completed the EXP building in late 2023, representing the culmination of a ten year collaboration between STIMSON and Payette to realize a new district for the University. The new district includes the EXP and ISEC buildings and enables the expansion of the school's scientific research and education programs. The buildings and landscape demonstrate the energy efficient, climate resilient, collaborative and inclusive principles that underlie the academic mission. Several innovative high performance techniques were used, such as innovative shading systems and chilled beam technology which reduce the energy load and the embodied carbon. The site was a former parking lot.

The new landscape serves as a gateway bridge between the existing campus and the adjacent Roxbury neighborhood. A major streetscape intervention and bikeway provides distinct and safe pedestrian and commuter passage. An elegant sloped walkway rises from Columbus Avenue to the Arc, an elevated public landscape that extends across the rail corridor below, connecting people to the heart of campus. Adjacent to the building, a new plaza hovers above a new urban marsh for stormwater treatment and recharge, a historic reference to the nearby Fens. The landscape includes multiple opportunities and new outdoor experiences for gathering, reflection and study, offering a diversity of experience and character within this new urban space. These features are nestled within mature plantings and water elements that cool the landscape and create opportunities for habitat and seasonal variation through bloom and fall color.

This session will review the three major landscape and architectural projects that were designed in unison and realized in three distinct phases. The team will share drawings, design studies and other key takeaways from the transformative project for Northeastern and its surrounding community. This session includes a site walk to examine the projects firsthand.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW.

Kate Kennen, FASLA, Offshoots, Inc.

Luisa Oliveira, ASLA, Public Space & Urban Forestry, City of Somerville

Nick Dorian, Postdoctoral Researcher, Chicago Botanic Garden

More than 75% of all flowering plants depend on pollination for survival, including thousands of global food crops, but due to factors such as habitat loss, pesticide use, and light pollution, pollinator populations are declining in New England and worldwide.

This workshop brings together a scientist with two landscape architects – one, a firm leader and teacher, the other directs a city's public space and urban forestry department. Together, they have produced Somerville’s Pollinator Action Plan, the first of its kind for a densely populated urban environment. The Plan layers insect science, citizen engagement and horticulture to improve awareness and create urban habitat. With the draft plan *just* released June 10, 2024, the plan is applicable regionally, in urban environments and in your backyard. Come hear about the science, recommendations, and inspiration for landscape architects working anywhere.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW.

See the slideshow here.

Matthew Cunningham, Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design

Bob Hanss, Robert Hanss, Inc.

Jiin Choi, STIMSON

Leland Wheeler, Barrett Tree Service

This roundtable discussion explores the power of plants to shape spatial experiences in urban, suburban, and rural landscapes. Panelists will contemplate the complicated relationships people have with plants, landscape management, and the inevitable conflicts that arise between site-specific ecologies. Panelists - all trained as landscape architects – each bring different dimensions of deep plant love, knowledge, and experience: as a designer, as a firm owner, as a teacher, as a builder. This discussion aims to delve into the intricate dynamics between human activities, plant communities, and habitats, fostering a deeper understanding of how these elements interact and affect one another, especially in the New England region during this era of climate change.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW.

Note: This was a moderated discussion with no slides. Highlights will be published in the next issue of Fieldbook.

Ricardo Austrich, ASLA, BSC Group

James Hearsum, Massachusetts Horticultural Society

Stella Lensing, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation

Casey-Lee Bastien, BSC Group

How do we advance an urban horticulture that meets the needs of diverse constituencies justly and employ a viable plant palette that can provide the needed environmental service?

With climate change, horticulture plays an ever-important role in the development of urban landscapes that provide needed ecological services with green infrastructure to address issues of urban heat islands, storm water management and pollinator habitat.

An increasing concern over the degradation of our ecosystem and it’s impacts on society has fostered a preoccupation with native species landscapes.

As horticulturists, we need to engage in a discourse that addresses the desires for native species ecosystem enhancement yet promotes a cosmopolitan plant palette able to provide the ecological services that strictly native plantings can no longer furnish in today’s world.

This session has been approved for 1.0 LACES HSW.