The Urban Landscape
ASLA Annual Meeting to address urban issues facing landscape architects. Session Host program will enhance Annual Meeting education program.

Urban design and planning issues are high on the list of priorities for many landscape architects. According to ASLA’s most recent business indicators survey, public sector work is outpacing private sector work for firms with more than 50 employees. In addition, cities and municipalities are the second largest client base for ASLA members, after developers. To address these issues, the 2006 ASLA Annual Meeting & EXPO and 43rd IFLA World Congress will feature several programs for landscape architects concerned with the urban landscape. Here is a review of the highlights:

General Sessions

Sunday’s General Session keynote speaker will be Catherine Mosbach, International ASLA, a prominent landscape architect from Paris who has a pan-European reputation.  She has her own practice in Paris, where she speaks out against the "smoothing over of public space," pleading for the connection between person and location with the help of contemporary landscape techniques. Her interpretations go far beyond the visual, stemming from a phenomenological view of the landscape. Her recent projects are characterized by temporal issues and their appropriate language, and by the co-production of the urban landscape with its protagonists.

Catherine Mosbach, International ASLA, and Mayor Richard M. Daley, Honorary ASLA, are scheduled to speak on urban landscape issues at the 2006 ASLA Annual Meeting & EXPO and 43rd IFLA World Congress.

ASLA has invited Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Honorary ASLA, to speak at the Closing General Session. He has earned a national reputation for his innovative, community-based programs to address education, public safety, neighborhood development, and other challenges facing American cities. Since he became mayor, the city has planted more than 400,000 trees, created 100 school campus parks, built 68 miles of landscaped street medians and spurred the construction of rooftop gardens on major buildings, including City Hall.

The 5th Annual Forum on Landscape Architecture in the Public Realm

This year’s forum focuses on Minneapolis’ Hiawatha Light Rail Transit Service (LRT). Seeking relief from urban decline, traffic congestion, and sprawl, Minneapolis launched its LRT service in the summer of 2004. The forum will discuss how the LRT service was developed with committed civic leadership, design sensitivity, and public involvement to assure business and community groups that this investment would benefit and enhance the communities that it would serve both now and in the future.

Education Sessions

Several education sessions will focus on urban issues, such as waterfront development, sustainability, redevelopment, and security design:

Built for Change? Modernism in Minneapolis

Inside the LA Studio: Residential Design with Tom Oslund and Ken Smith

Permeable Pavements and Structural Soils: Partner Technologies for Urban Environment and Urban Design

Landscape Architecture as Effective Public Policy

Lessons from the Wharf District Park Public Process

Security Design in 2006

HtO—Toronto’s New Urban Beach

Inside the LA Studio: Martha Schwartz

Vancouver’s Influence on Urban Design Decisions

Soil Biology—Sustainable Landscape Design and Management in the Public Urban Environment

Sustainability for the Virginia Capital Square

Field Sessions

The Twin Cities area provides many opportunities to explore urban design issues and solutions, including stormwater treatment, public art, and transit oriented development:

Innovative Stormwater Treatment

Transit Oriented Development

Art of the Public Realm

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Challenges in Heritage Cities: From Global to Local

From Waste to Amenity: Stormwater Treatment and Reuse in Minneapolis’ Heritage Park

Urban/Residential Design

Tours

Get to know Minneapolis’ urban spaces on foot or by bike, including new development along the Mississippi River; Nicollet Mall, the first pedestrian mall in the United States; the M. Paul Friedberg designed Peavey Plaza; local mixed-use redevelopment communities; and more:

Riverfront Development—Walking Tour

Downtown Parks and Plazas—Walking Tour

Urban Bike Trails—Bike Tour

Valued Places—Best of the Twin Cities—Walking Tour

Mixed-Use Redevelopment—Walking Tours

Innovative Stormwater Treatment—Walking Tour

ASLA/IFLA Session Host Program

In its continued efforts to raise the quality of the Annual Meeting education program, this year ASLA will launch the ASLA/IFLA Session Host program.  The number one reason ASLA members attend the Annual Meeting is the education sessions—this is borne out each year on the attendee survey and is tracking 100 percent with the online registration survey for Minneapolis.   Our members also tell us that we could improve the education session organization and logistics.  We hope that the ASLA Session Hosts will provide a professional and organized setting for the talented speakers and valuable topics assembled for Minneapolis.

We wish to thank all the volunteers who have stepped forward to host sessions in Minneapolis. 

There are still session host slots available.  To volunteer, you must be pre-registered for the 2006 Annual Meeting—remember that you save $100 before August 28, 2006.  If you are willing to volunteer, please review the schedule and session descriptions and contact Gloria Garcia at ggarcia@asla.org.  As a host, your badges will be scanned for CEU credit.