Infrastructure Adaptation

February 25, 2025

by Anya Domlesky, ASLA

Port of Los Angeles, CA / image: David Lloyd

As some of you know, using practice-based research, I’ve been arguing for a more encompassing umbrella for infrastructure adaptation projects, rather than just being referred to as “a High Line copy,” deck park, waterfront, greenway, or other term. I think landscape architects and architects have built a corpus now where we can put it forward compellingly as a new project type. My ultimate goal is for the name and concept to have the same magic currency with non-designers that “green infrastructure” currently does.

South Waterfront Greenway, Portland, OR / image: Jonnu Singleton/SWA

Last year, I was selected as a Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) Fellow for Innovation and Leadership to develop the project and reach out to other firms to workshop aspects and to stage some broadcasting of the concept so landscape architects are seen as central to this project type.

I am reaching out via ASLA’s Professional Practice Networks (PPNs) and The Field because many of your firms have worked on projects related to port, river, rail, and road systems. In order to get current and aggregate data on this impactful typology and incorporate more voices, I would very much appreciate it if you could take this 15-question survey on infrastructure adaptation. It should take about 5 minutes:

Take survey >

The survey is intended to be a light lift that will enable the collection of feedback on the topic from a lot of landscape architects in practice. Please feel free to send it to anyone inside or outside your firm if you feel it makes sense. And of course, please feel free to email me if you have additional thoughts.

Buffalo Bayou, Houston, TX / image: Jonnu Singleton/SWA

If you are interested in following the project’s next steps, tune in June 5, 2025, via livestream to LAF’s annual Innovation + Leadership Symposium.

Oakland Bay Bridge, CA / image: David Lloyd

Anya Domlesky, ASLA, is an urban designer and landscape architect currently the Director of Research at SWA Group. She runs XL Lab, the firm’s innovation lab undertaking practice-based research. The lab explores near future conditions in the built environment, performs analyses of design performance, experiments with new technologies to create tools for the field, and does topical investigations that address emerging complexities and unprecedented challenges. She holds an MLA from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and an M.Arch II from McGill University.