LACF AWARDS $20,000 in Grants for 2016.
Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF) is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2016 grants in support of research, communication and scholarship.
“From supporting a `wake up` on designing for seismic resilience to documenting the history of the profession and environmental movement champions, LACF is proud to support these grant proposals that reflect the expanding role landscapes and landscape architects play in providing social, cultural, ecological and economic benefits to society”, said LACF President, Vincent Asselin, FCSLA. “The impact of these grants is multiplied by the requirement that each of the proponents share the results of their work through online resources, print publication, or conference presentations."
Project description and illustrations for each of the 2016 grants are accessible at LACF’s online portfolio > lacf.ca/grants-portfolio Annual grant proposals are adjudicated and awarded by a national jury composed of six individuals from public, and private practice with academic credentials representing the Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairie, British Columbia regions and Canada’s north. The Board of the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation extends recognition to the many individuals and component associations who through their annual donations make these grants possible. photo header credit : Jardin de Métis, partial view _ faire des ronds dans l'eau de Gisèle Teyssier
LES PROJETS 2016
QUELQUES ARCHITECTES PAYSAGISTES PIONNIERS DU QUÉBEC Isabelle Giasson, AAPQ et Fanie St‐Michel, Directrice artistique Recipient of the Gunter Schoch Bursary _ Grant $6,500 The project involves filming 15-minute interviews with key landscape architects in Quebec to document their memories. We have identified LAs who came together to found the AAPQ in 1965, 50 years ago. Four pioneers, including Danièle Routaboule who was one of the founders of the School of Landscape Architecture at the University of Montreal, will be interviewed. This documentary will serve as a means of communication to current and future members of the profession, and to the general public, of the landscape architectural profession’s rich history and heritage. The documentary will also include historical photos. Isabelle Giasson, is a widely experienced landscape architect who is a senior officer of the multidisciplinary Montreal firm Lemay. She has also served for years as a volunteer of the Association des architectes paysagistes du Québec (AAPQ), of which she is now president of the Board of Directors. Fanie St-Michel, will edit and compose the documentary. She has been recognized for her talents by the Arts Councils of both Montreal and Canada. The final documentary will be made available via the Web. The LACF contribution will assist with funding of the video documentary production. > lacf.ca/grants-portfolio/quelques-architectes-paysagistes-pionniers-du-québec THE CANADIAN LANDSCAPE PORTFOLIO INITIATIVE Jean Landry, AAPQ/FCSLA, MBA Landscape Architect | Photographer _ Grant $2,500The second edition of the Canadian Landscape Portfolio Initiative (CLPI) is a described digital photographic collection that will illustrate Canada’s diversity of landscapes by provinces or territories. Compiled from around the country landscape architects submissions, the second edition (2016–2017) will be an addition to the first web-based edition to be unveiled in June 2016 while the second edition presentation is planned for the spring of 2017. LACF assisted with funding of the first bilingual Portfolio edition (2015–2016) which focused on building a set of ten (10) Collections - one per component association plus one for the CSLA - representing “which and why” selected too often overlooked landscapes were shaping our everyday lives.
These images are to be seen as Canadian landscape architects “personal perspective” of the surrounding landscapes they live in. LACF is now participating in the funding of the Portfolio’s second edition which seeks to push forward a more selective approach to the submitted described images. The added collections will now explore the “designed” landscapes, looking for places, sites which have been thought through, modified and shaped to achieve their final form and function. The second edition is how (skillfully) designed landscapes enhance our daily experiences and ultimately our quality of life. Again, these selected images are to be seen as personal perspectives by Canadian landscape architects. The LACF funding will be used to support the images’ description translation and various texts of the Canadian Landscape Portfolio’s web site two editions. Both bilingual Portfolio’s editions will be publicly accessible through the CSLA web site and at www.clp-ppc.org . > lacf.ca/grants-portfolio/canadian-landscape-initiative-portfolio-part-2 SYMPOSIUM ON LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION Nicole Valois, Nicholas Roquet and Christina Cameron Faculté de l'aménagement, Université de Montréal _ Grant $4,500The Symposium on Landscape Conservation brings together seasoned practitioners, managers and academics from across Canada to discuss current issues related to the planning, rehabilitation and long-term management of heritage landscapes. Historic landscapes are not static: they change continually under the effect of time and evolving patterns of use. As a result, we too need to regularly re-evaluate the concepts and approaches we apply to them.
This two-day event offers participants a unique opportunity to share insights, knowledge and practical experience acquired while intervening on specific historic places. Key topics to be addressed include community engagement, the relevance of existing tools and guidelines to decision-making, and the perpetual challenge of adapting old places to emerging needs. Both the Symposium and its ensuing publication aim to foster closer and more sustained interactions between theoretical and practical approaches to landscape conservation in Canada. > lacf.ca/grants-portfolio/symposium-sur-la-conservation-des-paysages EXPERIMENTING LANDSCAPE: TESTING THE LIMITS OF THE GARDEN International Garden Festival, Alexander Redford and Emily Waugh _ Grant $2500 Experimenting Landscape: Testing the Limits of the Garden is a new publication that will present a selection of conceptual garden installations from the International Garden Festival held at Les Jardins de Métis, in Grand-Métis, Quebec every year since 2000. Experimenting Landscape will be published in September, 2016 by Birkhäuser, the international publisher for architecture, landscaping, and design, and will provide a unique opportunity to promote landscape architecture in Canada to an expanded international audience. Using case studies from the Festival, interviews with designers, illustrated essays from scholars in the fields of landscape architecture and garden design, and a carefully curated selection from the Festival’s archive of 80,000 photographs of past projects, this book will demonstrate how landscape architects and architects use installations as a testing ground to explore new directions in their work. The publication will also illustrate how the in situ installations on the Festival site and other venues have contributed to the advance of landscape as an essential design discipline that is core to the shaping of cities and the urban environment. The International Garden Festival is the key partner in this project. The Festival has enlisted Emily Waugh as the commissioning editor of this project. The LACF contribution will be used to assist with publication and the subsequent book tour planned by the International Garden Festival. > lacf.ca/grants-portfolio/experimenting-landscape-testing-limits-garden A LIFETIME'S INSPIRATION: UNDERSTANDING THE FORESTER AND ENVIRONMENTALIST _ RICHARD ST. BARBE BAKER'S RELATIONSHIP WITH CANADA Camilla Allin, PhD candidate, University of Sheffield _ Grant $2000 Doctoral study of study of key artefacts, documents and texts in the Richard St. Barbe Baker archive at the University of Saskatchewan. The key aim is to examine the development of St. Barbe Baker’s environmental philosophy from the period when he lived in Canada in the 1910s and connect it to the development of his most ambitious landscape restoration theories - the Green Front, and his plans for the afforestation of the drylands around the Sahara - through a study of the unique archive held at the University of Saskatchewan. St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982) – the British forester and founder of the Men of the Trees - was one of the 20th Century’s better-known environmentalists with an international reach and influence, yet is now almost forgotten. His lifetime’s work was to champion the protection of trees and forests, alert people to the threat of land degradation and erosion and to engage with land reclamation projects across the world. He popularised the idea of desertification and that of the role of forests in regulating the earth’s atmosphere. The causes that he championed are still pressing today and this research project will examine St. Barbe Baker’s life and work so that his personal and professional story can be unravelled and critiqued, with the aim of bringing the international impact of this extraordinary man’s contribution to ecological thought to a new audience at a time of climate change and crisis. > lacf.ca/grants-portfolio/lifetime’s-inspiration-understanding-richard-st-barbe DESIGNING SEISMIC RESILIENT LANDSCAPES: A DECISION-MAKING FRAMEWORK FOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS Emily French, Master’s candidate, University of Guelph _ Grant $2000 In recent years a number of major earthquakes have changed the face of many cities around the world, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of displaced people and hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. In the wake of major natural disasters, open spaces (such as parks, plazas, sports fields and street networks) become places of refuge, recovery and ultimately support future resilience. Despite the importance of open space during the aftermath of disaster, current planning efforts for earthquake resilience focus almost exclusively on buildings and infrastructure. Open space for seismic resilience is a small but significant area of study that is starting to gain more attention.The profession of landscape architecture is uniquely positioned to address the challenge of designing open space for seismic resilience. Landscape architects are trained to consider whole systems, and to plan and design for temporal and spatial changes in the environment, key factors in supporting resilience. However landscape architects are underused in the area of disaster planning and at present there is no consolidated body of knowledge or resource for landscape architects working in areas of high seismic risk. This Master’s thesis will determine how landscape architects can proactively plan and design open space to support seismic resilience.> lacf.ca/grants-portfolio/designing-seismic-resilient-landscapes
For information contact:
Faye Langmaid, FCSLA, MCIP, Chair of the Annual Grants Program Lacf.grants@gmail.com or info@lacf.ca