Skip to main content

Presentations from the 2019 LAF Innovation + Leadership Symposium

On June 13, 2019, the 2018-2019 cohort from the year-long LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership presented their projects at our sold-out symposium. This unique fellowship program provides a $25,000 award that supports working professionals as they develop and test new ideas to bring about impactful change to the environment and humanity and increase the visibility and leadership role of landscape architecture.

Between Neighbors

Karl Krause, Senior Landscape Architect, OLIN, Minneapolis, MN

Across the US, public housing communities are being rebuilt as revitalized, mixed-income developments. Through interviews with residents, designers, developers, community leaders, and housing authority administrators, Karl's work examines the effects of public housing transformation on existing and new mixed-income communities and the valuable role landscape plays in providing common ground for new neighbors.

 

What the Flood: Rethinking Frameworks for Urban Coastal Resilience

Sanjukta Sen, Senior Associate, James Corner Field Operations, New York, NY

The last decade has seen major disasters and storm events, followed by a wide array of creative design-led solutions and proposals. But the regulatory frameworks to enable these solutions have remained somewhat tentative and toothless, especially in the context of American cities. Sanjukta asks the urgent question: Do these frameworks that govern urban waterfront development need a major rethink?

 

Rethinking Wastescapes: Coal Ash Ponds in America

Lauren Delbridge, Landscape Designer, LandDesign, Charlotte, NC
2017 LAF National Olmsted Scholar (Undergraduate)

Coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal, has historically been stored in unlined pits and allowed to seep pollutants into the surrounding environment. Lauren advocates that, as coal ash ponds are forced to close nationally, these wastescapes should be transformed, re-envisioned, and given back to the communities they have damaged for decades.

 

The Aesthetic of Proof: Immersive Technology and Landscape Architecture

Andrew Sargeant, Landscape Designer / Visualization Specialist, Lionheart Places, Austin, TX
2016 LAF Olmsted Scholar

Communication of landscape design through immersive media embraces the fluidity and openness of the living world as it related to one's physical self. Andrew examines how these new tools of visualization will give landscape architects a new competitive edge in project communication and realization.

 

Community-based Storytelling: Los Angeles' Neighborhood Design

Daví de la Cruz, Project Manager, Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, Los Angeles, CA
2017 LAF National Olmsted Scholar (Graduate)

In Pueblo del Río, a housing project in LA, 1,275 youth (nearly 1/3 of residents) are under the age of 14. These youth hold neighborhood stories which shape the program Davíd developed to center neighborhood design and facilitate peer-to-peer mentorship opportunities, promoting an ethic of just sustainability.

 

Belonging: Identity and Landscape Narrative

Maisie Hughes, Owner, Design Virtue, Washington, DC

Maisie's project demonstrates how a variety of people interpret the same landscapes to provide new insights into the design and programming for nature in the city by exploring sublime landscapes in five distinct DC neighborhoods. Through her presentation, Maisie also announced the launch of The Urban Studio, a nonprofit focused on empowering communities to design their own neighborhoods.

 

Climate Positive Design: Going Beyond Neutral

Pamela Conrad, Principal, CMG Landscape Architecture, San Francisco, CA

Pamela's research rethinks our climate impact as landscape architects. She is working to build alliances within the profession to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing in tackling climate change. With a challenge and a tool, she illuminates a way forward for the profession of landscape architecture to have the greatest impact together in a changing world.

The LAF Innovation + Leadership Symposium is the culmination of a year spent exploring and advancing big ideas. Through this live event and the recorded footage, LAF shares the work of the Fellows broadly to support their continued impact. Our 2019 symposium sponsors help LAF to share these transformative projects with the world and celebrate cutting-edge thinking in landscape architecture.

Event Sponsors

LAF: 50 & Forward

The LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership was launched in 2016 thanks to the generous support of donors to the LAF: 50 & Forward Campaign. LAF sincerely thanks these 143 donors for their investment in the people and ideas that will drive the future of landscape architecture.

See campaign donors