Native Plants and The Future of Public Spaces Virtual Symposium April 9, 2021 PROGRAM 1 p.m. Welcome from Courtney Allen, Director of Public Programs, Native Plant Trust “Public Parks and Native Plants: An Ongoing Debate” Keynote by Anita Berrizbeitia, Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University 2 p.m. “Stakeholder Engagement in the Landscape Design Process” Workshop with Karyn Williams, Director of Public Programs, Design Trust for Public Space 3 p.m. “Policy and Practice in the Changing Landscape Field” Panel with: Marielle Anzelone, Founder of NYC Wildflower Week and PopUP Forest Carolina Lukac, Garden Education Manager, Vermont Community Garden Network Veronica Tyson-Strait, Landscape Designer and Horticulturist www.NativePlantTrust.org Headquarters & Garden in the Woods [email protected] 180 Hemenway Road T 508.877.7630 F 508.877.3658 Framingham, MA 01701 T 508.877.7630 F 508.877.3658 ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Anita Berrizbeitia is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University. Her research focuses on design theories of modern and contemporary landscape architecture, the productive aspects of landscapes, and Latin American cities and landscapes. She was awarded the 2005/2006 Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, she studied architecture at the Universidad Simon Bolivar before receiving a BA from Wellesley College and an MLA from the GSD. Berrizbeitia has taught design theory and studio, most recently at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, where she was Associate Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. Her studios investigate innovative approaches to the conceptualization of public space, especially on sites where urbanism, globalization, and local cultural conditions intersect. She also leads seminars that focus on significant transformations in landscape discourse over the last three decades. From 1987 to 1993, she practiced with Child Associates, Inc., in Boston, where she collaborated on many award-winning projects. She is co-author, with Linda Pollak, of Inside/Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape (Rockport, 1999), which won an ASLA Merit Award; author of Roberto Burle Marx in Caracas: Parque del Este, 1956-1961 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), awarded the J.B. Jackson Book Prize in 2007 from the Foundation for Landscape Studies; and editor of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Reconstructing Urban Landscapes (Yale University Press, 2009), which received an ASLA Honor Award. Her essays have been published in Daniel Urban Kiley: The Early Gardens (Princeton Architectural Press), Recovering Landscape (Princeton Architectural Press), Roberto Burle Marx: Landscapes Reflected (Princeton Architectural Press), CASE: Downsview Park Toronto (Prestel), Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press), Retorno al Paisaje (Evren), and Hargreaves Associates: Landscape Alchemy (ORO Publishers), as well as in magazines such as A+U. Karyn Williams is Program Director at the Design Trust for Public Space where she is responsible for the overall direction of programs, publications, and related activities. Since joining the Design Trust in October 2020, Karyn has launched the Neighborhood Commons project and is now leading the development of a new body of work related to health equity and the built environment. Before joining the Design Trust, Karyn was the Assistant Director of Planning and Programs at GreenThumb, a division of NYC Parks. Karyn managed the division’s strategic planning process as well as managed a team that was responsible for public engagement, planning, and design. Karyn is an experienced urban planner and landscape designer and has worked in the private, public, and non-profit sectors in Atlanta, Baltimore, Toronto, and New York. She is dedicated to designing, planning, and advocating for public spaces that place the needs of people and the environment at the forefront. Karyn has a bachelor’s degree in International Development Studies from Trent University and advanced degrees in Urban Planning from McGill University and Landscape Architecture from the University of Toronto. Marielle Anzelone has devoted her career to saving nature in cities by connecting people to it. A botanist by training, she founded NYC Wildflower Week to help New Yorkers celebrate local wild places. Her New York Times articles and WNYC appearances push back against the “urban jungle” stereotype. She has also advocated for citywide policies and taught in public schools to address environmental justice in economically-disadvantaged communities. Wanting to address the global extinction crisis at the local level, she dreamed up PopUP Forest: Times Square. This inclusion vision of equity and access provides all New Yorkers with the opportunity to fall in love with local wild places. For the past 15 years, Carolina Lukac has combined her passion for growing nourishing food with opportunities to facilitate meaningful learning experiences for individuals of all ages and backgrounds. She currently works as the Garden Education Manager with the Vermont Community Garden Network to coordinate programming at numerous community-based gardens, including senior residences, parent-child centers, affordable housing sites, and at an allotment style farm for New Americans. Her work is rooted in food sovereignty and empowering individuals to grow their own food for themselves and their community. Prior to moving to Vermont in 2015, Carolina gardened year-round on rooftops and urban community gardens in her native landscape of Mexico City. She co-founded the city’s first urban agriculture training center, developed a bilingual school gardening initiative, and facilitated hundreds of workshops on organic gardening and whole foods cooking for adults and children in both urban and rural communities. From rooftop containers in Mexico to no-till gardens in Vermont, Carolina has designed edible landscapes where vegetables are always joined by culinary and medicinal herbs, cutting flowers, perennial fruits, and pollinator-friendly plants. Carolina holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Vassar College (‘04) and numerous certifications in garden-based learning, agroecology, permaculture, herbalism, and honors the lessons she has learned from her own garden as her greatest teacher. She lives in Burlington, Vermont where she gardens in her backyard and at two community garden plots alongside her entomologist partner and their three-year-old son. Veronica Tyson-Strait is a landscape and garden designer, horticulturist, educator and fine artist. Born in the Caribbean, Veronica grew up surrounded by fields of sugarcane, teak, bamboo, rainforests and hillsides crisscrossed by multitudes of rivers, all sustaining incredible fauna. After working in the garden of Elsa Bakalar and in other gardens in Western Massachusetts and New York City, Veronica ended her career in the advertising industry and started her own horticulture and garden design business. Her designs focus on plant-human interactions, native ecologies, landscapes that inspire cultural engagement and provide sanctuary and sustenance. Her work often bridges gaps between landscape design, botany, ecology and art. Veronica holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture and graduated from the horticulture and landscape design programs at the New York Botanical Garden. She is also a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Art. Veronica is the recipient of a two-year fellowship awarded by the Organization of American States. ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM The year 2020 raised our collective awareness of the importance of inclusive public green spaces, and of the social, health, and environmental factors that shape and impact those green spaces. This symposium examines some of the driving factors that are changing the design and use of shared landscapes, and the potential roles native plants can have in these conversations. By creating forums for ongoing dialogue with our colleagues in landscape architecture, public horticulture, and related fields, we will continue to conduct research, build models and tools, and educate on best practices for landscapes. Courtney Allen, Director of Public Programs Native Plant Trust ABOUT NATIVE PLANT TRUST Native Plant Trust is the nation’s first plant conservation organization and the only one solely focused on New England’s native plants. We save native plants in the wild, grow them for gardens and restorations, and educate others on their value and use. We are based at Garden in the Woods, a renowned native plant botanic garden that attracts visitors from all over the world. From this flagship property in Framingham, Massachusetts, 25 staff and many of our 1,500 trained volunteers work throughout New England each year to monitor and protect rare and endangered plants, collect and preserve seeds to ensure biological diversity, detect and control invasive species, conduct research, and offer a range of educational programs. Native Plant Trust also operates a nursery at Nasami Farm in western Massachusetts and manages six sanctuaries in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont that are open to the public. Native Plant Trust is among the first organizations worldwide to receive Advanced Conservation Practitioner accreditation by London-based Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), which included an endorsement by an International Advisory Council representing six continents. Please visit www.NativePlantTrust.org. .