09 Landscape Architect Quarterly 10/ Round Table The Next Wave 20/ Features Thunder Bay Waterfront Spring 2010 Issue 09 Publication # 40026106 Letters .09 03 Letters to the Editor President’s Message Just a short note to say how impressed I am with Ground. It is so Every April, the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) rich, well researched, and wonderfully laid out. The magazine is a and the International Federation of Landscape Architects celebrate real pleasure to look through and a great credit to the profession. World Landscape Architecture Month. The purpose is to bring There is an increasing amount of interaction between the profes- national recognition and awareness to the profession, landscape sions of landscape architecture, urban forestry, and arboricul- architects, and works of landscape architecture in Canada. April ture—each bringing something different into the mix of trees and was chosen to tie in with Earth Day (April 22) and the birthday living/working space. The design element of landscape architec- of Frederick Law Olmsted (April 27), founder of the landscape ture is so crucial to the use of trees in urban landscapes. Tree architecture profession in North America. Canada is the home of the Canadian Urban Forest Network (www.cufn-rcfu.ca) and would very much like to see landscape Landscape architects across Canada are gearing up to celebrate architect involvement in this network either through the OALA or their profession along with landscape architects across the world. the CSLA. Any suggestions would be welcome. The CSLA has taken the lead by preparing a poster and promotion MICHAEL ROSEN tool kit. The OALA, as a component association, is doing its part by R.P.F., PRESIDENT, TREE CANADA, WWW.TREECANADA.CA encouraging each member to plan to do one activity to promote the profession. It’s up to members like you to post the poster in Erratum your workplace, organize a display at City Hall, encourage your In Ground 08, on page 23, Yvonne Battista should have city to proclaim a landscape architecture week, write an article for been designated as a full OALA member. the local newspaper, lead an Earth Day event, or give a presenta- tion to a group of students, a professional society, or the general public. Visit www.csla.ca to download your poster and the tool kit, and to see a list of some of the activities being planned. One new promotion event the OALA is organizing for this April is a presentation to the Ontario Members of Provincial Parliament and their assistants at Queen’s Park. It is vitally important for our politi- cians and civil servants to understand that landscape architects are professionals with valuable planning and design abilities that contribute to creating healthy sustainable communities. Come and join us as we celebrate World Landscape Architecture Month. And also plan to join your colleagues in Ottawa on June 5, 2010 for the OALA Annual General Meeting. Details available on the OALA web site at www.oala.ca. LAWRENCE STASIUK, OALA PRESIDENT [email protected] Up Front .09 04 0A RIVERS the brainchild of Jean Blaise, the artistic 01 connecting culture director of the original Nuit Blanche in Paris in 2002. While visiting Ottawa this past fall, I met up with my former roommate and classmate The setting for Kawamata’s contribution from university, Veronica Porter, Landscape to Estuaire is Lavau-sur-Loire, a small town Architect Intern. We hadn’t seen each other that was once a port village on the Loire in a year and a half, so we sat down with a River. Due to the rerouting of the river, a glass of wine to rehash our time apart. The grassy marshland now separates the vil- news she was most eager to share with me lage of Lavau from both the Loire River and was about her trip to France in March and 0A/ Boardwalk along the its maritime roots. “What is so great about Loire River, France. April of 2009 to participate in the construc- this project,” Veronica explained to me in IMAGE/ Catalina Trujillo tion of a large-scale environmental art proj- Ottawa, “is that it really illustrates the story 0B/ Barnum House Creek ect under the supervision of the prolific naturalization. of a landscape.” The project, in Veronica’s Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata. Her IMAGE/ Arifa Hai and opinion, is an artistic response, and she Michael Hough involvement with the project began when describes the unique place that separates she heard about the artist via a guest lectur- Lavau and the Loire River as “something that er while studying abroad at the Edinburgh was a mystery before; an inaccessible land- College of Art in 2007. After enquiring about scape that was made accessible” thanks to opportunities to work with Kawamata, she Kawamata. He designed and constructed didn’t hear back about available positions a solution to the inaccessibility problem, until early 2009, when she was contacted to a reconnection to the river in the form of a see if she was interested in applying to be boardwalk through countryside that is flood- part of a construction team for Kawamata’s ed by the Atlantic tide surging up the river new environmental art project in northeast- twice a day. The boardwalk begins at a trail- ern France. After submitting an application head, marked by gates in the outskirts of and a portfolio of her work, Veronica was the village, and travels approximately 800 accepted, and found herself on the project metres through the marsh, where it culmi- site in March. nates in an observation tower overlooking the Loire River. The boardwalk also incorpo- Up Front: Kawamata’s environmental art project, rates bridges and platforms, elements that which consists of a boardwalk traversing a Kawamata uses to create strategic pauses rural wetland, is part of a larger art festival in the journey to the river. Information in the Pays-de-la-Loire region of France, called Estuaire. Occurring in three phases in The reason behind making the landscape 2007, 2009, and 2011, the festival celebrates more accessible is apparent in images on the the culture of the Loire River estuary in sev- taken during construction, and of the com- eral sites along the river, extending 60 kilo- pleted project: the boardwalk facilitates a metres from Nantes to Saint-Nazaire, at the fuller, deeper connection with nature, and Ground Loire River delta. The first two phases of provides a medium for experiencing a Estuaire incorporated contributions from sense of place. more than a dozen different artists and is Up Front .09 05 Evidence of Kawamata’s experiential design intent is manifested in the planning and materials of the pathway, as well as the component physical structures. Wood is the primary construction material, reflecting the pure, minimalist character of the surround- ing landscape. The elevation of the board- walk is 40 centimetres above grade. The absence of handrails is intentional, to draw participators in (because the overall design intent of this environmental art piece is to be interactive with nature, I refer to the users of this trail as “participators”) and accommo- date a more complete connection with nature. At the bridges, wooden screening walls were constructed on the opposite side of the boardwalk to mask views of the town and built environment and direct attention 0B towards the natural landscape. There are NATURALIZATION in private properties that include a number also two platforms at different locations 02 restoring a stream of two-storey buildings and mown lawns. along the boardwalk, large enough to func- The boundaries of the private properties are tion as gathering spaces, and with both per- The Barnum House Creek is one of many marked by major roads on three sides. The manent and moveable benches and tables. coldwater streams in Southern Ontario that buildings include a village inn, bed and A party for the townspeople was held on have been modified in different ways. This breakfast, an abandoned church, several the larger platform during the third week of stream lies within the Lower Trent Region’s houses, and the township office. The stream construction, and again in June, 2009, at the “Burnam House Subwatershed.” Originating flows right through these developments. official opening of the boardwalk, illustrating in the Oak Ridges Moraine, it is joined by a The buildings have their backs to the one of the many uses for the space. The number of tributaries prior to crossing stream, except for the bed and breakfast boardwalk terminates at a six-metre-high Highway 401, flows through the village of and the inn. The boundaries of these com- observation tower that overlooks the Loire Grafton, and empties into Lake Ontario. mercial properties include approximately River, built as part of the first installment of Throughout its entire length this creek is 500 metres of the stream as well as the the project in 2007, and completes the con- connected to stormwater drainage systems; dam structure. The business owner was our nection between the village and the river. parts of it have been straightened to reduce client for this project. The houses do not flooding on adjacent lands. It has also been have any noticeable backyards and show It is clear that the experience of being a part dammed to control its water flow. In 1925, a obvious indifference to the stream. Our of a project such as this was profound for dam was built to create a swimming pond client, on the other hand, values the natural Veronica, and taught her that the definition for the villagers of Grafton. For a number of characteristics of the stream corridor and its of landscape architecture is broader than years the pond served the villagers’ recre- evolving plant communities.