2026 WASLA Conference Session Descriptions

Session 1 Title: Aligning Climate and Biodiversity Goals with Landscape Architectural Practice in Washington
Session Presenters :Justin Roberts, HBB Landscape Architecture; Anya Tollefsen, MLA Student, University of Washington
LA CES Credits: 1

The Climate Action Committee (CAC) of WASLA is advancing new strategies to help landscape architects align professional practice with climate stability and biodiversity resilience. Central to this work is listening to practitioners across Washington to better understand where meaningful change is possible and where persistent barriers remain.

This session will introduce the American Society of Landscape Architects Climate and Biodiversity Action Plan and outline how WASLA’s CAC is building on that framework through statewide survey research, strategically developed student fellowship positions that expand committee capacity while supporting analysis and implementation, and ongoing professional engagement. Participants will engage in a structured workshop to identify the most significant opportunities to shape climate and biodiversity work in practice today. Insights generated during the session will directly inform the Committee’s strategic priorities and resource development efforts, strengthening alignment between landscape architecture and climate and biodiversity goals in Washington.

Session 1 Title: Establishing a New Micro-Forest at UWT: A Collaborative Community Endeavor
Session Presenters: Ruben Cass, Associate Professor of Culture, Arts & Communication; Mark Pagano, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, U of W
LA CES Credits: 1

This presentation will highlight the establishment of a new micro-forest at the University of Washington Tacoma (UWT). This multi-faceted project is intended to enhance downtown’s tree canopy, to tell culturally relevant stories of place and to provide a community gathering place on a plot that blends into the community boundary in the campus's urban downtown location. This student-led project involves numerous community partners, including the City of Tacoma, Tacoma Tree Foundation, SiteWorkshop, and the Puyallup Tribe of Indians.  The project highlights how community engaged and urban-serving institutions such as UWT can lead and participate in efforts to enhance urban canopies, to increase environmental sustainability, and are inclusive of indigenous ways of knowing. The session will include an overview of the planning, continuing establishment, and initial successes of a new micro-forest at UWT. Utilizing the Miyawaki method, this project is testing a promising afforestation method suited to urban contexts. The method allows for planting in small and irregular plots of public land that are otherwise unsuitable for other types of development. A Puget Sound Prairie/Camas Prairie, a type of managed landscape practiced by Coast Salish people since time immemorial, will also be embedded into this new hybrid landscape. It is planned to serve as a community gathering place, an experimental/educational space, and a civic demonstration site. A team of multiple presenters, including students, the project’s co-principal faculty investigators, and community partners will conduct the presentation.  The presentation will include a set of practical takeaways for audience members who might be interested in taking up similar projects in their own contexts.

Session 1 Title: India Basin Waterfront Park: Uniting Remediation, Restoration and Public Access
Session Presenter: Katherine Liss, GGN, Senior Associate; Anna Spooner, Anchor QEA
LA CES Credits: 1

Urban shoreline remediation is no longer solely an engineering cleanup effort. Increasingly, these projects are expected to deliver ecological restoration, public access, cultural relevance, and climate resilience, often on abandoned sites layered with archeological resources and complex industrial histories. Landscape architects are uniquely qualified to partner with technical remediation teams to untangle environmental constraints and regulatory requirements, to help realize community goals for cohesive and adaptable shoreline park and open spaces.

This session explores that role through the transformation of India Basin Waterfront Park in southeast San Francisco. The site, a former industrial boatyard, contained extensive contamination, including PCBs and heavy metals, as well as a historic building, piers, and waterfront disconnected from the community. A unified vision ensured that shoreline and park grading aligned with required dredging operations and the engineered cap, while also supporting restored marsh, mudflat, and transitional upland habitats. Close integration between design and remediation teams ensured remediation strategies directly supported habitat restoration and public access. India Basin Waterfront Park demonstrates landscape architecture’s vital role in uniting remediation, restoration, and community reconnection.

Session 1 Title: Increasing Tree Survival After Construction
Session Presenter: Tom Smiley, PhD, Bartlett Tree Research Laboratory and University of British Columbia
LA CES Credits: 1

Great design begins with understanding the land; its character, assets, and living infrastructure. Preserving mature trees on construction sites elevates projects beyond functionality, adding immediate scale, beauty, and a strong sense of place. Because new plantings take decades to achieve similar impact, retaining existing trees delivers unmatched ecological and aesthetic value.

This session presents a clear, research‑based overview of effective tree‑protection practices during construction. Based on the International Society of Arboriculture’s Best Management Practices, the presentation outlines current methods for protecting root systems, minimizing construction‑related impacts, and mitigating unavoidable damage.

Session 1 Title: Reclaiming Gas Works Park - New Ground
Session Presenters: Barbara Swift, FASLA; Laura Enman, Swift Company
LA CES Credits: 1

Session 2 Title: Engaging Youth in the Built Environment
Session Presenters: Julie Parrett, U of W, PLA ASLA; Catherine De Almeida, Associate Professor, U of W; Liz Forelle, Program Director, Youths in the Built Environment
LA CES Credits: 1

As landscape architects, we know the value of design to create beautiful and dynamic places while addressing climate change, environmental injustice, and displacement.  This session will explore how programs and design studios at UW are collaborating with community-based youth afterschool programs in south Seattle to introduce middle and high school students to landscape architecture and environmental design - and broaden diversity among future leaders in landscape architecture.  Focusing on issues around public space, ecology, placemaking, and justice, the programs aim to empower youth in frontline communities as design changemakers within their own communities.  UW faculty and students will share examples of creating dynamic, multifaceted learning spaces that practitioners can replicate in their own projects.  Examples of collaborative programming between UW and the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps and the Duwamish Valley Sustainability Association as well as UW’s student-led Youths in the Built Environment’s program at Seattle Public Schools will highlight the benefits for all of us when we engage youth in design.

Once a scarred industrial gravel pit, "The Quarry" in Spokane Valley is being transformed into a pioneering ecological restoration campus. Led by Vicki Carter (Spokane Conservation District) and Craig Andersen (Landscape Architect), this session explores the metamorphosis of a 50-acre hazardous site into a vibrant community asset. The presentation details the master planning and design strategies used to repair impacted land, stabilize slopes, and protect the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer through innovative Low Impact Development (LID).

Attendees will learn how the project team balanced industrial heritage with public health, safety, and welfare—moving from "resource extraction to knowledge extraction." By highlighting the successful partnership between a conservation district and design professionals, the speakers provide a reproducible model for turning "waste land" into equitable green space. This case study demonstrates how adaptive reuse can foster long-term stewardship, improve urban air quality, and create lasting community connections through the lens of ecological healing.

The SPU South Transfer Station reclamation project began as a Design-Build competition. Formerly a school bus parking lot on the edge of a neighborhood of heavy industrial, commercial, and residential, the site is wedged between two regional highways. Isolated and mostly forgotten.In providing a new waste transfer facility for the south end of Seattle, the ‘big’ idea for the site was to balance the cut-and-fill volumes, mitigate high ground water from the Duwamish River, and simplify organization of waste transfer streams. Using low-carbon materials and processes to resolve massive site retaining requirements and express the recycling and waste streams was amplified with the discovery of a culture within the staff to salvage and display found objects of interest. The unrealized power of place was strong community connections expressed and enhanced by both staff and the public. Growing physically and socially over time, it has been restorative ecologically and culturally. Evolving choreographed displays have become an ongoing rotation of found objects that are rediscovered by the staff and delivered by the public for display.

Session 2 Title: Rising Sound: The Duwamish River Valley Confronts Sea Level Rise
Session Presenters: Stefanie Loomis, Walker Macy; Ken Pirie, Walker Macy; David Goldberg, City of Seattle
LA CES Credits: 1

Adapting to sea level rise (SLR) is not a single dramatic act--it’s a complicated dialogue between community, industry, ecology, government, regulators and rising tides. Tension, competing priorities, and resulting delays between these entities can be frustrating to those who desire more urgency in confronting the climate emergency. This tension reflects the realities of politics, property ownership, impacted stakeholders, and geography and is an increasingly common challenge for communities in the Puget Sound who are confronting SLR and working to envision and build toward equitable and community-driven climate resilience. Landscape architects are uniquely qualified to craft place and community-based solutions to SLR, but this is not just a design problem. This session will describe the challenges of finding a community-based approach for adapting to SLR in the Duwamish Valley. We will describe the complexity of the challenge and share a range of creative approaches. We will also discuss the political challenges of adaptation and balancing the needs of businesses and residents—many of whom are marginalized and underserved.

Session 3 Title: Seattle Center - A Shared Commons
Session Presenters: Barbara Swift, FASLA; David Malta, GGN
LA CES Credits: 1

The work we do as landscape architects is very rooted to the earth. And yet, there are occasions where we are asked to build major landscapes on structured platforms – on piers, over parking garages, highway lids, rooftops, and more. While landscapes on platforms are entirely artificial constructions, they are also a proven means of returning green space to cities.  In dense urban environments with a scarcity of open land, building over structure has helped add multi functionality and ecological vitality, expanding the ground plane and reclaiming space for humans and animals alike. 

This session will explore local and national examples of landscapes on platform, looking at the various technologies that are used to bring rich experience and life to these suspended landscapes.  It will also the exciting range of opportunities that exist within the design of structured landscape, each one governed by its context and intended future use.

Session 3 Title: Shadows in the Moonlight: Rediscovering the Missing Half of the Landscape
Session Presenters: Phoebe Chuang, Berger Partnership; Paulina Arango, Berger Partnership; Jorge Craveiro, Lumca Inc
LA CES Credits: 1

Most landscapes are designed with the lens of daytime use, yet climate change and growing urban populations increasingly drive the need for outdoor access well past sunset. In response to after-dark conditions, we often focused on adding more lights. But in doing so, we miss the opportunity to showcase the “other half” of the landscape and unintentionally shrink the world of animals that depend on the darkness to survive. In this session, we will present actionable design and planning strategies that create places capable of enhancing visitors’ nighttime experience while supporting wildlife and protecting biodiversity. Speakers will share how landscape architects and designers can drive the conversation of natural darkness preservation in all aspects of their projects, and foster healthier nocturnal ecology, bringing people closer to nighttime nature, and creating robust, sustainable after-dark experiences for humans and animals alike across the urban landscape.

Adopted through the Central City 2035 Plan, the Portland Green Loop reframes downtown streets as a six-mile linear park - a civic framework challenging auto-dominated urbanism and repositioning landscape as core infrastructure. Rooted in Portland’s legacy of walking, rolling, and riding, the Green Loop reclaims streets as spaces for public life advancing climate resilience, health, and equitable access.  Supported by a 2040 Metro Planning and Development Grant, the Green Loop Operations and Programming for Equitable Development study explores how visionary infrastructure becomes a lasting civic framework. The interdisciplinary team developed strategies for governance, stewardship, activation, and inclusive design, drawing lessons from Portland and peer cities nationwide. Join us to explore how bold urban visions move from aspiration to implementation, shaping a pedestrian-centered and socially connected downtown.

Session 4 Title: In Memory of....
Session Presenters: Omar Akarri, PLA, Seattle Department of Transportation; Belle Miller, Berger Partnership
LA CES Credits: 1

This session explores the need for and design of public secular spaces for both personal and communal memorialization and grief. Some of the first public parks were cemeteries and were places for grief and broader community gathering, and this session revisits that paradigm.  Spaces designed for grief and remembrance are often found at polarizing ends of the spectrum: grand, subject-based, congressional memorials or modest, isolated cemeteries. These spaces can accomplish the same goal of reverence and commemoration while also eliminating the subject exclusivity of a traditional memorial using design strategies found within the throughlines of cultural precedents.