News

April 25, 2024 – David Malda, ASLA, LEED AP, presented at this year’s Texas ASLA Annual Conference in Austin, Texas.

David’s presentation, Working With: A Relational Practice, touched on the expression of GGN’s design approach in its work around the country and explored the potential of connecting people to the land and to each other through the land. David also explained how our work as landscape architects can help support broader initiatives for belonging to a place, rather than simply adding another new thing.

This year’s conference included Nicholas Nelson, RLA, LEED AP, Director of Landscape Architecture at Teague Nall and Perkins; Mikey Goralnik, PLA, AICP, Trails and Transportation Planner at Great Springs Project; Garry Merritt, CEO of Great Springs Project; Scott Parker, Land Transactions Director at Great Springs Project; Vincent Debrock, ISA Board Certified Master Arborist at Shademaker Studio; and Shaney Clemmons, ASLA, PLA, Principal at Shademmaker Studio.

Texas ASLA Conference is a 3-day event held annually and is known as the 2nd largest ASLA conference. The theme of this year’s conference was “PIVOT,” which focused on the importance of pivoting in the direction of “sustainability and climate positivity” amid concerns about the climate crisis.

March 13, 2024 – David Malda spoke at Design Matters at the University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape in Alberta, Canada.

David presented Working With: A Relational Practice, where he spoke about his distinct approach and prior work, such as the Hemisfair Civic Park, to students, industry professionals, public officials, and curious members of the public. David’s presentation focused on his approach to connecting the people and the land through landscape and thinking about what is already there.

This year’s Design Matter speakers include Johanna Hurme, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 5468796 Architecture; Ana de Brea, Architecture Professor and Practitioner; Isabel Ochoa, Designer and Faculty Member at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture; Teresa Williamson, Ph. D., Environmentalist and Founding Executive Director of Catalytic Communities; Teddy Cruz, Professor of Public Culture and Urbanization at the University of California, San Diego, Department of Visual Arts; Sara Candiracci, Associate Director in Arup’s Cities, Planning and Design team in Milan, and Global Leader for Social Value and Equity; and Miquel Adria, an Architect from Higher Technical School of Architecture of Barcelona and a Doctor of Architecture from the European School of Madrid.

Design Matters is a lecture series that is organized by the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. These lectures feature a variety of designers and innovators to help initiate meaningful conversations about architecture, landscape architecture, and regional & urban planning. The theme of this year’s lecture series emphasizes “global citizenship and design in conjunction with the launch of the new Bachelor of Design in City Innovation undergraduate degree program.”

View the full video on the UCalgary SAPL YouTube Channel.

January 23, 2024 – David Malda participated at this year’s Northern Green Conference hosted by Minnesota Nursery & Landscape Association and Northern Green trade show in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

David presented Working With: A Relational Practice, where he spoke on the potential of landscape to connect people to the land and to each other through the land and highlighted the development of relationships between people and places through prior work he has completed. He also touched on the idea of “working with” as a process of understanding what is already here, how it came to be the way it is, and how we can craft strategies for the future of this foundation.

This year’s Northern Green Conference speakers included Matt Haber, Landscape Design Director at Western DuPage Landscaping, Inc.; Tony Wasemann, Design Team Manager at Scott Byron & Co., Inc.; Garth Woodruff, Professor at Andrews University and Partner at RootBound; Elizabeth Wynne, CLP, Landscape Designer at Biota Landscapes; Alyson Landmark, Landscape Designer at Southview Design; and Nels Peterson, COLD, Vice President of Bingle Premier Outdoor Lighting, Horsepower Brands.

The Northern Green Conference is known for being the largest green industry trade show and educational conference in the north-central region. Attendees ranging from MNLA members and arborists to landscape designers and architects all come to learn and network with each other.

October 20, 2023 – Shannon Nichol gave a virtual presentation to students, faculty members, and dean of the University of Idaho College of Art and Architecture.

Shannon’s presentation, Empathy and Comfort in Landscape Design, discusses her thoughts and experiences in designing a vast range of landscapes, from monumental and abstract to small-scaled and intimate, that takes people’s emotional and physical comfort into consideration. Her presentation included different GGN projects, including the Lurie Garden, India Basin Shoreline Parks, and several smaller gardens.

Students attending this presentation were working on designing a Healing Garden and Memorial site to honor the four students who were slain in the horrific murders during the fall of 2022, as well as to honor other students who are lost every year. Taking insights from Shannon about bridging people both physically and emotionally to their local landscape, this project would connect family, friends, and other students to the stories and memories of those who were lost.

Past guests who have given lectures include Mark de Reus, founding partner of Reus Architects and writer; Alexis Townsend, the President of Lombard/Conrad Architects and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the University of Idaho and the Advisory Board for Idaho Women in Architecture, Engineering and Construction, and the Capital City Development Corporation Board of Commissioners; and Kate Holgate, the CCO of Stoltz Marketing Group and Board Member of The Children’s Home Society of Idaho.

October 20, 2023 – David Malda spoke to the Garden Club of Greater Milwaukee about GGN’s work on the new Milwaukee Public Museum.

In his talk, Wisconsin Wonders: A Future Museum for Curious and Connected Communities, David shared the design and broader context for the garden at the new museum. This garden will be constructed on land that has been home to Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. In the 1800s, the area became a hay market where the agricultural transformation of the surrounding landscape fueled the brewing and other local industries. After years of redlining, the urban renewal program of the 1960s razed the surrounding African American neighborhood of Bronzeville and constructed a highway. This land has been shaped by these stories from the past and many more are still waiting to be told. They are all part of the ground.

The garden is envisioned as a place for fostering connections between this specific moment and the daily life of the neighborhood, school visits, citizen science, and other community and museum events. For some, it will be an introduction to Milwaukee and the neighborhood. For others, it will be a first-time experience with native plants close to home. The garden orients to adjacent housing and numerous community services. Planting strategies draw from restoration and early successional ecologies on this disturbed site. The hope is that kids will be offered a relationship with nature that is desperately needed for them at this time. While small in footprint, the lessons of these plants and the voices of community partners hosted here can have much greater impacts. A museum and a garden are both places to learn those lessons that challenge our understanding of the world around us, take them home, and use them to support broader change.

Past guest speakers for the Garden Club of Greater Milwaukee include Nancy Cody, GCGM president, certified floral designer, and owner of Rose and Twig Floral Design; Eric Manges, on-air meteorologist for FOX6 and weather expert; David Robson, chairperson for the National Garden Club PLANT AMERICA Community Grant; Elaine Zautke, manager at Lakeshore State Park; and James Steiner, designer of the oasis representing landscape architectural firm Helianthus.

Learn more about the Milwaukee Public Museum.

September 15, 2023 – David Malda, ASLA, LEED AP, and Chihiro Shinohara gave a walking tour presentation for the annual Washington Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (WASLA) Conference Call.

This walking tour titled The Spring District Transformation: from Industrial Warehouses to Community Hub was designed to explore the following themes:

• Anchoring a large mixed-use development on a central public space, which was largely designed and partially constructed prior to the surrounding phased buildings. This public realm design worked to advance the overall narrative of the place by connecting this new development with the largely erased histories of the site.

• Working with the necessary flexibility of a developer-driven process to support the continuity of big ideas even when there were substantial shifts in the development along the way.

Other professionals that attended the event included Ernest Wong, PLA, FASLA, APA, Founding Principal and President of Site Design Group; Kate Brooks, PLA, LEED AP, Associate Principal at ZGF Architects; Eric Higbee, a Lecturer and Affiliate Faculty Member at the University of Washington, Landscape Architect, Community Organizer, Writer, and Researcher; and Charles Anderson, FASLA, Landscape Architect and Sculptor.

This year’s WASLA Conference focused on the theme of “Exchange” with the goal of having design professionals exchange ideas and tools with each other to help transform concepts into realities. The event incorporated hi-tech spaces that allowed attendees to share graphics and models, further encouraging the idea of exchange between attendees.

February 22, 2023 – Shannon Nichol, FASLA, PLA, LEED AP, is presenting two lectures in Vancouver, BC, Canada this week. Today, she is lecturing at the University of British Columbia’s Friends of the Botanical Garden and tomorrow she is speaking to the British Columbia Recreation and Parks Association tomorrow.

Shannon’s presentations are tailored for each organization, but both address the theme of Rediscovering Home with PNW Native Plants in Design. Shannon shares her evolving relationship with plants as a Pacific Northwest landscape architect emerging from the plants-as-sculpture era in which she established her firm and career. During a period where she re-educated herself in plants and animals of her home region, Shannon committed to using locally native plants in all GGN projects after the realization that her role as a landscape architect with a platform and an established firm plays a part, complacently or strategically, in the sixth mass extinction and alarming drop in insect populations across the Earth.

Other professionals who will be speaking at the latter event include Douglas Justice, Associate Director and Curator of Collections at the UBC Botanical Garden; Ron Jacobson, Business Development Manager at NATS Nursery; Jonathon Morris, CEO at the Canadian Mental Health Association BC Division; and Karin England, Landscape Architect with Metro Vancouver Regional Parks and Project Manager.

These lectures will provide valuable learning experiences for participants, ranging from fellow landscape architects to master gardeners and horticulturalists, that are eager to hear about and learn from Shannon experience in utilizing nature and how it influences the work that is done with GGN through projects, such as the Meadowshop Initiative.

October 27, 2022 – Shannon Nichol is attending a studio review hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

Shannon is presenting Good Problems, where she will use project-process examples from her time with GGN and share drawings, diagrams, and other problem-solving tools. With the student or young professional in mind. Shannon will talk about how a designer can embrace or reembrace the pleasurable mindset toward problem-solving to address any significant issues in projects.

Other professionals that have given lectures in the past include Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, FASLA, AIA, a Professor and Director of the Graduate Landscape Architecture Program at the Spitzer School of Architecture; Rossana Hu, Co-Founder of Neri&Hu Design and Research; Mikyoung Kim, an International Designer and Founding Principal of Minkyoung Kim Design; and Rania Ghosn, an Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Founding Partner of DESIGN EARTH.

True to GGN’s mission of exciting and inspiring others through its work, Shannon’s presentation is an exciting opportunity for students to develop a positive mindset which can help them overcome important problems that they will encounter in their careers.