Nina-Marie Lister
Nina-Marie Lister is Professor of Urban + Regional Planning and Director of the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. More information about her research can be found @ ecologicaldesignlab.ca and her creative studio practice @ plandform.com
See also Prof. Lister's webpage at Ryerson University at:
ryerson.ca/surp/faculty_staff/bios/lister_nina_marie
From 2009-2013 she was Visiting Professor in Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, and in 2014, Visiting Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Toronto.
A Registered Professional Planner (MCIP, RPP) with a background in resource management, ecology and environmental planning, Lister is the founding principal of plandform, a creative studio practice exploring the relationship between landscape, ecology, and urbanism. Her research, teaching and practice focus on the confluence of landscape infrastructure and ecological processes within contemporary metropolitan regions. Through this, she has developed three streams of applied research and design: adaptive ecological design for ecosystem complexity and biodiversity conservation; parklands and waterfronts in post-industrial landscapes; and urban food systems and productive/edible landscapes.
Lister is co-editor, with Chris Reed of Projective Ecologies (forthcoming with ACTAR Press and Harvard GSD), and co-editor of The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for Sustainability (Columbia University Press, 2008). She is author of more than 30 professional practice and scholarly publications including recent contributions to Ecological Urbanism (Harvard University with Lars Müller Publishers 2010) and Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press 2008, winner of the J.B. Jackson Book Prize).
In her professional practice, Lister is a frequent collaborator with international design firms in juried competitions and exhibitions involving both built and speculative works in metropolitan landscapes. Her work has been featured in exhibitions shown at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montréal, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the Toronto Design Exchange and the Van Alen Institute in New York. In 2010, she served as the Professional Advisor to the ARC International Design Competition which developed innovative designs for a wildlife crossing structure in Colorado. www.arc-solutions.org
In addition to Visiting Appointments at Harvard and Toronto, Prof. Lister has lectured widely in ecological design and landscape planning including (e.g.) at the University of California Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Arizona, the University of Texas (Austin), the Swedish Agricultural University, Copenhagen University, Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany), University of Göteburg (Sweden), Griffith University (Brisbane, AUS) and RMIT (Melbourne, AUS). At Ryerson University, Professor Lister teaches landscape and planning studios, research methods, ecological design, applied urban ecology, and landscape urbanism. She is a founding faculty member of the School’s graduate programme in Planning (Urban Development). Prof. Lister has received a Canada Mortgage + Housing Corporation Excellence in Education Award for outstanding educational contribution to sustainable practices, and in 2012 she was named Senior Scholar with the Centre for Humans and Nature: www.humansandnature.org/
See also Prof. Lister's webpage at Ryerson University at:
ryerson.ca/surp/faculty_staff/bios/lister_nina_marie
and her creative studio practice, plandform at: plandform.com
Phone: T 416.979.5000 x556769
Address: School of Urban + Regional Planning
Toronto Metropolitan University
350 Victoria Street
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA M5B 2K3
See also Prof. Lister's webpage at Ryerson University at:
ryerson.ca/surp/faculty_staff/bios/lister_nina_marie
From 2009-2013 she was Visiting Professor in Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, and in 2014, Visiting Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Toronto.
A Registered Professional Planner (MCIP, RPP) with a background in resource management, ecology and environmental planning, Lister is the founding principal of plandform, a creative studio practice exploring the relationship between landscape, ecology, and urbanism. Her research, teaching and practice focus on the confluence of landscape infrastructure and ecological processes within contemporary metropolitan regions. Through this, she has developed three streams of applied research and design: adaptive ecological design for ecosystem complexity and biodiversity conservation; parklands and waterfronts in post-industrial landscapes; and urban food systems and productive/edible landscapes.
Lister is co-editor, with Chris Reed of Projective Ecologies (forthcoming with ACTAR Press and Harvard GSD), and co-editor of The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for Sustainability (Columbia University Press, 2008). She is author of more than 30 professional practice and scholarly publications including recent contributions to Ecological Urbanism (Harvard University with Lars Müller Publishers 2010) and Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press 2008, winner of the J.B. Jackson Book Prize).
In her professional practice, Lister is a frequent collaborator with international design firms in juried competitions and exhibitions involving both built and speculative works in metropolitan landscapes. Her work has been featured in exhibitions shown at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montréal, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the Toronto Design Exchange and the Van Alen Institute in New York. In 2010, she served as the Professional Advisor to the ARC International Design Competition which developed innovative designs for a wildlife crossing structure in Colorado. www.arc-solutions.org
In addition to Visiting Appointments at Harvard and Toronto, Prof. Lister has lectured widely in ecological design and landscape planning including (e.g.) at the University of California Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Arizona, the University of Texas (Austin), the Swedish Agricultural University, Copenhagen University, Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany), University of Göteburg (Sweden), Griffith University (Brisbane, AUS) and RMIT (Melbourne, AUS). At Ryerson University, Professor Lister teaches landscape and planning studios, research methods, ecological design, applied urban ecology, and landscape urbanism. She is a founding faculty member of the School’s graduate programme in Planning (Urban Development). Prof. Lister has received a Canada Mortgage + Housing Corporation Excellence in Education Award for outstanding educational contribution to sustainable practices, and in 2012 she was named Senior Scholar with the Centre for Humans and Nature: www.humansandnature.org/
See also Prof. Lister's webpage at Ryerson University at:
ryerson.ca/surp/faculty_staff/bios/lister_nina_marie
and her creative studio practice, plandform at: plandform.com
Phone: T 416.979.5000 x556769
Address: School of Urban + Regional Planning
Toronto Metropolitan University
350 Victoria Street
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA M5B 2K3
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Books by Nina-Marie Lister
Publications by Nina-Marie Lister
A new compilation of essays and work from a number of leading landscape architects, architects, and planners is slated for publication in June 2016. Nina-Marie Lister contributes a chapter on resilience.
Nature and Cities will be published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in association with the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, and George F. Thompson Publishing.
Authors: Nina-Marie Lister, Marta Brocki, and Robert Ament
Publication Date: Fall 2014
Publication Name: In: Ground (27). Ontario Association of Landscape Architects: Toronto, Ontario, pp. 32-33.
Urban Sustainability is the first book to provide an applied interdisciplinary perspective on the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead in this area. Bringing together researchers and practitioners to explore leading innovations on the ground, this volume combines the theoretical underpinnings of urban sustainability with current practices through highly readable narrative case studies. The contributors also provide fresh perspectives on how issues related to sustainable urban planning and development can be reconciled through collaborative partnerships and engagement processes."
See: http://www.utppublishing.com/Urban-Sustainability-Reconnecting-Space-and-Place.html"
Beyond the Global City presents a kaleidoscopic view of the province - the rich fields and small towns of the southwest, the productive agricultural lands of rural Huron County, historic Kingston and the Upper St Lawrence, the social and cultural diversity of the Ottawa valley, the near mythical woodlands and waters of Muskoka and Georgian Bay, and the heavily exploited coasts and waters of the Great Lakes - to provide a deeper understanding of its various communities. In a series of regional studies, contributors describe each area's distinctive qualities and challenges and offer recommendations about what is needed to move them forward in a more equitable and sustainable way. Two initial historical chapters lay the framework for the regional discussions, while cross-cutting and integrated chapters analyze the state of natural and cultural heritage and current development theory provincially, offering guidance for the future."
See: http://www.mqup.ca/beyond-the-global-city-products-9780773539860.php#sthash.MhHU8nfj.dpuf"
A new compilation of essays and work from a number of leading landscape architects, architects, and planners is slated for publication in June 2016. Nina-Marie Lister contributes a chapter on resilience.
Nature and Cities will be published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in association with the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, and George F. Thompson Publishing.
Authors: Nina-Marie Lister, Marta Brocki, and Robert Ament
Publication Date: Fall 2014
Publication Name: In: Ground (27). Ontario Association of Landscape Architects: Toronto, Ontario, pp. 32-33.
Urban Sustainability is the first book to provide an applied interdisciplinary perspective on the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead in this area. Bringing together researchers and practitioners to explore leading innovations on the ground, this volume combines the theoretical underpinnings of urban sustainability with current practices through highly readable narrative case studies. The contributors also provide fresh perspectives on how issues related to sustainable urban planning and development can be reconciled through collaborative partnerships and engagement processes."
See: http://www.utppublishing.com/Urban-Sustainability-Reconnecting-Space-and-Place.html"
Beyond the Global City presents a kaleidoscopic view of the province - the rich fields and small towns of the southwest, the productive agricultural lands of rural Huron County, historic Kingston and the Upper St Lawrence, the social and cultural diversity of the Ottawa valley, the near mythical woodlands and waters of Muskoka and Georgian Bay, and the heavily exploited coasts and waters of the Great Lakes - to provide a deeper understanding of its various communities. In a series of regional studies, contributors describe each area's distinctive qualities and challenges and offer recommendations about what is needed to move them forward in a more equitable and sustainable way. Two initial historical chapters lay the framework for the regional discussions, while cross-cutting and integrated chapters analyze the state of natural and cultural heritage and current development theory provincially, offering guidance for the future."
See: http://www.mqup.ca/beyond-the-global-city-products-9780773539860.php#sthash.MhHU8nfj.dpuf"
"With the aim of projecting alternative and sustainable forms of urbanism, the book asks: What are the key principles of an ecological urbanism? How might they be organized? And what role might design and planning play in the process?
While climate change, sustainable architecture, and green technologies have become increasingly topical, issues surrounding the sustainability of the city are much less developed. The premise of the book is that an ecological approach is urgently needed both as a remedial device for the contemporary city and an organizing principle for new cities. Ecological urbanism approaches the city without any one set of instruments and with a worldview that is fluid in scale and disciplinary approach. Design provides the synthetic key to connect ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment.
The book brings together design practitioners and theorists, economists, engineers, artists, policy makers, environmental scientists, and public health specialists, with the goal of reaching a more robust understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future.
Contributors include:
Homi Bhabha, Stefano Boeri, Chuck Hoberman, Rem Koolhaas, Sanford Kwinter, Bruno Latour, Nina-Marie Lister, Moshen Mostafavi, Matthias Schuler, Sissel Tolaas, Charles Waldheim.
University California - Berkeley (155 Kroeber Hall)
Projective Ecologies: Activating Resilience
Thursday, October 23, 6:00 PM — 7:30 PM
University of Pennsylvania: School of Design (Meyerson Hall)
Projective Ecologies Lecture & Panel
Thursday, October 30, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Washington DC (1711 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 200)
Prosecco & Prose: Book Party - Projective Ecologies
Wednesday, November 5, 5:00 PM
Hemson Simpson Public Lecture Series
Ryerson University, Toronto ON (105 Bond Street, SBB 312)
Projective Ecologies: Book Launch Lecture & Panel
Monday, November 17, 6:30 PM
Carnegie Mellon University - School of Architecture and the School of Design (McConomy Auditorium, Jared L. Cohon University Center)
Projective Ecologies - Resilient Design
Friday, November 21, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
American Society of Landscape Architects 2014, Denver, CO
Projective Ecologies - Education Session
During the nineteenth century, Frederick Law Olmsted created a new vision for public parks in the United States beginning with his and Calvert Vaux’s design for Central Park in New York City. During the twentieth century, Ian McHarg argued that ecological understanding should guide design and planning.
This new century has given rise to new forms of green infrastructure such as the High Line in Manhattan and Fresh Kills in Staten Island.
At this special conference, leading scholars, planners, and designers will address the vital relationship between nature and cities and how ecological design and planning remain vital links in the betterment of the world’s cities."
See: http://soa.utexas.edu/calendar/natureandcities/"""
The studio group was tasked with creating a diagnostic toolkit that enables local city building groups to evaluate how healthy, green and equitable their neighbourhood is, using an 8 80 lens. The objective is to develop a toolkit that will enable local actors to collaboratively identify and diagnose local barriers to meaningful civic engagement, well-loved public realm and parks, and safe and accessible active transportation; and, through this process, build community capacity for transformational change.
This project, Designing the Emerald Crescent for the Decoteau Area Structure Plan, presents an opportunity to apply the Breathe: Edmonton’s Green Network Strategy (the “Breathe Strategy”) vision and principles to an area of Edmonton expecting future urban development. Leading with landscape in Decoteau presents possibilities and opportunities to challenge the way plans for future communities arise.
Through new, innovative farm practices, the industry can meet the needs of the current and future market, and reach a higher level of economic sustainability. Food and Farm Innovation provides Sustain Ontario with a comprehensive analysis of the important planning, policy and broader economic, environmental, and social implications of agricultural practice.
The students developed an approach to making land use policy more adaptive, integrated and flexible with regard to agricultural and food policy at the regional or municipal level. Several themes emerged through investigation of four different agricultural regions. The themes identified by the students are secondary uses, value-adding, severances, minimum farm parcel size, and minimum farm distance separation.
This project identifies a need for these practices to encourage innovation and generate an economically viable agricultural region. Additionally, the project aims to reveal, examine, and explore the regulatory barriers to on-farm innovation. The students used their research as a basis to propose options for a more integrated land use planning and policy context where it is encouraged to approach agriculture in progressive and innovative ways.
Over the past 10 years, the park has become surrounded by new residential development which has substantially changed the composition and form of the local community. Residents that were originally involved in the protection of the ORCCR may no longer live in the area, and new residents may not be aware of the ecological and cultural significance of the ORCCR. The TRCA has given us the task of determining innovative ways to re-engage the surrounding community, with a specific focus on youth, in order to grow a new generation of greenspace stewards invested in the recreational use and environmental protection of the Oak Ridges Corridor Conservation Reserve.
We have developed the Growing Stewardship Strategy to address this changing reality.
In order to assess the usage and latent demand for the ravines, the team has developed a regression model based on GIS data and orthophotos. This model allows researchers to quantifiably predict where connectivity can be improved, and the extent to which a new path will affect use. In the second phase of the project, the team takes a closer look at the neighbourhoods around the upper sections of Black Creek near Keele and Finch. Nine connectivity recommendations are explored that touch on important factors under a systems based approach. This process and a number of the recommendations are presented on display panels for public use. Finally, a report is developed that explains the establishment of themes, mapping methods, and all nine recommendations in greater detail.
The undergraduate and graduate student groups each were tasked with contributing to the dialogue on the importance of cultural landscapes within the City of Toronto and to inform the work of TCLF. The groups developed comprehensive reports that outlined the various forms and sites of cultural heritage that exist in Toronto across temporal and spatial scales. The primary mandate of the reports were to identify cultural landscapes in Toronto by highlighting features including their connections to the public realm and local history, to highlight the importance of the protection of these landscapes, and to educate the public to promote awareness and stewardship of cultural landscapes and emphasize their role in the process.
Prepared by: Adam Sweanor, Aida Habibelahi, Alessandro Valente, Anne Winter, Arianna Rueda-Lascano, Arin Mardirossian, Curtis Shum, Daniel Marchesan, Daniela DeGasperis, Deidre Tomlinson, Jake Garland, Julien Kuehnhold, Katie Hickey, Katryna Vergis-Mayo, Melinda Holland, Nathan Jenkins, Ramiya Rajalingam, Samson Ahensan
the Don River Valley.
The People’s Plan asks us to imagine audacious design interventions at key locations throughout the Lower Don, developed by leading North American landscape designers. The city is waiting to be drawn into the valley, to embrace it as a shared green landscape for the existing and emerging neighbourhoods that surround it. The interventions in the People’s Plan aim to ignite new places, and to connect them seamlessly to each other and to the rest of the city, bridging the roads and railways that have kept the valley fragmented for so long.
The interventions strive to recognize and restore the valley’s role as a natural system, and to highlight its rich history of institutions, recreation and industry. In doing so, they aim to build stronger physical and social connections between the city, its people, and the valley.
The People’s Plan for the Riverfront Ribbon presents a vision to bring people back to the banks of the Don River, allowing them to and its special places and to make this riverfront park their own, and transforming Toronto’s relationship with the river at its heart.
Wet Infrastructure: Building Blue and Green is comprised of four accessible and informational handbooks: 1) Setting the Context, 2) Governance, 3) Best and Next Practices, and 4) Activation Plan. This work combined field research in the Netherlands, a world leader in control-based engineering and adaptive landscape design, with professional communication in Toronto, to create a foundation of understanding for interdisciplinary stakeholders.
The four handbook series informs the client, the City of Toronto, on the design, monitoring, maintenance, and policy considerations for stormwater management. The research addresses the difficulty of integrating blue-green infrastructure within current municipal structures. Planners must be flexible when approaching multifaceted problems, and must be equipped with information to realize and embrace integrated and innovative solutions.
recommendations with respect to priority issues to be addressed. These issues include agricultural zone classifications, minimum distance separation, minimum farm size, and policy language. The guide stresses the attention that must be paid to context when creating flexible land use policies as well as the importance of considering the scale of farming operations when
making policy decisions.
The following are recommendations for Sustain Ontario:
1. Encourage the Province (Ministry of Agriculture Food, and Rural Affairs) to provide municipalities with more guidance with respect to interpreting the 2005 Provincial Policy Statement to encourage and promote farm innovation and viability in Ontario.
2. Inform municipalities (planners and decision makers) about the importance of farming and food security. Official Plan policies and Zoning Bylaws need to be more farming “friendly” to encourage and promote farm innovation and viability.
3. Inform municipalities (planners and decision makers) about the ways in which their municipal Official Plan policies and Zoning Bylaws hinder and promote farm innovation and viability. In doing so, refer to recommendations for municipalities provided in this guide.
The guide contains also specific recommendations for each priority issue, as well as recommendations intended to help policy-makers craft flexible agricultural policies.
Ecological Urbanism provokes viewers to (re)define, (re)mediate and (re)affirm the human relationship with urban nature; in doing so, it challenges us to (re)imagine a renewed and reconnected urban landscape, through a particular focus on Toronto’s unique ravine system. This month-long exhibit will showcase the work of students in the Ecological Design Lab at Ryerson University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning together with works by students in the University of Toronto’s Masters’ in Landscape Architecture program. Special thanks to our community partners at the Ryerson City Building Institute, the City of Toronto, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Evergreen Brick Works and the University of Toronto’s Daniels’ Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Support for this exhibit is provided in part by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada. Curated by Vincent Racine and directed by Professor Nina-Marie Lister (Ryerson University).
PANEL
Alissa North, Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture program, University of Toronto
Vincent Racine, Graduate Student, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University
Carolyn Woodland, Senior Director of Planning, Greenspace and Communications, Toronto and Region Conservation
Dan Berman, Director and Producer of “Accidental Parkland: The Bounty & Burden of Toronto’s Ravines”
Jennifer Kowalski, Program Standard & Development Officer for the Parks, Forestry & Recreation division, City of Toronto
Moderated by Prof. Nina-Marie Lister, Graduate Program Director, Associate Professor of Urban Planning; Director, Ecological Design Lab, Ryerson University
PRESENTED BY
The Ryerson School of Urban and Regional Planning, the Ecological Design Lab, the University of Toronto’s Daniels’ Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, and the Ryerson City Building Institute.