One of the top ten most dangerous intersections in Washington, D.C. has been transformed into a safe gateway and green public space.

Thomas Balsley, FASLA, co-managing principal of SWA/Balsley, said the $41 million Mamie “Peanut” Johnson Plaza shows how transportation infrastructure can support “social sustainability” by providing community space and building a sense of neighborhood pride.

The 37,000-square-foot project is also a model for what city departments of transportation can achieve when they collaborate with landscape architects and community groups. “Through this partnership, we were able to take this to a whole other level, beyond the standard traffic triangle,” Balsley said.

The plaza, which is where Florida Avenue, New York Avenue, and First Street Northeast converge, was once home to a Wendy’s and colloquially known as Dave Thomas Circle, after the founder of the fast food chain. Through eminent domain, the D.C. government took ownership of the space so they could address the unsafe conditions. From 2015 to 2020, the intersection resulted in 224 crashes, with seven involving pedestrians and five with cyclists.

Balsley said this traffic node has a rich history. It was part of Pierre L’Enfant’s original plan for the district. “It was the outer edge of the city, the northeast gateway.”

As the district department of transportation started reimagining traffic flows, the NoMA Business Improvement District and its Parks Foundation saw an opportunity to create “meaningful little park places,” Balsley said. They engaged SWA/Balsley and local partner ParkerRodgriguez to undertake a community engagement process. That process resulted in a public vote to rename the plaza after Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, the first female pitcher in the Negro baseball leagues.

Traffic flow resulted in creation of three separate spaces bisected by two major avenues. Despite the challenging set-up, Balsley wanted to ensure “they read as one space.” To do that, he focused on the pedestrian experience.

Wider, safer sidewalks provide connections between the three parcels. Bike lanes and traffic calming measures help reduce speeds.

And Balsley added sloping berms, with high back seats, and grasses on the sides of the parks that face major avenues to create buffers, a “sense of psychological safety.” When the lush grasses grow in, “they will also help create the sense of a protected, enclosed, quieter space.”

The addition of 75 trees, pollinator-friendly plants, and new features like social areas, a play space, and picnic tables help draw pedestrians through the series of spaces. A public artwork is also planned for the middle parcel.

SWA states that in the first five months of 2025, crash numbers have “decreased by 40 percent from pre-construction conditions.” Before, cyclists often needed to use the circle’s sidewalks. Now protected bike lanes through the intersection connect with a newly multimodal Florida Avenue.

The project supports the district’s Vision Zero goals and reflects its “belief that equitable, high-quality public space is essential civic infrastructure,” the city states. So far, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has built 55 miles of bike lanes, of which 35 miles are safer, protected lanes.

For Balsley, the climate and biodiversity benefits of the trees and pollinator-friendly landscape are important, but he asks us to “not forget the social and economic sides of sustainability.” He views the plaza as a way to build community among the 13,000 people who live nearby and have little access to green space. The plaza brings together a diverse mix of people from surrounding residences, government buildings, and high schools, supporting local business.

Canada has a national climate adaptation strategy, but it’s largely up to its provinces and cities to move this work forward. Within provincial and city government, landscape architects in leadership roles have developed inventive climate and biodiversity policies that the rest of the world can learn from. Their leadership offers lessons that transcend borders.

In an online discussion organized by the ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee and the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, three Canadian landscape architects working in government outlined how they are moving beyond the national adaptation plan and preparing communities and ecosystems for a changing world.

Nunavut is in the far north of Canada. It covers more than two million square kilometers, one-fifth of Canada’s territory, and spans three time zones. Approximately 85 percent of the population of 37,000 is Inuit.

According to landscape architect Cameron DeLong, director of the climate change secretariat in Nunavut’s government, Canada’s national adaptation strategy is more focused on urban solutions in southern provinces than the challenges facing the far north. “So we had to chart a path on our own.”

“Here, climate risk isn’t an abstract concept but impacting our safety, culture, and survival.” In the north, temperatures are warming three times faster, causing rapid sea ice loss and thawing ground. These environmental changes impact infrastructure — roads, bridges, and trails. And in isolated rural communities, that creates real risks. “It can be unsafe to travel to school and healthcare.”

The loss of sea ice also impacts Inuit’s ability to harvest food sources and sustain their livelihoods and culture. “There are risks of cultural erosion, food insecurity, and the loss of our way of life,” DeLong said.

To identify and measure these impacts, Nunavut conducted a climate risk and resilience assessment, outlining climate projections, based in science and Inuit knowledge. They also developed an equitable, Inuit-led resilience strategy: Upagiaqtavut – Setting the Course: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in Nunavut. The assessment and strategy are “providing a foundation for government agencies to embed climate change into their work.”

Through the process, DeLong found that “resilience is not just about managing risk but also protecting cultural identity. Resilience must be values-based. Equity can’t be an after thought. We must listen deeply to communities.”

The discussion then shifted to the west coast of Canada, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia. It’s a coastal city with a population of more than 700,000, “on the edge of a vast wilderness,” explained Cameron Owen, senior urban designer and landscape architect with the City of Vancouver.

With climate change, the city is facing increased rainfall, flooding, and sea level rise — a challenge of too much water. In 2018, the city developed the Rain City Strategy with the “goal of managing stormwater sustainably through green infrastructure,” Owen said.

The strategy leverages the Sponge City concept to “make room for water and nature” throughout the city’s districts. The strategy, which will take 30 years to fully implement, looks at “all forms of water” in the urban watershed, “responds to risks, and encourages collaboration and innovation.”

To create more local solutions, Vancouver set up planning units that look at water and also heat, connectivity, and equity. In these units, landscape architects and engineers work together to prioritize investments in green infrastructure and sewer and drainage systems, considering all water infrastructure in an integrated way.

On the ground, the city’s landscape architects are creating green infrastructure systems and rain gardens that are “designed to keep water as close to where it falls,” Owen said. These blue-green systems are then being connected with networks of rainways, which are constructed wetlands.

The St. George community rainway reopened a stream that was once channeled into a pipe, providing a new space for rainwater to flow. This rainway was planted with Indigenous plants for pollinators and the community supported its construction and on-going maintenance. All these new green features are improving livability. “They are important to communities.” And the investments are also supporting the goals of the city’s 2050 plan and VanPlay, its parks master plan.

Turning to the east coast of Canada: Toronto has a population of over 3 million, making it the fourth largest city in North America. Founded in 1793 on the north shore of Lake Ontario, it has grown rapidly over the past two centuries.

Climate change has increased temperatures and rainfall in the city, explained Jane Welsh, a landscape architect and project manager with the environmental planning unit of Toronto City Planning. Biodiversity loss also threatens more damage to the ecosystems in the city and surrounding areas.

To address these challenges, Toronto has taken action through new policies and regulations. “We realized that among shifting expectations, we needed rules and to set some bare minimums.” Welsh and other landscape architects have been instrumental in developing and implementing the world-leading Toronto Green Standard, Green Roof Bylaw, Bird Friendly Guidelines, Ravine Protection Bylaw, and Toronto’s biodiversity strategy.

Since 2010, the green standard has been guiding public and private projects to meet 35 sustainable design and performance measures, covering water and air quality, energy, ecosystems, and greenhouse gas emissions. “Over the past 15 years, it has enabled us to create space for trees and led to the use of silva cells and adequate soil for street trees,” Welsh said. It’s also a key tool in the city’s effort to become net-zero by 2040.

The city’s green roof bylaw was the first for a major city and it has proven successful. “Since 2010, we have built 1,000 green roofs.” Toronto is also part of a major bird migratory pathway traveled by more than 170 species. It’s bird friendly guidelines were another first and have helped reduce bird loss from collisions with buildings.

The city’s ravine and natural protection bylaw protects trees and natural areas from development. This has helped the city increase the tree canopy to 31 percent and more than 11.5 million trees, Welsh explained. But she said those trees are still not equitably spread throughout the city, with 58 percent of trees in more affluent neighborhoods. “There are gaps in the tree canopy, and equity factors into urban heat island severity.” The city has developed more than 30 green streets, a green street master plan, and thermal comfort guidelines to start to tackle the problem.

And to increase biodiversity, the city has invested in “re-naturalizing” the Don River, a two-decade, $1,4 billion flood protection and restoration project led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, and supported local seed sourcing and pollinator gardens.

In Nunavut, Vancouver, and Toronto, landscape architects are showing the value of leading from within government and applying design skills to creating and implementing policy. Welsh noted that Nunavut is the “canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change — emotionally and culturally.” One key message from these local leaders: an equitable approach — across cities and entire countries — is key to long-term resilience.

Flood Risk Is Widespread in the U.S. Few People Have Insurance for It, NPR, July 14
There is a major flood insurance gap: the vast majority of U.S. counties have experienced flooding over the past few decades, but only 4 percent of homeowners have federal or private flood insurance. One estimate found that a flood insurance policy can be an additional 30 to 75 percent on top of standard homeowners insurance.

I’m a Climate Scientist in Texas. Here’s What the Floods Tell Us, Time, July 10
Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, argues that climate change isn’t creating new risks but amplifying existing ones. “We need to prepare for what’s coming, not just what’s happened before. That means that we need more data, more expertise, more preparation, more communication, and more follow through, to keep people safe.”

What’s Holding Back Natural Climate Solutions?, Mongabay, July 14
New research from the University of Colorado at Boulder analyzed 352 peer-reviewed studies from 135 countries and documented nearly 2,500 barriers to implementing natural climate solutions. They found that “insufficient funding, patchy information, ineffective policies, and public skepticism” were top obstacles to achieving more nature-based solutions like reforestation and wetland restoration.

Baltimore’s Wetlands Restoration Pushes Ahead Despite Federal Funding Setbacks, Inside Climate News, July 13
The Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative, planned and designed by landscape architects at Field Operations, with Mahan Rykiel, DesignJones LLC, Kofi Boone, FASLA, NC State University, and The Urban Studio, lost $32 million in grant funding when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program was cut. The state of Maryland, local agencies, and private philanthropies have made up much of the shortfall.

As Nations Lag on Climate Action, Their Cities Are Stepping Up. Here’s Proof, Grist, July 2
Three-quarters of the world’s leading cities that are part of the C40 network are cutting greenhouse gas emissions faster than their national governments. A new report found that while global emissions continue to increase, per capita emissions across these leading cities fell 7.5 percent on average between 2015 and 2024.

European Union Targets 90% Cut in Emissions by 2040 as Green Groups Cry Foul, The Guardian, July 2
The new approach, which allows for the purchase of carbon offsets from other countries, raises concerns about whether true greenhouse emission cuts will be achieved. The EU has to submit a new climate plan before COP30 in Brazil later this year.

Research on climate change, biodiversity loss, and systemic inequities is being undermined. But there are still “crevices, nooks, and crannies” where important independent research is being conducted. “We need to nurture, protect, and enable these ‘petri dishes,’ no matter how small,” said Lucinda Sanders, FASLA, CEO of OLIN, during the kick-off of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF)’s latest Leadership and Innovation Symposium.

“We need to super-commit and do the hard work. We need to be action-oriented and advocates for healing. Respect, dignity, and love are foundational to our survival.”

Sanders introduced the latest class of six LAF Leadership and Innovation Fellows. They outlined the result of their year-long research, envisioning positive new futures in the areas of infrastructure, policy, public engagement, and agriculture:

“We are losing the cultural war on climate change because of a lack of effective communications,” argued David Buckley Borden, senior advisor of creative practice and innovation, Center for the Future of Forests and Society, Oregon State University, and associate research professor, University of Oregon College of Design. “Landscape architects can better engage the scientific community to close the science-communications gap. Landscape architects can contribute to expanding public eco-literacy.”

Site-based learning about climate change and biodiversity exists only in the margins, in “bougie garden festivals,” Borden said. Most designed landscapes are “not communicating environmental science,” even though they may be informed by science. He pointed to Teardrop Park in Battery Park, designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, as a positive example of how to communicate earth sciences through design.

He said landscape architects can go beyond simply transferring scientific information to the public, instead using strategies that convey, contribute, contextualize, and criticize. He called for bringing in the visual arts, humor, pop culture, and applying a collaborative design process to scientific communications.

His own work integrates a design studio with scientific labs and networks, helping to reframe landscapes as “hybrid collective space.”

What do landscape architects have to do with farming and ranching? “Agriculture is the largest land use on Earth,” said Forbes Lipschitz, associate professor of landscape architecture, The Ohio State University. The agricultural sector shapes ecosystems and communities across the planet. So landscape architects need to get involved in “reframing and reshaping” the sector.

A climate justice strategy is needed to “break free” from current industrial, extractive agricultural practices and shift towards a more just and sustainable food system. For Lipschitz, elevating Indigenous approaches to food is key to this climate justice strategy.

She spent months traveling, exploring how the industrial food systems of the U.S. works. “It is not a single coordinated spatial arrangement.” There are more than 33 million cows, 124 million hogs, and 9 billion chickens, who produce more than 96 billion eggs per year. She calculated that shifting to a more plant-based diet would free up massive amounts of land, significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enable “climate repair on a planetary scale.” She envisions a model like the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program, which restores parts of the ecosystems of farms, but now also enabling greater Indigenous stewardship.

“Native communities have the vision and knowledge” of how to manage and harvest lands in a more sustainable, ecological way.

Agroforestry is a significant untapped opportunity, argued Amy Whitesides, design critic, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The approach involves combining trees and plants with crops or livestock. A type of agroforestry is silvopasture, which just focuses on integrating forest and livestock grazing. Today, just two percent of U.S. farms are agroforests.

Billions of dollars were allocated for agroforestry, alley cropping, soil restoration, and other “climate-smart” agricultural practices as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This support for farmers to increase carbon sequestration through the land was put on hold through an executive order, Whitesides said. Allocated funding is expected to be cut.

Agroforestry is a way to increase ecological restoration and carbon sequestration on farmland, Whitesides explained. She proposed a national agroforestry plan, focusing on degraded farms, former mines and military sites, and areas surrounding rivers. These marginal landscapes, which have experienced pollution and extraction, can be restored, with some grazing that adds value. Agroforesty can also be incorporated into floodplains, providing a nature-based solution to flooding.

She envisions the benefits from “productive, collective commons” in new agroforested areas over the long-term.

Read Part I

ASLA and its Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee have developed a new hub that brings together environmental product data from landscape architecture product manufacturers and material suppliers in the U.S. and worldwide.

The freely-accessible resource enables landscape architects to find products and materials with:

• Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
• Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs)
• Eco-Label certifications (Forest Stewardship Council, etc)

It also includes industry-wide EPDs developed by associations representing manufacturers and suppliers. Industry-wide EPDs set baselines for product categories, such as bricks or pre-cast concrete.

“Products and materials make up more than 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from landscape architecture projects. They also have impacts on biodiversity and air and water quality. We need to look at environmental product data so we can be more aware of the impacts of what we specify and speed up our efforts to track and cut our emissions,” said Aida Curtis, FASLA, PLA, Chair, ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee.

“We applaud the product manufacturers and suppliers that have invested in providing EPDs and other product data to landscape architects. The entire landscape architecture community benefits from transparent, third-party verified product data – it enables us to achieve our collective climate and biodiversity goals faster,” said ASLA President Kona Gray, FASLA, PLA.

The resource will be updated on a rolling, monthly basis. Current ASLA Corporate Members and current and past ASLA Conference sponsors, EXPO exhibitors, and Landscape Architecture Magazine advertisers can submit their product data. The ASLA Corporate Member Committee is providing support to landscape architecture product manufacturers and suppliers that have questions on how to provide new data.

The hub also outlines other primary sources of EPDs and product data.

Landscape architects and product manufacturers can learn more about environmental product data through a resource released last year – Navigating Environmental Product Data: A Guide for Landscape Architects, Specifiers, and Industry Partners.

The guide was developed by Amy Syverson-Shaffer, ASLA, Landscape Forms and Sasha Anemone, ASLA, Salt Landscape Architects.

It outlines how EPDs and other environmental reporting can be used to understand the environmental impacts of landscape materials and products and make decisions to reduce those impacts.