CitiesAlive 2024: An Invigorating 20th Anniversary Conference in Toronto – Greenroofs.com

An Invigorating 20th CitiesAlive 2024

Aramis and I returned from Toronto about a month ago after spending a lovely time at the 20th anniversary of the Green Roofs for Healthy City’s CitiesAlive Conference. Co-hosted by the City of Toronto, over 300 people were in attendance from November 6 – 9. GRHC Founder and President Steven Peck, GRHC Chair Matt Barmore, staff, and volunteers did a great job all around in providing a stimulating and well run experience.

And, Yes! I was able to ***finally*** present my “2024 Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Living Green Architecture: Climate Action Drives Design.” With an hour to speak and less projects to showcase, I even had about 10 minutes to answer audience questions, something I’ve never had time to do prior.

Top Image: Aramis Velazquez. Below: GRHC

The Best Part? The People!

The 20th CitiesAlive 2024 conference was held at the MaRS Discovery District (“North America’s largest urban innovation hub”) in addition to satellite locations for specific events. And Toronto is a great city with a fantastic downtown. Yet the best part was simply to see many of our dear colleagues, some whom we haven’t seen in a decade or so! Others we are lucky to encounter at almost every CitiesAlive and other world events, but in each case, it’s always wonderful to reconnect and catch up with both professional and personal happenings.

Images: GRHC

A Tour, Message from the Mayor & Lively Keynotes Kick Off CitiesAlive 2024

Day 1 of the 20th CitiesAlive 2024 offered a wide variety of tours, and masterclasses followed by the evening’s Opening Plenary at Toronto City Hall. Part of the billion-dollar Port Lands Flood Protection and Enabling Infrastructure Project, the Don River Renaturalization was a tour choice, too – one of the largest public works initiatives in Canadian history.

We opted for the “Sponge Cities Tour” with two stops: Leslie Lookout Park and Love Park.

Leslie Lookout Park

Image: CCXA

Designed by landscape architecture firm CCxA with support from sub-contractors including Arup, gh3, Dougan & Associates and Kayanase, many native plantings compliment the Leslie Lookout Park stormwater site. Poyani Sheth, civil engineer with Arup was our guide along with CCxA landscape architect Carlos Portillo. Planted closely together, the Miyawaki-inspired mini forest boasts about 5,000 plants representing 45 species including 2,470 trees, 2,473 arborescent shrubs and 1,260 forbs and grasses.

Leslie Lookout Park. All Park Images: Linda S. Velazquez

Leslie Lookout Park. All Park Images: Linda S. Velazquez

A new destination in Toronto’s Port Lands located on the Martin Goodman Trail at the entrance to Tommy Thompson Park, it’s meant to be “A City Within A Park.” Incorporating porous asphalt walking surfaces, the Leslie Lookout Park include a public beach, distinguished by forested dunes that will create a new multi-use community destination in Toronto’s east end. We met up with Ashleigh Uiska from Global Laboratory and Research Corporation- we hadn’t seen her in at least a decade and it was great catching up on her engineering work and growing family.

Love Park

Images: CCxA

Also a collaboration between CCxA and the architects gh3, with support from Dan Euser Waterarchitecture, Arup, Ombrages / Éclairage public and Lesley Johnstone, Love Park’s innovative green infrastructure solutions retain rainwater runoff, replenish groundwater, and contribute to urban cooling with its diverse plantings. Public art has been integrated cleverly and whimsically within the park with various adorable animal sculptures. Its shimmering mosaic-covered central heart-shaped water feature is the romantic backdrop for visitors.

“Love Park in Toronto is a deliberate effort to break from the grid and assert an open space character that reinforces Toronto’s evolving landscape specificity, while introducing a unique signature that expresses the spirit of the city.” ~ CCxA

Love Park. All Park Images unless otherwise roted: Linda S. Velazquez

Image: Aramis Velazquez

All Park Images Unless Otherwise Noted: Linda S. Velazquez

Alexandra Suchon, Civil Engineer with Arup was our guide along with CCxA landscape architect Carlos Portillo again. All three tour guides did a wonderful job of sharing details and lessons learned. It’s always great to hear from people who actually worked on the design!

These lovely parks manage rainwater beautifully and were thoughtfully designed. From my interpretation of the term, I wouldn’t necessarily call either a “sponge park” – but I’d refer to them as “stormwater parks.” To me, a sponge park is more of a space designed for natural and public areas that will definitely become submerged at certain period(s) of the year.

Toronto City Hall

Image: Linda S. Velazquez

We took advantage of the lovely brisk November afternoon and walked over to City Hall for the Opening Plenary. Everyone was greeted with a reception where we were delighted to see some of our friends and colleagues: Dr. Christine Thuring, Kerry Ross, Dr. Olyssa Starry, Roxanne Miller, Amy Falder & Chris Brunner, Dr. Jennifer Bousselot, Angie Durhman, Dr. Karen Liu, Emilio & Kate Ancaya, Dr. Aslan Jonoubi (whom we had just seen in Auckland), Joe DiNorscia, Barbara Deutsch, Janet McKinnon, and others I’m forgetting! We met several new colleagues, including the lively folks from Soprema Canada.

Next up: the welcome messages from Matt Barmore, Steven Peck, and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.

Image: Linda S. Velazquez

“The City of Toronto’s Green Infrastructure Design and Construction Standards incorporates natural and human-made elements in the City of Toronto’s Official Plan. Toronto’s Green Roof By-Law mandates green roofs on new buildings and provides funding for green roofs on existing buildings through the Eco-Roof Incentive Program.

Green infrastructure is a cost-effective, resilient approach to managing the impact of wet weather events that provides social, economic, and environmental benefits…” ~ Mayor Olivia Chow

The Mayor encouraged all of Torontonians’ efforts and reiterated the importance of remaining committed. Collaboration is key between its residents, businesses and communities to ensure continued success. Mayor Chow’s enthusiasm and pride of the city’s many accomplishments and developments in green infrastructure was greatly appreciated!

Upper level in the Chambers. Images: Christine Thuring

Christine and Ashleigh

The evening’s two Keynotes were brilliant landscape architects Rasmus Astrup, partner and design principal at SLA, and Pamela Conrad of Climate Positive Design, Faculty Lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and Architecture 2030 Senior Fellow. They were awesome!

Image: Linda S. Velazquez

Rasmus is a leading specialist in city nature, sustainable landscape architecture, and integrated climate adaptation. He was beyond informative – highly energetic and entertaining, and his message was clear: sustainable urbanism and living ecosystems help create robust and biodiverse cities with a higher quality of life.

Image: Linda S. Velazquez

Pam presented on Climate Positive Design’s Pathfinder, a carbon sequestering tool for climate positive design. Her years of experience was matched by her heartfelt passion for the free resource tool which “brings people together to reduce and remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere through the exterior built environment, while supporting biodiversity and healthy, equitable communities.”

Afterwards Aramis and I enjoyed a lovely dinner with far flung friends and perennial favorites Christine Thuring and Kerry Ross. Christine was our previous Student Editor and is now the Executive Director of GRIN (Green Roof Infrastructure Network) BC. She’s super excited about their new mapping project where they’ve commissioned Gentian Ltd. to map and assess Vancouver’s green infrastructure, with an emphasis on greenroofs (existing and potential), private gardens, and trees. Very cool! Christine was also a CitiesAlive volunteer, so was pretty busy the entire conference.

Architect Kerry Ross is the Founder & Principle of Green T Design in Calgary brought us up to date on her biodiversity and wellbeing projects and goings on in Alberta. We’ve known Kerry almost as long as Christine, perhaps about 20 years?

Image: Our server, thanks!

Day 2 Welcome, Exhibit Hall & Speakers

Many people made the 20th CitiesAlive 2024 a milestone event, including 100+ speakers. Day 2 started with many great presentations; it was hard to select which of the five tracks to attend (Design, Research, City of Toronto, Systems Integrations, and Panel Sessions). I mostly attended the Design Track while Aramis jumped around.

All images by Linda S. Velazquez unless otherwise noted. Steven Peck talked about “Twenty Years of Industry Building: Towards a Greener Future”

Image: GRHC

Erik Hegre of Behnisch Architekten spoke about the “Harvard Science and Engineering Complex: A Water Story”

Barbara Deutsch of the Landscape Architecture Foundation presented on “Benefits and Uses of Landscape Performance Standards”

It was great to hear about “Designing Green Roofs for Educational Institutions in a Post-Pandemic World: A Case Study” from Vicki Sando, Green Roof Founder & Manager and Science Teacher at PS 41 NYC (and author)

The hard to ignore, high energy of Phil Fung of Anchor Corporation was very entertaining! He told us to “Design Buildings to Provide Ecosystem Services Like Trees”

Chris Brunner of New York Green Roofs presented “Maximizing Green Roof Area on Projects for Maximum Benefits”

Panel Session “How Are Roofing Manufacturers Responding to the Climate Emergency,” with Matt Barmore, Gregory Sigalas, Roxanne Miller, and Chris Kann moderated by Hediah Teymoorzadeh from Sika. Image: Aramis Velazquez

The centrally and prominently located Exhibit Hall funneled in curious attendees and those of us looking to reconnect with exhibitors and colleagues we hadn’t seen in a while. The Trade Show featured Gold Sponsors rooflite and Ginkgo Sustainability; Silver Sponsor Soprema; and Bronze Sponsors Carlisle Construction Materials, Hydrotech a Sika Company, and LiveRoof. A reception was held on the Trade Show afterwards.

Images: GRHC

Images: GRHC

Image: GRHC

Image: Linda S. Velazquez

Industry Pioneers Gala, After Party & Raffle

But the evening wasn’t yet over!

Images: GRHC

The CitiesAlive Industry Pioneers Gala was by invitation only, due to longevity and contributions to the living green architecture community. Aramis and I have been around over 25 years and attended every CitiesAlive conference except for one! It was almost surreal seeing people from 20 years ago, but very interesting. It was fantastic seeing the likes of Terry McGlade, Tim Barrett, Monica Kuhn, Jennifer Black, Jörg Breuning, Dr. Bruce Dvorak, Christian Mahlstedt, Michael Krause, Nate Griswold, Jennifer Sprout, Dr. Brad Bass, Andy Creath, and Andrew Stanton, among numerous others.

Many luminaries were missing; but I remember and cherish them for all of their many contributions to our industry. I would have loved to have seen Tom Liptan, Charlie Miller, Ed Snodgrass, Kelly Luckett, Patrick Carey, Haven Kiers, Chris and Wendy Wark, Ralph Velasquez, Maureen Connelly, Paul Kephart, Vanessa Keitges, Liz Morris Hart, Randy Sharp, Ben Flanner, Richard Hayden, and many more – all North American leaders.

The raffle benefitted Kate and Emilio Ancaya of Living Roofs, Inc. who lost almost everything in the mass flooding destruction of Hurricane Helene. Their gracious acceptance was warming and heartfelt, and they updated us on the progress of their rebuilding efforts – back in business!

Kate and Emilio with Steven and David shown here at the Awards of Excellence. Image: GRHC

As it turns out, can you believe I won one of the raffles? The bundled package included a CitiesAlive T-shirt and three books – two of which I had already: The Rise of Living Architecture (where I’m profiled) and Green Cities of the World, where I contributed a chapter. Of course, with multiple copies of each, I gave them to our newly met colleague, Matt Price from Ginkgo Sustainability, a super nice guy.

Day 3 Speakers

Day 3 presented lots of opportunities to hear from great speakers:

Day 3 Images: Linda S. Velazquez unless otherwise noted. Moderated by Dr. Karen Liu, the Panel Session “Best Practices in Green Roof Installation and Maintenance” with Angie Durhman, Christian Mahlstedt, and Chris Brunner was very lively and informative

Jordan Richie of Ginkgo Sustainability reported on “Living Wall to the Rescue: Implementation and Maintenance Challenges in Retrofitting a Site in Downtown Toronto”

This is the above Living Wall in question. Image: Milena Smodis of Ginkgo Sustainability

Ina Elias of Elia+ Landscape Architecture + Interiors + Design talked about her company’s “Awards of Excellence Winning Guildwood GO Station Case Study”

I (Linda Velazquez) presented our “2024 Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Living Green Architecture: Climate Action Drives Design.” Image: Aramis Velazquez

The Conference Draws to an End

The 2024 CitiesAlive concluded with the Jeffrey L. Bruce Awards of Excellence Ceremony, hosted by Steven Peck and David Yocca, and the Closing Plenary. Here are just a few deserving folks, projects, and companies:

Blaine Stand of GRHC. All Images: Linda S. Velazquez unless otherwise noted

Image: GRHC

Extensive Category Industrial/Institutional: Belt Line Center by Inhabitect (Nate Griswold)

Intensive Category Industrial/Institutional: 800 Fulton St by Omni Ecosystems (Molly Meyer)

Urban Agriculture: Henry Street Farm by Recover Green Roofs (Mark Winterer)

Small Scale Residential: Dune Dwelling by New York Green Roofs (Charlie Hall)

Chris Kann

Corporate Legacy Award: Living Roofs Inc. (Kate & Emilio Ancaya). They lost almost everything in the mass destruction of Hurricane Helene, and their gracious acceptance was warming and heartfelt.

The Closing Plenary with Jane Welsh, Senior Planner City of Toronto, and Christian Mahlstedt of Ginkgo Sustainability was quite interactive with lots of audience participation. Time for goodbyes all around!

Images: GRHC

On Saturday, November 9 the all day Green Infrastructure Charrette, courtesy Green Infrastructure Foundation, was held at a separate venue and ticket. Multi-disciplinary stakeholders engaged in redesigning local neighborhoods in need, with 15 generic types of green infrastructure as their tools (we didn’t attend).

Reflections on the 20th Anniversary of CitiesAlive 2024

Many fantastic people, both students and professional, were recognized for their equally fantastic work ranging from greenroof and greenwall design to research to civic and corporate leadership ~ kudos to all!

Putting the spotlight on both green infrastructure AND people, the 20th CitiesAlive 2024 was a great success! Green Roofs for Healthy Cities is still contemplating where and when the 21st CitiesAlive will be held, but make sure that we at Greenroofs.com will be there!

Love the Earth, Plant a Roof (or Wall)!

By Linda S. Velazquez, ASLA, LEED AP, GRP
Greenroofs.com Publisher & Sky Gardens Studio Principal