Agenda

Opening Keynote: Julia Watson, Founder, Lo–TEK

Designer, activist, academic and author, Julia Watson is a leading expert on Indigenous nature-based technologies. Her unconventional research led her to writing and design projects...

10:00-11:00

Circular Design for a Circular Economy

How do we develop furniture and textiles for a cleaner planet? Three leaders from the world of circular design discuss their approach to developing exemplary...

11:00-11:30

Morning Coffee Break

11:30-12:30

Rethinking the Future of Interior Materials

The focus shifts in this workshop from the progress being made in the decarbonization of building operations to the importance of the embodied carbon costs...

11:30-12:30

Scaling Up Delivery of Sustainable, Affordable Housing

There's a clear need to build housing fast, sustainably, and affordably. However, low-carbon buildings are often blamed for increasing costs in residential construction, implying that...

11:30-12:30

Mass Timber: Care Is Choreography

What role should mass timber and renewable materials, with their potential to replace concrete and steel, play in ensuring the planet’s survival?...

11:30-12:45

City-Nature: A Blueprint for Tomorrow’s Cities (Toronto’s Downsview Framework Plan)

This session offers a deep dive into blending nature into urban development in the multi-award-winning Downsview Framework Plan – a 520-acre city within a city....

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12:30-1:30

Networking Lunch

1:30-2:30

Forecast for Hotter Cities

With extreme heat the leading cause of weather-related deaths, rising temperatures are a new public health crisis, effecting especially the most vulnerable groups in society....

2:30-2:45

Afternoon Coffee Break

2:45-3:45

Constructing Health: How the Built Environment Enhances Our Mind’s Health

What causes health? What if health were the basis for judging every public space and building? There is no such thing as neutral space. What...

2:45-3:45

Tools for Accelerating Whole Life Cycle Carbon Reduction

This workshop begins with a synthesis of a wide array of available tools and resources for carbon reductions, providing a practical roadmap to practitioners. Diving...

2:45-3:45

Zeroing in on Net-Zero Community Recreation Projects

Community and recreation projects are challenged in achieving net-zero aspirations due to their high energy, air, and water process loads. This session will look broadly...

2:45-3:45

Strengthening Community Food Access and Social Infrastructure

LGA Architectural Partners’ Janna Levitt and MABELLEarts’ Leah Houston will present the culmination of the organization's 15 years of cultural work on Mabelle Avenue initiated...

3:45-4:00

Networking Break

4:00-5:00

Keynote: Susan Carruth, 3XN and GXN

Susan Jayne Carruth is a partner at Copenhagen-based architecture firm 3XN, and the Head of Operations for the firm’s research arm, GXN. 3XN/GXN is renowned...

5:00-5:15

Day 1 Closing Remarks

Plus a preview of Day 2!

5:30-7:00

Social Cocktail

Mix and mingle with your industry peers!

October 25

8:00-8:45

Breakfast

8:45-9:00

Opening Ceremony

A traditional opening led by Nbisiing Consulting President Bob Goulais, Anishinaabe from Nipissing First Nation.

9:00-10:00

Kongjian Yu, Turenscape

Kongjian Yu is the landscape architect commonly credited with the invention of the “Sponge City” concept, a resliency practice that he embraces through the many...

10:00-11:00

ʔəy̓alməxʷ/Iy̓álmexw /Jericho Lands: Indigenous Urban Futures

Today, the City of Vancouver sits on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Since time immemorial, these...

11:00-11:30

Morning Coffee Break

11:30-12:30

Environmental Stewardship and Indigenous Reconciliation: A Regenerative Approach to Campus Planning

The Trent Lands and Nature Areas Plan has a foundation of deep engagement with First Nations, Indigenous communities, and campus and local communities. Together, they...

11:30-12:30

Putting Bio-based Materials to Work in Furniture Design with Arper and PaperShell

PaperShell is a groundbreaking, 100 per cent bio-based material derived from paper pulp that surpasses plastic in strength and is half the weight of aluminum....

11:30-12:30

Doing Less: Scales of Reuse

Climate advocates across industries are calling for a shift from linear thinking to circular systems and reduced consumption. For designers, architects, developers, city-builders, contractors, and...

11:30-12:30

Reactivation (People), Biodiversification (Life), and Restoration (Earth)

Record heat waves and levels of rain, ice, snow and drought all in a given year: As a city experiencing high fluctuations of temperature, seasonal...

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12:30-1:15

Lunch

1:15-2:15

The Green Public Realm

In a rapidly urbanizing world, public spaces that support dense, transit-oriented and socio-economically diverse urban environments are among our best tools for fighting climate change...

2:15-3:15