Gordon Smith has had the pleasure of engaging in private and public practice for over 28 years in Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Botswana, Africa.
Gordon perceives design and planning as a process to work within communities of interest to arrive at meaningful, practical, and elegant solutions. Through the arc of his practice, he has explored the application of theory into his everyday work at constantly increasing scales, starting his career with the construction of residential gardens and moving up to the province-wide policy work that he currently undertakes as the Director of Planning for the Province of Nova Scotia. Award-winning planning and design projects that he has led include the Town of Riverview Urban Design and Built Form Guidelines, the Dartmouth Common Master Plan, the Sydney Port to Port Strategic Plan, the Grand Parade/Province House (Halifax City Hall and Nova Scotia Legislature) Joint Public Lands Plan, the Blueprint for a Bicycle Friendly Halifax Regional Municipality, and the Central District Integrated Land Use Plan in Botswana, Africa.
Gordon is particularly proud of his work with the CSLA Executive Director, the CSLA and APALA Boards, and other volunteers to help people better understand what the profession of landscape architecture can offer to society. Capstones in these efforts have been his role in enabling the CSLA to award the inaugural Governor General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture in 2016 and his involvement in helping with the establishment of a Bachelor of Technology in Landscape Architecture program and the ongoing development of a Masters program at Dalhousie University.
