Peter Bigelow is a graduate of Acadia University with a degree in biology (1983) and the University of Guelph with a BLA (Hons) in 1987. He became a full member of APALA and the CSLA in 1989. He practiced with John Pazahanick, Peter Klynstra and Gordon Radcliffe before joining the City of Halifax in 1989 as the City’s first landscape architect. Since that time Peter has played a large part in taking the role of municipal landscape architecture from planting bed design to Regional Planning and everywhere in between. His public practice has included park and open spaces, municipal policy planning, infrastructure planning and emergency management. Peter believes in teamwork. Throughout his public career Peter has sought to showcase the talent, leadership and broad range thinking of landscape architects through hiring of staff and consultants and placing them in roles of leadership where they are able to demonstrate their approach and skills alongside the traditional positions of municipal engineers and planners. This was with the idea that landscape architectural practice is so based on interdisciplinary problem solving that they were also ideally suited to lead complex, multi-disciplinary, municipal initiatives. The most extreme example of this is Peter’s leadership role in coordinating multi-agency emergency response to local disasters including the Swiss Air Crash, Hurricane Juan, White Juan Blizzard, and Operation Sleepover in response to the September 11 attacks on the United States, all which earned the Municipality and Peter recognition for excellence in Emergency Management.
Currently Peter is Manager of Public Lands Portfolio Planning where he is engaged in the use of public lands to provide services, shape the region and create an attractive advantage to ensure that the Halifax Regional Municipality continues to strengthen socially, economically and environmentally.
Peter was Vice President and then President of the Atlantic Provinces Association of Landscape Architects between 1999 and 2003.