The 2027 CSLA-AALA Congress will take place from May 27-29, 2027 at the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre
The Congress theme: BECOMING
In Calgary, in Treaty 7 territory—where prairie meets foothills, rivers converge and become something new, where an energy economy is transforming, and where a cultural awakening is occurring—Calgary offers a living laboratory for this work. Here, at the 2027 CSLA–AALA Congress, practitioners, researchers, students, and allied disciplines will explore what landscape architecture is becoming and how we work across the continuum of change to actively shape our futures.
Theme Statement
Ecosystems regenerate. Rivers shift course. Cities expand and contract. Even the ground beneath us shifts. Nothing in the landscape is fixed—nor is the practice that shapes it.
Landscape architecture has always worked with living systems in motion. But the scale, pace, and urgency of change today ask more of us: to repair ecological and social fractures, to reconnect people and communities to each other and to the land, and to guide landscapes—and our profession—toward more resilient, equitable, and whole futures. This is not a destination, but a continuous process of becoming.
This becoming unfolds across a continuum of time, connecting past, present, and future. Landscapes reflect our values and beliefs about how we live within our environments, shaping the essential character of our civilization.¹ At a moment when climate change, reconciliation, the biodiversity crisis, and geopolitics are forcing a reappraisal of these values, the subject of landscape has moved from the background to the foreground.² Landscape architecture is uniquely positioned to engage this continuum—to shape the forces of today and the places that evolve, adapt, and endure.
¹ Williams, R. (2014). Landscape Architecture in Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press.
² Weller, R. (Ed.). (2022). The Landscape Project. Applied Research and Design.