The CSLA Lifetime Achievement Award honors a member of the CSLA whose lifetime achievements and contributions to the profession have had a unique and lasting impact on the welfare of the public and on the environment.
Recipients
2024 - Janet Rosenberg
Janet Rosenberg is one of Canada’s foremost landscape architects and a trailblazer in the profession. As founding principal of Janet Rosenberg & Studio (JRS), she has over forty years of experience pushing the boundaries of landscape architecture, leading the design and implementation of complex and award-winning public and private landscapes across Canada. Janet’s designs tell a narrative about the land, deeply informed by each site’s natural and cultural history.
Over the past four decades, Janet has been instrumental in transforming Canadian landscape architecture from a niche discipline to one that is central to the planning of all major civic and developer-driven projects across the country. Her reputation for delivering sophisticated design, trusted results, and impassioned advocacy has influenced the shape of the profession and helped cultivate a better civic understanding of the vital role landscape architecture plays in fostering urban identity, communal and individual well-being, and rewarding everyday life experiences.
JRS is one of Canada’s most influential firms and one of the country’s largest women-owned landscape architecture practices today. A mentor to young designers, students and the academic community, Janet continues to play an active role in leading, shaping, and advancing the profession nationally by fostering and guiding new talent, sharing her knowledge and experience at conferences, universities, on juries and design review panels.
Janet believes that the challenges posed by climate change are the defining issues of our generation. Her work remains deeply concerned with interpreting the effects of climate change on local environments and proactively planning for anticipated environmental change through design innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration.
2022 - Don Vaughan
Don received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon in 1965 and shortly after moved to Vancouver to work.
Don founded Don Vaughan & Associates in 1971, which grew quickly and went on to handle the bulk of landscape architectural projects in the City of Vancouver including the world famous Granville Island. Additionally he designed many of the new downtown fountains and plazas, and completed the design of the Skytrain station at Discovery Square which was recognized with an ASLA Merit Award.
In 1981, the name of the firm changed to Vaughan Durante Perry Ltd to reflect the increased role of the partners. During this time, Don earned the first ASLA Historic Restoration Award in 1983 for Shannon Mews. Additional work throughout the province of BC included the design of the new town of Tumbler Ridge followed by the design of the world famous Whistler Town Centre.
Don Vaughan also completed the world famous Sun Yet Sen Garden at this time, earning a ASLA Merit Award.
In 1984 he formed and led The Landscape 86 Collaborative - a team of 35 B.C. Landscape Architects, to provide the design for site work at Expo 86.
Don received a Diploma in Fine Arts from the Emily Carr College of Art & Design shortly after, with the intent of expanding his toolset to better express art in landscape.
From 1988 until 2010 Don Vaughan founded and ran Vaughan Landscape Planning and Design.
Don was recognized for his exceptional contributions in planning and design with an Honorary Doctorate in 2007 from the University of Victoria.
Projects over this time include the world renowned Concord Pacific Master Plan, David Lam Park, the Nitobe Gardens Restoration, which won a CSLA award, and the Japanese garden at the Museum of Civilization in Quebec, the latter two projects were in collaboration with Shunmyo Masuno.
Don is a fellow of the CSLA, a fellow of the ASLA and a member of the Royal Academy of Arts. Don also holds several Canadian Weightlifting Records.
2021 - Danièle Routaboule
Danièle Routaboule is one of the pioneers of landscape architecture in Quebec. A founding member of the AAPQ, she was successively advisor, secretary and president. She participated with Douglas Harper in the development of the School of Landscape Architecture at the University of Montreal and became a Fellow of the CSLA in 1983. Her career includes numerous projects in private practice in the offices of Georges Robert in Trois-Rivières and La Haye et Robert in Montreal. Her landscape work throughout Quebec and New Brunswick is diverse, ranging from the urban to the regional, and represents an important record of the early profession and history of landscape architecture in this country. During this period, she also participated in the elaboration of a dozen master plans in various regions of Quebec, and also worked on vast landscape projects abroad, including France and Senegal.
From a part-time assistant professor, she became a full-time associate professor and then a full professor at the School of Landscape Architecture of the Université de Montréal. She developed courses in drawing and graphic design, history of garden composition in the twentieth century and contemporary landscape expressions. She is also a visual artist and has developed the relationship between art and landscape in her workshops. She has been a member of numerous committees such as those of Hydro-Quebec Architecture, the Ministry of the Environment, and the Design Committee of the National Capital Commission in Ottawa. Her academic influence has extended to teaching landscape architecture abroad: in England at the School of Landscape architecture of Gloucester, in Chile at INACAP in Santiago, in Mexico at BUAP in Puebla and at LAS AMERICAS in Cholula. She has been a lecturer at UNAM and UAM-X in Mexico City, and at UVC in Caracas, Venezuela. She has also had numerous solo exhibitions in Montreal and Toronto, and digital montages of landscape elements and of changing Montreal and rural landscapes.
2020 - Chris Phillips
Chris Phillips is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and a founding partner of PFS Studio, a Vancouver-based landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm. PFS Studio has received more CSLA design awards than any other firm in Canada, many for projects that Chris has led. Chris has directed a diverse range of acclaimed projects ranging from broad-scale community and campus master plans to the design of parks, open spaces, and the public realm of major urban developments.
Central to Chris’ design philosophy is the importance of public open space in place-making, as a locus of urban public life and culture, and as an opportunity for ecological diversity. Chris’ design approach seeks to reflect regional and site context, collaborate with affected communities and civic decision-makers, demonstrate sustainable innovation, and create inclusive public spaces that enhance and animate city life. Chris encourages the inclusion of public art in his work and is a past Chair of the City of Vancouver Public Art Committee. Chris has shared his extensive professional expertise and innovative thinking on advisory urban design panels, as a member of the Vancouver City Planning Commission, and on numerous art and design juries.
2018 - Peter Jacobs
Peter Jacobs is Emeritus Professor of the Université de Montréal and Chair of the Heritage Council of Montreal. He is a Fellow and Past President of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Honorary member of the Columbian Society of Landscape Architects, and served as Canada’s delegate to the International Federation of Landscape Architects. He has served on numerous scientific and professional editorial advisory committees, has written, and edited publications related to sustainable and equitable development, landscape perception, and planning theory. He was Chair of the College of Senior Fellows of Dumbarton Oaks where he was appointed the first “Beatrix Farrand Distinguished Fellow”. He served as Chair of the Commission of Environmental Planning of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and, after 38 years, has retired as Chair of the Kativik Environmental Quality Commission. He has been a member of numerous design juries and continues to collaborate on planning and design projects, many of which have received professional awards. He was recently named a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts.
2017 - Dr. Douglas Olson
Douglas Olson, DDES, MLA, FCSLA, is CEO of O2 Planning + Design. He holds a Doctor of Design from Harvard University, has served as an instructor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. He is a fellow of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects as well as the International Association of Landscape Ecology. He is also a founding member and Chairman of the SAFE Design Council, a not-for-profit aimed at reducing the risk of crime through informed design. Throughout his 30-year career, Douglas has influenced the planning, design and management of land at multiple scales. From broad-scale regional planning through to detailed, constructed urban projects, he has worked throughout Canada, as well as in Africa, Central America, China, Colombia, Mongolia and the United States. Across scales, his work emphasizes contemporary design, ecological urbanism and landscape ecology.In r ecent years, Douglas has pioneered processes and projects in the field of Geodesign, coupling GIS modelling with design and planning processes. His portfolio demonstrates that landscape architects, working from fine to broad scales, can direct large, interdisciplinary projects founded on design and creativity and supported by analysis, science and technology.
2016 - Robert N. Allsopp
ROBERT N. ALLSOPP, FCSLA / ARIBA / MRTPI / CIP / OPPI / OALA / MALA (Hon), is an architect, landscape architect and city planner, Robert Allsopp is best known as a leading Canadian urban designer. Through his distinguished career in professional practice and teaching, as well as local community involvement, he has helped shape and influence the making of hospitable, enriching and meaningful urban environments. As a faculty member at the University of Manitoba and later at the University of Toronto, Bob has helped generations of designers to carry forward his commitment to a holistic, open-minded and generous attitude to place-making and community building. He joined the Toronto office of Roger du Toit in 1979 – a firm with shared values of multi-dimensional and inclusive approach to urban design. The partnership of du Toit Allsopp Hillier was formed in 1985 and Bob remains actively involved the expanded partnership of DTAH. He is best known for award-winning urban design projects that have transformed the centre of the Nation’s Capital, including: siting of the National Gallery and Museum of Canadian History; the Ceremonial Routes (Confederation Boulevard); the Parliamentary and Judicial Precincts; and “Views Protection” policies that protect the visual integrity of the Parliament Buildings and other landmarks. Other notable projects include university campus plans for McGill, Guelph, Calgary, Alberta, Manitoba, Queens, Regina and five RCMP training facilities; and central area, district, transit and public realm plans in Toronto and GTA, Ottawa, Regina and Vancouver. Bob gives considerable time to local community and civic affairs. He was a start-up member of the Toronto Design Review Panel and is currently member the Toronto Preservation Board and three local community advisory committees. He has received the OALA Pinnacle Award; Canada Council Award; Fulbright Scholarship, and Royal Institute of British Architects’ Soane Medallion.Robert Norman and Robert N. Allsopp (Photo: Jean Landry)
2013 - Edwin John Walker
Edwin John (Jack) Walker attended the University of Saskatchewan from 1950 to 1955 and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture, specializing in Horticulture. Mr. Walker graduated in 1960 from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree. Following employment with a landscape architect, a landscape contractor and a commercial nursery firm in the San Francisco area, he joined the Plant Research Institute in Ottawa in 1961 working on, among other things, developing master plans for various experimental farms across Canada. Education leave permitted him to attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, graduating with a Master of Landscape Architecture in 1965. In 1966 Mr. Walker joined the Wascana Centre Authority in Regina, as Director of Maintenance and Development. Since 1975 Mr. Walker has been the Principal of Habitat Design Limited. Mr. Walker has served on the Design Advisory Committee of the Meewasin Valley Authority, and as a sessional lecturer in the Department of Horticulture at the University of Saskatchewan.
From L to R: E.J. (Jack) Walker and Claude Potvin. Photo: J. Landry
2011 - John C. Laird
Although John Laird was born in Saskatchewan and spent his early years in five different regions of Canada, he loved the landscapes and people north of 60, and made Iqaluit his home. John graduated from the University of Guelph in 1976, worked on park planning in Ontario and B.C. for a decade, and then headed north, establishing Laird & Associates (Iqaluit and Yellowknife) in 1986, thereafter devoting his considerable energy to the landscapes of the Arctic during a period of rapid change.
The protection of many wildlife areas and Heritage Rivers rested in no small part on his planning and design (Hiukitak River, the Coppermine Heritage River). Wherever he worked – whether planning spectacular territorial parks on Baffin Island (Sylvia Grinnell and Mallikjuak), or working in the rugged fjord landscapes of Clyde River, or designing the urban square in the heart of Iqaluit – John Laird effectively pioneered a renaissance in the way that planning occurs in the north. He championed planning from a northern perspective, helping Inuit and northern communities tell their own histories to the world.
John approached the founding of the Nunavut Association of Landscape Architects (NuALA) with the same spirit, bringing together a small group of Nunavut LAs over lunch in 2002, and setting out his vision for a new component organization that respected the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the place of Inuit and Traditional Knowledge in LA work.
Even while seriously ill, John worked to promote the landmark CSLA Congress in Iqaluit, graphically envisioning the poetry and beauty of inducting new Fellows in the northern landscape: “I can already imagine the picture of the 2011 cohort, taken out on the tundra in the land of the midnight sun,” he wrote.
Although John Laird did not live to experience Congress, his friends promised that his infant son would know that his father had led an exciting and fulfilling life that included travels that ranged from Africa (with the Nunavut Youth Abroad Program) to some of the most remote regions of the Arctic, by dog team, snowmobile and boat, on his own or in the company of hunters with whom he developed warm friendships. He was an avid dog sled owner and he shared his musical talents with the community by fiddle and bagpipes.
In 2011, he was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the CSLA.
2010 - Fredreich Oemichen
With degrees in horticulture, forestry, landscape architecture and journalism, Fred Oehmichen experienced, as a professional, the reconstruction of his country devastated by the Second World War. Later, he chose to travel and became a landscape architecture journalist at a time when few professionals crossed continents. When he arrived in Quebec via Asia and the United States, his colleagues and students discovered his rich philosophy and expertise. Fred was a teacher who brought the knowledge of design with plants to his students, who was at the forefront of the development of natural parks in urban areas, and who introduced and initiated the use of grasses in Quebec. He has also conducted extensive research on the adaptation of plants on degraded and contaminated sites.
Recipient of numerous awards of excellence and honours, Fred Oehmichen was a landscape architect whose achievements and contributions to the profession over the years have had a unique and lasting impact on the well-being of the public and the environment.
2010 - Patrick Butler
After graduating from Iowa State University in 1964 with a B.Sc. in Landscape Architecture, Mr. Patrick Butler joined the City of Edmonton Parks & Recreation Department as a Design Landscape Architect and in 1965 he was appointed Chief Landscape Architect for the Province of Alberta. In 1965 he became a full member of the CSLA. Pat was a founding member of the AALA, and served as its president from 1976-1978.
In 1968, Pat established the firm of Butler Krebes & Associates, and was president of the firm until 1997, when BKA merged with ISL Engineering and Land Services. At ISL he was Principal Landscape Architect and shareholder responsible for managing interdisciplinary teams. In 2013 Pat retired from ISL and continues a consulting practice in his firm – Butler Design Group Inc.
During Pat’s career, he has completed a number of outstanding projects, including the Devonian Botanic Garden, Kurimoto Japanese Garden, Paul Kane Park, and was the prime consultant for a new sustainable urban village in Sherwood Park. Pat was instrumental in establishing the Landscape Architectural Technology program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and over the years has mentored many Landscape Architects throughout North America . He was past chair of the Edmonton Design Committee, a regulatory committee charged with the responsibility of raising the level of urban design in Edmonton, and currently sits on the River Valley Alliance. Pat’s commitment to community organizations and his ability to represent the profession of landscape architecture has contributed to raising the profile of landscape architects in Western Canada.
2009 - Macklin Hancock
Macklin Hancock was born in Nanjing, China, in a hospital founded and built by his grandfather. He grew up, however, in Canada: the Hancock family returned home in 1928, during China’s Nationalist Revolution.
Like many of Canada’s early pioneers, Macklin was immersed in horticulture as a child. His father, Marcus Leslie Hancock, was a professor of horticulture, first in China and then in Guelph at his alma mater, the Ontario Agricultural College. Marcus then established Woodland Nursery near Toronto, and in his later years, donated his remarkable rhododendron collection to Montreal’s Botanical Garden. The rhododendron garden there – and also one at the University of Guelph – both bear his name.
Macklin, too, would earn a degree in horticulture at Guelph, but during World War II, he enlisted in Canada’s military where he piloted Spitfire aircraft until the war ended. In the post-war years, he pursued landscape architecture at Harvard, and remarkably, while still a student began the commission that would at once become his Harvard thesis, and establish his reputation: preparing the master plan for the community of Don Mills.
Toronto developer E.P. Taylor, who had acquired 835 hectares of land between two branches of the Don River, envisioned a community of 35,000 on the site. Taylor and company president Karl Fraser, Hancock’s father-in-law, engaged the 27-year-old Hancock to design it. The masterplan would ultimately gain international recognition for its clearly defined town centre, its neighbourhoods of modernist housing on wide lots, its curving streets and traffic-calming cul-de-sacs. Keeping business services to the peripheries, “Mack” designed a revolutionary system of parks and open spaces linked by trails, inviting the community to the town’s river valleys and ravines. Don Mills quickly became a much-studied model of town planning.
In 1956, Hancock became the President and founding member of Project Planning Associates Limited, an integrated consulting practice which took on hundreds of projects over five decades. Project teams included landscape architects, planners and engineers – and later, environmental and socioeconomic specialists, working on such diverse Canadian projects as Expo67, Ontario Place, Meadowvale New Town, and the City of Westminster. PPA took on scores of international projects: in Arabia (King Abdul University), in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, in Russia’s St. Petersburg, in China’s City of Xi’an, and dozens more.
Macklin Hancock served as President of the OALA and the Canadian Institute of Planners, and received many honours, including a CSLA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Order of Ontario. In 1997, the Ontario Heritage Foundation designated Don Mills a heritage site.
2009 - Michael Hough
Trained as an architect and landscape architect, Michael has bridged several professional disciplines to bring a new view to urban design and site planning. He has tirelessly mentored staff for 40 years through the consulting practice, his involvement with students at the University of Toronto and the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University where he has taught, and through community efforts and volunteer leadership.
Over the years, he led a movement of design thinking that has evolved into a foundation for today's urban agenda for healthier built communities and natural systems. In addition to his writings and award winning research, Michael has left a legacy of landmark design projects which form anchors in the urban environment.
Michael has focused his career on landscape ecology and the development of healthy livable communities, long before the concepts came to the forefront of planning reform. He continues to teach his ground breaking theories through his writings and lecturing at York University.
Michael has worked extensively for the Waterfront Regeneration Trust, served as chair of the Environmental Work Group (studying the Toronto waterfront), has served as advisor to the Metropolitan and Region Conservation Authority on valleyland issues, and assisted the National Capital Commission on their 'Green Capital' initiative.
He was the recipient of the Toronto Arts Awards for Architecture and Design from the Arts Foundation of Greater Toronto in 1991, the American Society of Landscape Architects Bradford Williams Medal for journalistic excellence in 1989, the Alumnus Amicus Award from the University of Toronto Architecture, Landscape and Design in 1988, as well as the Lieutenant Governor’s Conservation Award, 1993. He is trained as an architect and a landscape architect.
Michael is the past president of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts. Michael has been actively involved in this profession for five decades and is a deserving recipient of this prestigious award.
2008 - Donald W. Graham
Don Graham graduated from McGill University and then worked for several years in Ottawa with the Federal District Commission (now the NCC). As his interest in the field of landscape architecture grew, he left to attend the Harvard graduate school of design. He returned to Ottawa and his NCC job in 1958.
Six years later, he established D.W.Graham and Associates Limited, Landscape Architects, in Ottawa. A broad spectrum of projects realised by his firm included projects such as Garden of the Provinces in Ottawa, Ile Notre Dame and the Canadian pavilion at Expo 67, Mirabel Airport, Sparks Street Mall (1965), and Westmount Square in Montreal.
He was also a teacher, eventually developing an undergraduate program Landscape Major / within the Renewable Resources Department at McGill University and maintaining a ‘professorship’ for a number of years in the early eighties.
Don eventually returned to the NCC where he collaborated and advised on various civic projects for a number of years. He left public service in the late 1980s to work in consulting again, including challenging international work, particularly in India and Nepal.
Eventually he retired and moved near Iroquois, Ontario, on the St. Lawrence River. There, he established the DIAMONDS Land Trust through which he successfully orchestrated agreements to preserve public access to the shoreline and natural areas and promoted the idea of creating an emerald necklace of greenspaces along the South Dundas riverfront for the benefit the community.
He was past president of the CSLA, founding member of the AAPQ and worked, along with his colleagues from across the country, to found, foster and further the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation between 1978 and 1988.
Donald Graham passed away on Nov. 4, 2017.
2007 - Garry Hilderman
2007 - Ron Williams
A longtime professor and director at the School of Landscape Architecture of the Université de Montréal, landscape architect and architect Ron Williams graduated from McGill University in architecture (1964) and of the Sorbonne (Diplôme de civilisation française, 1965). During the late 1960s and 1970s, he worked in Montreal with John Schreiber, architect and landscape architect, as an employee and a partner. From 1970 to 1972, he studied landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley (MLA).
In 1987, he co-founded the Montreal landscape architecture/ urban design firm WAA (Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui and associates) along with partners Vincent Asselin, Malaka Ackaoui, and Sachi Williams. He participated in many of WAA’s award-winning projects including the Montreal Beach Park on Ile Notre-Dame; the Biodôme de Montréal; and the Jardin de l’Espace Saint-Roch and the rehabilitation of avenue Honoré-Mercier in Quebec City.
Mr. Williams is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) and of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), and won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the CSLA in 2007. His book Landscape Architecture in Canada was published in 2014 by McGill-Queen’s University Press and the Presses de l’Université de Montréal in English and French versions. Following its publication, he embarked on a nation-wide lecture tour sponsored by the CSLA. He continues to lecture regularly at colleges, garden clubs, historical societies and universities across Canada, and in the United States and China. In July 2018, Mr. Williams was appointed to membership in the Order of Canada.
2006 - Cornelia Hahn Oberlander
Over the past 65 years Cornelia Hahn Oberlander has collaborated as Landscape Architect in a wide range of projects with noted internationally acclaimed architects such as Renzo Piano on the New York Times Building, Moshe Safdie on the National Gallery of Canada and the Vancouver Public Library and the late Arthur Erickson on Robson Square and the Museum of Anthropology. All projects are based on design concepts and studies of social, cultural and physical features of a given site. To each project Cornelia attempts to bring the mastery of the art and the science of the profession. Cornelia has always been mindful of the environment and is a leader in researching green solutions.
In the words of the Governor General in presenting the Order of Canada: Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. “Canada’s premier landscape architect, she is known for integrating her designs in the overall architectural project with the natural environment, yet always adding a unique new vision and dimension. Her expert technical knowledge is coupled with her concern for expressing cultural, social and environmental concepts in her work and is reflected in her many projects for the young, the old, and for the public at large.”
Cornelia graduated from Smith College in 1944 and the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1947. She holds ten honorary degrees.
In 2011 IFLA, The International Federation of Landscape Architects, bestowed on Cornelia, the highest honour, the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award, for her endeavors in building a greener future over the many years of her professional practice. In 2012 the American Society of Landscape Architects bestowed on Cornelia the ASLA Medal, the Highest Honor of the American Society of Landscape Architects. In 2016 Cornelia received the Margolese National Design for Living Prize, celebrating her contribution to living environments for all Canadians, as well as the inaugural Governor General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture. In 2017 Cornelia was awarded the Landscape Architecture Foundation Medal. In 2018 Cornelia was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada. Cornelia has been featured in the book "Protectors of the Planet: Environmental Trailblazers from 7 to 97" by Jamie Bastedo.