Upcoming events + activities
The BSLA Calendar
If you want to connect, learn, or grow, there are things here for you.
We’re continuously building this calendar to be a big, beautiful summary of all-things-landscape-architecture in our region.
What else do you want to see? Please send ideas or info our way! Email details to chapteroffice@bslanow.org. Thanks!
BSLA Plant Sourcing Task Force
Online.
Welcome to the new Plant Sourcing Task Force. This group will focus on anti-neonicotinoids as well as other issues such as seed grown plants, local ecotypes, etc.
During this month’s meeting, we will refine plans for Fieldday. All are welcome.
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Click here to join the meeting.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
BSLA K-12 Planning Meeting
Join us as we plan for World Landscape Architecture Month!
Our BSLA K-12 Outreach team will again be participating in the Boston Green Academy’s Earth Day programming in April. This year, we are also adding a teen design charrette with AIA, and a day at the Museum of Science!
Want to be involved?
Register for the Zoom Meeting here.
Sign up to volunteer at one or more of the events here.
Scroll for some pictures from last year
WMBSLA Social
In person. At Progression Brewery, 9 Pearl Street, Northampton, MA.
Like beer? Landscape architecture? Consider joining the Western Massachusetts Section of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects at Progression Brewery in Northampton.
WMBSLA will set up a table around 6pm… A first round of drinks is on us! Members & non-members, students and co-workers and families and friends, all are welcome.
Email jdawson@fando.com if you are thinking of going so we know who to look out for. Or just show up!
Photos from the last time we gathered at Progression…….
We look forward to seeing you there.
TODAY’s the LAST DAY to enter 2025 BSLA Design Awards
We are pleased to share the 2025 BSLA Design Awards Call for Entries!
Download the Call and find the link to Submit, as well as FAQ and other details.
Entries are accepted on a rolling basis from now through Monday, March 31, 2025.
Thanks for helping to celebrate design excellence in our region.
BSLA EP Plant ID Walk
Save the date!
Calling all Emerging Professionals...
Join us for a fun morning as we brush up on our plant ID skills and Olmsted history with a walk around the Arnold Arboretum. We're excited to be collaborating with Arnold Arboretum staff who will lead the walk and share their extensive plant and history knowledge with the group.
If you're in the early stages of your design career, this is for you! Landscape designers & architects, students and recent grads. Architecture, planning, engineering, and other design industry colleagues too. All are welcome.
More details coming soon.
Images below are from the 2022 & 2024 BSLA EP Plant ID Walks
Evenings With Experts: What We Sow in Cultivated Places
Evenings with Experts
What We Sow in Cultivated Places
Jennifer Jewell, Creator & Host of Cultivating Place
April 9 | 7:00 - 8:30pm
Where: Online via Zoom
Fee: Free and open to all.
Gardeners are powerful agents of change, and the landscapes we steward have a role to play in tackling a wide range of challenges— climate change, habitat loss, cultural polarization, communal wellbeing. Jennifer Jewell will explore the power of gardens through the lens of seeds: how they grow, where they grow, who grows them, and who sells (and controls) them. Drawing from her daily life, research, and decades of interviews with seed keepers, Jennifer will share how seeds can be both cautionary tales and guiding lights as we seek to effect positive change. You’ll be inspired to make bolder, braver, and more biodiverse choices in your garden.
Jennifer Jewell is the host of the national award-winning weekly public radio program and podcast Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden, and the author of What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds. Her greatest passion is elevating the way we think and talk about gardening, the empowerment of gardeners, and the beautiful way gardens bring together places, environments, cultures, and individuals–for the better of all the lives on this generous planet.
Register
BSLA EP Open Meeting
Online.
Calling all Emerging Professionals...
If you're in the early stages of your design career, this is for you! Landscape designers & architects, students and recent grads. Architecture, planning, engineering, and other design industry colleagues too. All are welcome.
This open meeting takes place every 2 months from 6:30pm to 7:30pm on the second Thursday.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email ep@bslanow.org
Join the meeting here
BSLA at Boston Green Academy's Earth Day
Save the Date!
Save the date for Earth Day celebrations at Boston Green Academy!
As we've done in the past few years, BSLA will organize landscape architecture activities with BGA middle- and high-school students. Be a part of it! More details to come.
Email the chapteroffice@bslanow.org to learn more.
See below for images from last year’s Earth Day event at BGA!
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA Plant Sourcing Task Force
Online.
Welcome to the new Plant Sourcing Task Force. This group will focus on anti-neonicotinoids as well as other issues such as seed grown plants, local ecotypes, etc.
All are welcome.
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
Book Release: “Thinking Through Soil”
Free. In Person and Online.
April 24, 12:30 PM at GSD, Gund Hall Frances Loeb Library Lobby
Book Release
Thinking Through Soil
Authors Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich and Seth Denizen host a conversation on Thinking Through Soil, a forthcoming book from Harvard Design Press. To think through soil is to engage with some of the most critical issues of our time. In addition to its agricultural role in feeding eight billion people, soil has become the primary agent of carbon storage in global climate models, and it is crucial for biodiversity, flood control, and freshwater resources. However, conjuring what soil actually is serves as a useful exercise in reframing environmental thought, design thinking, and city and regional planning toward a healthier, more ethical, and more sustainable future. Through a sustained analysis of the world’s largest wastewater agricultural system, located in the Mexico City–Mezquital hydrological region, Thinking Through Soil imagines what a better environmental future might look like in central Mexico. More broadly, this case study offers a new image of soil that captures its shifting identity, explains its profound importance to rural and urban life, and argues for its capacity to save our planet.
View more and RSVP here
GDIRC Bi-Monthly Meeting
Online. Free. All welcome.
Join us for the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children (GDIRC) bi-monthly meeting! This meeting is hosted via Zoom.
RSVP here to receive join information for this meeting. This information will be included in your confirmation email.
The Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children is led jointly by BSLA and BSA. To find out more, visit the GDIRC website here or visit the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children Knowledge Community page on the BSA website here.
Evenings with Experts: The Wondrous World of Fireflies
Evenings with Experts
The Wondrous World of Fireflies
Sara Lewis, Author, Silent Sparks
May 14 | 7:00 - 8:30pm
Where: IN PERSON at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill, 11 French Drive, Boylston, MA & ONLINE via Zoom.
Fee: Free and open to all.
Fireflies are surely among our greatest ambassadors for Earth’s natural magic. For centuries their ethereal beauty has sparked wonder and inspired poets, artists, and children of all ages. Yet they hold so many mysteries! Sara Lewis is a biologist who has studied fireflies for the past 30 years, traveling worldwide in her research and advocacy work. Together, we’ll explore the science behind their bright lights and illuminate their remarkable lifestyles. Human activities have put fireflies at risk, but we’ll learn how we can all help protect these dazzling creatures.
Sara Lewis is a biologist and professor emerita at Tufts University who has spent the past thirty years studying firefly behavior, ecology, and evolution. Prof. Lewis is the author of Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies. She has given a TED talk and her work has been featured in Scientific American, Undark, and National Wildlife. Currently, she coordinates global firefly conservation efforts as co-chair of the IUCN Firefly Specialist Group.
Register (ZOOM ONLY)
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
Fieldday 2025 - Save the Date
Save the Date!
Fieldday 2025 is happening May 23, 2025
Are you interested in helping to plan Fieldday 2025?
Voices from across Massachusetts, Maine, and New England are welcome. There are several ways to get involved. Email Gretchen to get started.
All images above are from Fieldday 2024
Photography by Anthony Crisafulli
BSLA Public Sector Landscape Architects Zoom Meetup
Online. Free.
This is a quarterly Zoom meet up for landscape architects (or those trained as landscape architects), currently working in the public or nonprofit sector. This includes landscape architects/designers/planners working in city or town, state, or federal parks agencies as well as in other government departments or nonprofits — not in “regular” practice. We know that many of you face similar issues in your work. Many of you are The Only one of you who does what you do, too.
Our intent is to create space for this professional community to come together.
The topic of these meetings will shift depending on what you want to discuss. You do not need to be a BSLA or ASLA member to participate.
To attend the Zoom, click here.
If you’d like to be added to the calendar invite, email Gretchen.
Pictured: Jessie Waisnor and Alexandra Vecchio, landscape architects with the Town of Brookline, lead a BSLA Inside/Out tour of new & historic Brookline public spaces, October 2023
BSLA EP Open Meeting
Online.
Calling all Emerging Professionals...
If you're in the early stages of your design career, this is for you! Landscape designers & architects, students and recent grads. Architecture, planning, engineering, and other design industry colleagues too. All are welcome.
This open meeting takes place every 2 months from 6:30pm to 7:30pm on the second Thursday.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email ep@bslanow.org
Join the meeting here
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
BSLA Plant Sourcing Task Force
Online.
Welcome to the new Plant Sourcing Task Force. This group will focus on anti-neonicotinoids as well as other issues such as seed grown plants, local ecotypes, etc.
All are welcome.
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
GDIRC Bi-Monthly Meeting
Online. Free. All welcome.
Join us for the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children (GDIRC) bi-monthly meeting! This meeting is hosted via Zoom.
RSVP here to receive join information for this meeting. This information will be included in your confirmation email.
The Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children is led jointly by BSLA and BSA. To find out more, visit the GDIRC website here or visit the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children Knowledge Community page on the BSA website here.
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA EP Open Meeting
Online.
Calling all Emerging Professionals...
If you're in the early stages of your design career, this is for you! Landscape designers & architects, students and recent grads. Architecture, planning, engineering, and other design industry colleagues too. All are welcome.
This open meeting takes place every 2 months from 6:30pm to 7:30pm on the second Thursday.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email ep@bslanow.org
Join the meeting here
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
BSLA Public Sector Landscape Architects Zoom Meetup
Online. Free.
This is a quarterly Zoom meet up for landscape architects (or those trained as landscape architects), currently working in the public or nonprofit sector. This includes landscape architects/designers/planners working in city or town, state, or federal parks agencies as well as in other government departments or nonprofits — not in “regular” practice. We know that many of you face similar issues in your work. Many of you are The Only one of you who does what you do, too.
Our intent is to create space for this professional community to come together.
The topic of these meetings will shift depending on what you want to discuss. You do not need to be a BSLA or ASLA member to participate.
To attend the Zoom, click here.
If you’d like to be added to the calendar invite, email Gretchen.
Pictured: Jessie Waisnor and Alexandra Vecchio, landscape architects with the Town of Brookline, lead a BSLA Inside/Out tour of new & historic Brookline public spaces, October 2023
GDIRC Bi-Monthly Meeting
Online. Free. All welcome.
Join us for the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children (GDIRC) bi-monthly meeting! This meeting is hosted via Zoom.
RSVP here to receive join information for this meeting. This information will be included in your confirmation email.
The Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children is led jointly by BSLA and BSA. To find out more, visit the GDIRC website here or visit the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children Knowledge Community page on the BSA website here.
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
BSLA EP Open Meeting
Online.
Calling all Emerging Professionals...
If you're in the early stages of your design career, this is for you! Landscape designers & architects, students and recent grads. Architecture, planning, engineering, and other design industry colleagues too. All are welcome.
This open meeting takes place every 2 months from 6:30pm to 7:30pm on the second Thursday.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email ep@bslanow.org
Join the meeting here
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
GDIRC Bi-Monthly Meeting
Online. Free. All welcome.
Join us for the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children (GDIRC) bi-monthly meeting! This meeting is hosted via Zoom.
RSVP here to receive join information for this meeting. This information will be included in your confirmation email.
The Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children is led jointly by BSLA and BSA. To find out more, visit the GDIRC website here or visit the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children Knowledge Community page on the BSA website here.
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA Public Sector Landscape Architects Zoom Meetup
Online. Free.
This is a quarterly Zoom meet up for landscape architects (or those trained as landscape architects), currently working in the public or nonprofit sector. This includes landscape architects/designers/planners working in city or town, state, or federal parks agencies as well as in other government departments or nonprofits — not in “regular” practice. We know that many of you face similar issues in your work. Many of you are The Only one of you who does what you do, too.
Our intent is to create space for this professional community to come together.
The topic of these meetings will shift depending on what you want to discuss. You do not need to be a BSLA or ASLA member to participate.
To attend the Zoom, click here.
If you’d like to be added to the calendar invite, email Gretchen.
Pictured: Jessie Waisnor and Alexandra Vecchio, landscape architects with the Town of Brookline, lead a BSLA Inside/Out tour of new & historic Brookline public spaces, October 2023
BSLA EP Open Meeting
Online.
Calling all Emerging Professionals...
If you're in the early stages of your design career, this is for you! Landscape designers & architects, students and recent grads. Architecture, planning, engineering, and other design industry colleagues too. All are welcome.
This open meeting takes place every 2 months from 6:30pm to 7:30pm on the second Thursday.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email ep@bslanow.org
Join the meeting here
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
BSLA DEI Committee Meeting
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
ONE MORE WEEK to enter 2025 BSLA Design Awards
We are pleased to share the 2025 BSLA Design Awards Call for Entries!
Download the Call and find the link to Submit, as well as FAQ and other details.
Entries are accepted on a rolling basis from now through Monday, March 31, 2025.
Thanks for helping to celebrate design excellence in our region.
BSLA K-12 Planning Meeting
Join us as we plan for World Landscape Architecture Month!
Our BSLA K-12 Outreach team will again be participating in the Boston Green Academy’s Earth Day programming in April. This year, we are also adding a teen design charrette with AIA, and a day at the Museum of Science!
Want to be involved?
Register for the Zoom Meeting here.
Sign up to volunteer at one or more of the events here.
Scroll for some pictures from last year
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
Northeast Hardscape Expo
Attend the Northeast’s Only Trade Show and Educational Forum Specifically Designed for Hardscape Professionals
Click here to learn more and to register! Use code BSLA7 for free registration
MARCH 19 & 20, 2025
Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT
Northeast Hardscape Expo
Attend the Northeast’s Only Trade Show and Educational Forum Specifically Designed for Hardscape Professionals
Click here to learn more and to register! Use code BSLA7 for free registration
MARCH 19 & 20, 2025
Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT
EARLY BIRD RATES END TODAY
We are pleased to share the 2025 BSLA Design Awards Call for Entries!
Download the Call and find the link to Submit, as well as FAQ and other details.
Entries are accepted on a rolling basis from now through Monday, March 31, 2025. Enjoy early bird rates through Friday, March 14.
Thanks for helping to celebrate design excellence in our region.
Evenings with Experts: An Experiment in Lawn to Meadow Conversion: Exceeding Expectations
Evenings with Experts
An Experiment in Lawn to Meadow Conversion: Exceeding Expectations
Sara Weaner Cooper, Executive Director, New Directions in the American Landscape
March 12 | 7:00 - 8:30pm
Where: Online via Zoom
Fee: Free and open to all.
In April of 2022, Sara and Evan Cooper moved into a new home in suburban Philadelphia with a 5,000 sq. ft. front lawn. Eager to transition it into a native wildflower meadow, Sara also wanted to avoid herbicide, heavy physical labor, and unhappy feedback from neighbors. Leaving the turf in place, she began a conversion process that relied on actions that weakened the lawn grass while strengthening her newly planted meadow. After two growing seasons, the results have exceeded expectations enough to be featured in The New York Times in 2024. Learn the practical steps they took, their successes and challenges thus far, methods of maintaining neighborhood harmony, and their plans for guiding the meadow to maturity.
Sara Weaner Cooper is the executive director of New Directions in the American Landscape, an educational organization dedicated to the art, culture, and science of ecology-based landscape design and practice. Starting in 2018, she expanded the range of their programming to reach home gardeners and students as well as professional practitioners. In 2024 NDAL received the American Horticultural Society Award for Horticultural Innovation, recognizing their work to make “the field of horticulture more sustainable and accessible to all.”
GDIRC Bi-Monthly Meeting
Online. Free. All welcome.
Join us for the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children (GDIRC) bi-monthly meeting! This meeting is hosted via Zoom.
RSVP here to receive join information for this meeting. This information will be included in your confirmation email.
The Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children is led jointly by BSLA and BSA. To find out more, visit the GDIRC website here or visit the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children Knowledge Community page on the BSA website here.
Aga Khan Program Lecture: Jala Makhzoumi, “Landscape, Garden, and a Colonial Legacy”
Free. In Person and Online.
March 11, 6:30 PM at GSD, Gund Hall Piper Auditorium
Aga Khan Program Lecture
Jala Makhzoumi, “Landscape, Garden, and a Colonial Legacy”
Jala Makhzoumi’s search for a grounded language on landscape architecture relies on the search for Arabic terms that capture the complexity of the layered English meaning of “landscape.” In this lecture, Makhzoumi will discuss how she contends with inadequate translations—and sometimes transliterations—that reduce “landscape” to scenery and narrow the professional scope of the landscape architect to urban beautification. Moving away from the “borrowed” landscapes in cities, one encounters “rooted” conceptions in rural cultures. Makhzoumi asks: Can these examples inform and inspire a contextualized landscape architecture in the Middle East and beyond?
View more and RSVP here
Bunker Hill Charrette with NPS Boston
This is a one-day design charrette to consider visitor experience in the landscape of the Bunker Hill Monument, especially for the 250th commemoration of the Battle of Bunker Hill event on June 17, 2025.
Interested in getting involved? Email Gretchen. Thank you!
South Portland Public Library Exhibition Opening Event
From our friends at Envision Resilience:
Friday, February 7, 2025 | 5 - 7 p.m.
South Portland Public Library
482 Broadway, South Portland, ME 04106
Please join us for the South Portland Public Library exhibition opening in March—details forthcoming.
African Landscape Architectures: Alternative Futures for the Field (Copy)
In Person and Online.
March 6–7
Conference at Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center, Harvard University, Conference Suite, 10th Floor
African Landscape Architectures: Alternative Futures for the Field
This two-day hybrid conference will demonstrate the transformative potential of decolonizing design to address social injustice and adapting African cities to the impacts of climate change. Speakers will explore innovative strategies and frameworks that promote alternative futures for African landscapes through lenses such as adaptation, ecology, and materiality.
See more details and Register here.
International Womxn's Day Keynote Address: Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi and Tarna Klitzner
Free. In Person and Online.
March 6, 6:30 PM at GSD, Gund Hall Piper Auditorium
International Womxn’s Day Keynote Address
Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi and Tarna Klitzner
Join us for a dialogue between Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi, custodian of the Osun Sacred Grove in Osogbo, Nigeria, and landscape architect Tarna Klitzner, founder of TKLA in Cape Town, South Africa. The conversation on their work designing and conserving diverse spaces in contemporary Africa will be moderated by Zoe Marks, Director of the Harvard Center for African Studies. This event is co-sponsored by the Center for African Studies and organized in coordination with Womxn in Design and Africa GSD. It serves as the keynote event for the conference African Landscape Architectures: Alternative Futures for the Field, which brings together a wide range of landscape practices from across the continent.
See more and RSVP here.
African Landscape Architectures: Alternative Futures for the Field
In Person and Online.
March 6–7
Conference at GSD, Gund Hall Piper Auditorium
African Landscape Architectures: Alternative Futures for the Field
This two-day hybrid conference will demonstrate the transformative potential of decolonizing design to address social injustice and adapting African cities to the impacts of climate change. Speakers will explore innovative strategies and frameworks that promote alternative futures for African landscapes through lenses such as adaptation, ecology, and materiality.
See more details and Register here.
BSLA Public Sector Landscape Architects Zoom Meetup
Online. Free.
This is a quarterly Zoom meet up for landscape architects (or those trained as landscape architects), currently working in the public or nonprofit sector. This includes landscape architects/designers/planners working in city or town, state, or federal parks agencies as well as in other government departments or nonprofits — not in “regular” practice. We know that many of you face similar issues in your work. Many of you are The Only one of you who does what you do, too.
Our intent is to create space for this professional community to come together.
The topic of these meetings will shift depending on what you want to discuss. You do not need to be a BSLA or ASLA member to participate.
To attend the Zoom, click here.
If you’d like to be added to the calendar invite, email Gretchen.
Pictured: Jessie Waisnor and Alexandra Vecchio, landscape architects with the Town of Brookline, lead a BSLA Inside/Out tour of new & historic Brookline public spaces, October 2023
TWO MORE WEEKS to enjoy early bird rates for the 2025 BSLA Design Awards
We are pleased to share the 2025 BSLA Design Awards Call for Entries!
Download the Call and find the link to Submit, as well as FAQ and other details.
Entries are accepted on a rolling basis from now through Monday, March 31, 2025. Enjoy early bird rates through Friday, March 14.
Thanks for helping to celebrate design excellence in our region.
Design Awards Q&A
Online. Free.
Have questions about the BSLA Design Awards process? Bring them to this interactive Zoom.
Can’t make the meeting? Submit questions to the chapteroffice@bslanow.org and they’ll be answered in the session. The recording will be posted to the Awards page at BSLAnow.org.
Firm Leaders+Owners Roundtable
Online.
This is an informal, monthly drop-in Zoom meeting of landscape architecture firm owners and leaders.
Our goal is to create a space where New England landscape architecture firm owners and leaders can connect, commiserate, compare notes, and hopefully laugh a little with your peers in this community.
There is no fixed agenda, but we will start with a few discussion prompts and then you can take the conversation wherever you want to go.
Questions or topics to discuss? contact BSLA President & Crowley Cottrell firm owner, Michelle Crowley.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email Gretchen.
BSLA K-12 Planning Meeting
Join us as we begin planning for World Landscape Architecture Month, including Earth Day at BGA.
Our BSLA K-12 Outreach team will again be participating in the Boston Green Academy’s Earth Day programming in April. The school is on School Vacation on the actual date for Earth Day, so programming will take place the week before, tentatively planned for April 15.
Want to be involved?
Join the Zoom Meeting here.
Scroll for some pictures from last year
BSLA Plant Sourcing Task Force
Online.
Welcome to the new Plant Sourcing Task Force. This group will focus on anti-neonicotinoids as well as other issues such as seed grown plants, local ecotypes, etc.
During this month’s meeting, we will workshop ideas for our participation in Fieldday and Fieldbook. All are welcome.
STUDENTS | Reminder: Sign up for a portfolio review!
Landscape Architecture/Design STUDENTS and recent graduates:
Are you looking for an internship/job?
Would you like to have feedback on your portfolio before applying?
This winter, the BSLA Emerging Professionals is coordinating digital portfolio review sessions for current students and recent graduates.
Fill out this form and attach your portfolio/work sample (<20MB). The BSLA EP group will match you with local practitioners who have experience reviewing work and have volunteered to provide feedback.
.
Professionals: Will you be a reviewer? Will you take a look at a current student or recent graduate’s portfolio and give them feedback?
Reviewers, please sign up here. Thank you!
Film Screening: Sitting Still with Laurie Olin
Free. In Person at GSD, Gund Hall Piper Auditorium.
Film Screening and Reception
Sitting Still with Laurie Olin
SITTING STILL offers an intimate look into the mind of Laurie Olin, a brilliant and irreverent landscape architect dedicated to designing public spaces fostering democracy and equality. At a time when profit often outweighs people, Olin’s work stands as a testament to the power of landscape in addressing environmental crises and social divides. Following the screening, Olin and director Gina Angelone will appear on stage for a conversation and Q&A. A reception will follow.
See more and RSVP here
Monthly BSLA ExComm + Leaders Meeting
Online.
This is the monthly meeting of BSLA’s elected Executive Committee (“ExComm”), Section chairs, Student chapter leaders, and Committee leaders. All members from Maine and Massachuetts are welcome to attend.
This typically takes place on the third Thursday of the month.
The regular agenda includes brief updates, questions, and calls-to-action from each of the leaders and the work that they represent, along with longer discussions on special topics. If you have a topic to bring to an ExComm meeting, please email BSLA President, Michelle Crowley.
It’s our regular, essential moment to connect and coordinate our activities across Mass & Maine, AND our means to collaboratively discuss questions, issues, and other important things.
The 2025 Zoom link is here. Email Gretchen to be added to the calendar invite. Join us!
Livestream WEDG Professionals Course
Online. Register here.
A community’s waterfront is its flagship site. Whether it’s a small town’s river, an urban estuary, or a Great Lakes port, the waterfront is special. Resilience, ecology, and access make waterfronts thrive. Join the Waterfront Alliance Wednesday, February 19 and Thursday, February 20 from 1:00 – 5:00 PM EST for their livestream training of the WEDG® (Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines) Professionals Course featuring case studies of WEDG Verified sites and experts in resilient, nature-based design. After completing this two-day guided virtual course and passing the open-book exam, participants can earn their WEDG Associate credential.
CEUs Available
6 AIA LU, 6 LA CES
The registration link with further details can be found here.
Reminder: submit early to enjoy early bird rates for the 2025 BSLA Design Awards
We are pleased to share the 2025 BSLA Design Awards Call for Entries!
Download the Call and find the link to Submit, as well as FAQ and other details.
The Q&A Session is happening on Zoom, Wednesday, February 26, 2025 at noon. Register here.
Entries are accepted on a rolling basis from now through Monday, March 31, 2025. Enjoy early bird rates through Friday, March 14.
Thanks for helping to celebrate design excellence in our region.
BSLA EP Open Meeting
Online.
Calling all Emerging Professionals...
If you're in the early stages of your design career, this is for you! Landscape designers & architects, students and recent grads. Architecture, planning, engineering, and other design industry colleagues too. All are welcome.
This open meeting takes place every 2 months from 6:30pm to 7:30pm on the second Thursday.
Do you want to receive the monthly calendar invite? email ep@bslanow.org
Join the meeting here
Design Professionals Trivia Night
In Person.
Enjoy a fun night out and support equity in design!
What makes the BU Bridge unique from every other bridge in the world? In what year was America's first subway built? Do you know the answers to these questions or other obscure facts?
Join us on February 13 at our design professionals trivia night hosted by the Sasaki Foundation and the BSLA, and powered by SMRT Trivia! It’s time to show off all the random knowledge you collected over the years, while enjoying a drink, food, and friends.
Tickets are only $30 and all proceeds will benefit the Sasaki Foundation and the BSLA.
Grab your friends and register today!
Register Here
BSLA DEI Committee
Online.
The relatively new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee of BSLA aims to foster a network of welcoming support focused on people of color and other minorities within and beyond the organization.
Given current events, this is necessary now more than ever.
What’s on your mind? What’s your lived experience? What do you/your colleagues need? How can we act together?
Members + non-members, students and recent graduates to seasoned leaders are welcome. Join us.
Photo: BSLA Inside/Out tour of The Embrace + Boston Common, summer 2023
Dreams & Solutions: Green Industry Winter Forum and Trade Show
In Person.
From our friends at the Massachusetts Nursery and Landscape Association:
February 12–13, 2025
Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel & Trade Center, Marlborough
Join us for a two-day program packed with fun education and networking with industry peers and old friends! Click here for a list of educational sessions and speakers.
Earn 3 MCH credits when attending both days, 1 MCH credit available for single day attendance.
See more and register here.
GDIRC Bi-Monthly Meeting
Online. Free. All welcome.
Join us for the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children (GDIRC) bi-monthly meeting! This meeting is hosted via Zoom.
RSVP here to receive join information for this meeting. This information will be included in your confirmation email.
The Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children is led jointly by BSLA and BSA. To find out more, visit the GDIRC website here or visit the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children Knowledge Community page on the BSA website here.