Two Daniels Faculty members are among the recipients of this year’s Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF) grants, given out every year in support of landscape-related research, communication and scholarship.

MLA Professor Alissa North has been awarded the Northern Research Bursary and a grant of $10,000, while Sessional Lecturer Kaari Kitawi receives the Gunter Schoch Bursary and a grant of $8,650.

North was recognized in relation to the upcoming book Innate Terrain: Canadian Landscape Architecture, of which she is editor.

Featuring essays by Canadian scholars and practitioners as well as some 150 colour illustrations, the work centres on the argument that Canadian landscape architecture is distinct because of the unique qualities of Canada’s terrain and the particular relationship between Canadians and their natural surroundings.

Innate Terrain is slated be published by University of Toronto Press in hardcover, paperback and e-book form in August.

Kitawi, meanwhile, was recognized for her digital outreach project using videos of Black professionals to expose BIPOC high schoolers to the fields of design and planning.

Over the past two years, Kitawi has been giving career talks to that end at schools in her neighbourhood and abroad. To reach a wider audience, however, she recently started producing videos featuring interviews with Black professionals from around the world about their career journeys. They’re disseminated through a YouTube channel that Kitawi created, called Careers Unboxed with Kaari.

The intention, she says, is to have young BIPOC viewers see themselves reflected in these professionals and to encourage them to explore such careers for themselves.

“It is important for us to tell our stories in order to change the narrative,” Kitawi says, adding that the LACF grant “will further this work by developing a special series focused on Black professionals in architecture, landscape architecture and planning in Canada.”

For more information on the LACF grant program and other 2022 recipients, click here.