ASLA UTAH NOVEMBER 2025 NEWSLETTER

UPCOMING EVENTS

December 2nd is GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday is a global movement of generosity and change making. Each Tuesday after Thanksgiving, the world celebrates and champions stories and community organizations making a positive difference.

This #GivingTuesday This year the Utah Chapter of the ASLA is hoping you and/or your firm will consider giving to support the important work of the ASLA Utah Chapter. The Chapter works to promote the profession of landscape architecture and support your business, career, and future right here in Utah. 100% of your donation stays with the Utah Chapter and helps support the important efforts of the Utah Chapter.

Donate Here

SAVE THE DATE - Friday, May 8th 2026

2026 ASLA Utah Annual Conference

The Ballpark at America First Square home of the Salt Lake Bees

LEADERSHIP EXPRESS -

Jesse Allen, ASLA Utah President

I want to begin this message by recognizing two individuals whose behind-the-scenes work is essential to ASLA Utah’s success: Ladd Schiess and Adam Castor.

Ladd, serving as our Chapter Secretary, is responsible for setting the agenda for our monthly meetings and documenting minutes. This requires him to be “in the know” on nearly everything happening across the chapter at any given time. He keeps us organized, aligned, and focused. Ladd’s attention to detail ensures that decisions are recorded, responsibilities are assigned, and initiatives keep moving forward. His work often goes unseen by most of our membership, but the chapter simply couldn’t function without him.

Adam Castor, serving as our Chapter Treasurer, manages the organization’s finances. We take this responsibility very seriously, as we are stewards of a portion of your annual dues as well as the generous contributions of our sponsors and vendor partners. Adam helps us track and allocate funds in a way that directly supports the chapter’s work. His diligence and transparency give our Executive Committee the confidence to plan responsibly and invest strategically in the programs and initiatives that advance our mission.

Thank you, Ladd and Adam. We are grateful for your leadership and your service to the profession.

In my first message last month, I shared that a major priority this year is strengthening the way we communicate who we are and what we do as landscape architects. I referenced the FrameWorks Institute report, Putting People at the Center: Reframing Landscape Architecture for Maximum Impact. The report’s core insight is simple: the public understands our work more clearly when we talk about how it benefits people, not just what it looks like or how it’s built.

Too often, we describe our projects in terms of features, materials, technical solutions, or abstract design concepts. While those details matter, they don’t communicate our value in a way the public immediately understands. When we lead with human outcomes, we help people grasp the purpose and impact of our work.

Here are a few examples, building off the report, of how we can reframe the way we talk about our projects:

From features to human benefit:

**Instead of:** “We designed a plaza with native plants, shade structures, and stormwater planters.”
**Try:** “We created a welcoming public space where people can gather comfortably, stay cool in summer, and enjoy cleaner air and water through thoughtful design.”

From design elements to lived experience:

**Instead of:** “We realigned a trail and added seating nodes.”
**Try:** “We made it easier and safer for families to reach the park, with places to rest, reflect, and connect along the way.”

From technical solutions to community impact:

**Instead of:** “We implemented bioswales and detention basins.”
**Try:** “We reduced flooding risks for nearby homes and created a healthier, more resilient neighborhood ecosystem.”

Each of these shifts helps people see landscape architecture as a service that improves lives, not just a set of drawings or site elements. It brings the focus back to people.

This year, I encourage every member of ASLA Utah to practice this reframing in project interviews, public meetings, classroom critiques, and everyday conversations. When we consistently describe our work through the lens of human benefit, we strengthen understanding, recognition, and support for the profession as a whole.

Thank you for your continued engagement and your commitment to shaping healthy, safe, and connected communities across Utah. I look forward to the important work we will continue together in the year ahead.

Jesse Allen, ASLA Utah President

Climate Action and Biodiversity Committee Update

Devon Dillinger, PLA, ASLA, SITES AP, Climate Action & Biodiversity Chair

I am honored to begin my first full year as the Climate Action and Biodiversity Chair for the ASLA Utah Chapter. As a licensed landscape architect and SITES Accredited Professional with experience in civic, park, campus, and public realm projects, I am committed to advancing climate positive and biodiversity positive design in Utah. My work centers on designing places that strengthen ecological systems, support public health, and reflect community identity. I look forward to bringing this perspective to our chapter as we advance climate action and biodiversity initiatives throughout Utah at a time when this work is even more important.

Our state faces some of the most rapid climate shifts in the nation. Utah is warming faster than the global average, and long-term trends show increased drought (see map for current drought monitor), shrinking snowpack, heightened wildfire risk, and significant stress on ecosystems and watersheds.¹

The Utah Department of Natural Resources notes that water supply, watershed health, invasive species pressures, and wildlife habitat resilience are among the state’s most urgent challenges.²

These conditions directly affect our communities, economies, and public health. They also underscore the importance of landscape architecture as a profession that bridges natural systems with human needs.

This year marks the release of the updated national plan, Landscape Architecture 2040: Climate and Biodiversity Action Plan. This plan replaces the earlier Climate Action Plan and Field Guide and will guide ASLA and its chapters through 2030. It presents a comprehensive vision for 2040 in which all landscape architecture projects achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions, double carbon sequestration from business as usual, restore and enhance biodiversity, and advance equity in the distribution of climate and ecological benefits.³ The plan also sets new five-year benchmarks, including a 50 to 65% reduction in emissions and measurable improvements in ecological restoration, habitat protection, and community resilience.⁴

Several components of the new plan are especially relevant to Utah. Our landscapes already illustrate the tight relationship between climate and biodiversity. Increased temperatures, greater variability in precipitation, and long-term water scarcity threaten the ecological systems that support our valleys, mountains, and deserts. Biodiversity decline reduces the natural capacity of Utah’s landscapes to store carbon, buffer extreme heat, moderate wildfire behavior, and maintain healthy hydrology. The plan’s emphasis on nature-based solutions, watershed-scale planning, and restoration of ecological function directly aligns with the long-term needs of Utah communities.

As Chair, my goals this year include sharing tools from the new plan, highlighting Utah-based examples of climate and biodiversity positive design, and coordinating with our regional partners and academic programs. I will also be reaching out to members who wish to contribute expertise, case studies, or ideas for educational events and collaborative initiatives. Our chapter has an opportunity to lead regional conversations about climate resilience, ecological restoration, and community health, all grounded in the landscape architecture profession. I look forward to working with all of you over the coming year!

**DEAR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT**

We didn’t get any new questions this month, so please take a minute and submit a question RIGHT NOW: **dearlautah@gmail.com**

Dear Landscape Architect is a monthly feature from ASLA Utah exploring the art, ethics, and evolving practice of landscape architecture — written to spark conversation, reflection, and renewed care for our living medium. Submit your question to dearlautah@gmail.com.

Did you miss last month? Here is the link to a question about continuing education and the core of Landscape Architecture: October’s Dear Landscape Architect

Sitting Still - Olin Documentary and SLCPL Rooftop Tour Recap

Adam Castor ASLA Utah Chapter Treasurer

Sitting still. Taking in all you that you see, hear, and feel with a pen and sketchbook. Or paint and an easel. Pencils, chalk, charcoal, napkins, sketch paper, whatever. It’s probably something most of us would love to spend more time doing….graphically expressing ideas and thoughts, documenting experiences without a camera, understanding the dynamics of people, places, and environments, imagining amazing landscapes. Laurie Olin seems to have spent most of his life doing this. So much so, that a really inspiring documentary was created to highlight Olin’s life and career through his sketches, paintings, designs, landscape master plans, and candid interviews with other designers and artists that were influenced by Olin’s vision. Sitting Still, by filmmaker Gina Anelone.

Following a tour and presentation of the new Salt Lake City Main Library rooftop landscape and outdoor spaces by GSBS, ASLA Utah Chapter hosted a screening of the documentary for a group of about thirty ASLA members and practitioners. The tour of the rooftop highlighted the transformation of a persistent leaky rooftop with limited usable space and accessibility into an outdoor space that provides full accessibility to a variety of seating and viewing spaces, group photos and selfies, and a landscape design that will mature into an abundance of shade tree canopy and surrounding plants and wildlife. Additional rooftop highlights include the perimeter steel and glass fall protection along the perimeter edge, water proofing systems, synthetic turfgrass surfacing, site furnishings, and a new enclosed space for beehives. The library rooftop turned out to be a very nice, finished project and a great example of the importance of landscape architects’ influence on a project involving other design professionals.

Back to the film. It started with some opening remarks from Bill Williams, Director of Temple Design, Special Projects Department. Bill spoke about Laurie Olin’s connection to Utah through design on the LDS Church’s conference center rooftop, along with some other anecdotes about Olin that seemed on par with the film’s content and stories told by those interviewed for the film. Laurie Olin’s name is connected to some of the most notable landscape architecture projects and his influence has probably reached dozens of others. But the film’s focus wasn’t necessarily on those projects, its essence was in the form of portraying Olin’s ability to observe and understand, to make sense of the multitude of external factors that contribute to a place, to scribble, to sketch, to have a vision come to life through art and landscape architecture. To be loose. Doing it all while sitting still.

“One of the best methods ever devised to learn from the world is to actually be in it and sit still…”. – Laurie Olin

2025 ASLA National Conference in New Orleans

Carson Trejo, LAEP senior and USU ASLA VP of Public Relations

Hey Utah ASLA! My name is Carson Trejo, and I am the VP of Public Relations for our student chapter at USU. I’m excited to share my experience from the 2025 ASLA National Conference in New Orleans!

Last month, about 30 of our students had the privilege of attending the ASLA Conference in New Orleans. In the LAEP program at USU, we are fortunate to have full support to attend conferences and events like these. These opportunities are unique and meaningful in developing as professionals, exploring our interests, and growing as a program and a chapter.

It is always exciting to participate in the events of the conference! The sessions this year were great as usual. My favorite session was “Bees, Butterflies, Beetles – Oh My! Science-Backed Framework for Urban Pollinator Conservation.” This session presented the importance of science-based implementation of urban pollinator habitat while making it accessible and engaging for the public. They developed and presented the Somerville Pollinator Action Plan, which lays out the importance of pollinator conservation and how the community can participate. The document is great, so you should check it out.

At the LABash Block Party, we received 1st place in the School Spirit Contest for the second year in a row! Thank you to all of the professionals and alumni who helped us go BACK TO BACK! The dedication many of you have to connect with our student chapter is incredibly meaningful.

Lastly, the opportunity we are given to explore new areas of the country and to understand the culture and challenges that a place faces is extremely valuable. Visiting such a culturally diverse and rich place like New Orleans is something the members of our chapter will never forget!

Special Thanks to ASLA Utah 2025 Sponsors & Corporate Partners for their Support!

Platinum Sponsors
BioGrass | Great Western Recreation | Rain Bird

Gold Sponsors
Belgard | Hunter/FX Luminaire | LuckyDog Recreation | MADRAX/Thomas Steele | Victor Stanley

Silver Sponsors

Corporate Partners
Denton House | FenceTrac | G Brown Design