Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc.

We're excited to announce that Toronto, Ontario's Biidaasige Park is the award recipient of the 2025 Brownie Awards Best Overall Project. Biidaasige Park transformed 20 hectares of brownfield on Toronto’s eastern waterfront into the city’s largest new park in a generation, while realigning the Don River to protect 174 hectares from flooding. The project remediated 1.4 million m³ of soil, created a vibrant naturalized landscape with 5,000 trees and extensive plantings, and opened the first public space on the new island, Ookwemin Minising. Beyond recreation, it unlocks land for 15,000 future residents, 3,000 jobs, and 39 hectares of new housing development. Congratulations to the Project Team: Waterfront Toronto, MVVA, Jacobs, Geosyntec, and EllisDon!

Earlier this month, the National Building Museum invited Partner Gullivar Shepard to be a juror for the Interschool Student Design Competition as well as a guest lecturer in their Spotlight on Design lecture series. You can learn more about Spotlight on Design, and see recordings from past sessions at the link below. https://lnkd.in/e4TvB5Gx

After a year-long process bringing together some of the most creative and forward-thinking minds in city-building, Northcrest has selected MVVA to lead the YZD Runway Roadmap, setting the design guidelines for one of Toronto's most iconic pieces of land. Once for flight, The Runway will become the heart of YZD's seven new neighbourhoods: a pedestrian-first public space designed to connect people and ideas through thoughtful, world-class design. Our team includes urban designer Ken Greenberg, Henning Larsen Architects, HR&A Advisors, Bruce Mau, Belleville Placemaking, Lord Cultural Resources, eDesign Dynamics, Urban Strategies, and Trophic Design -- an incredible group helping bring this vision to life. Learn more at yzd.ca/runway-design

More than a decade since the start of the project, the Founders of Waterloo Greenway recently gathered at Waterloo Park alongside Dr. Collette Pierce, the Conservancy's CEO, and MVVA partner Gullivar Shepard to discuss the history of Waller Creek, the mission of the project, and the future of the Greenway. Follow the link to learn about the project and get a glimpse of the Confluence, opening mid-2026. https://lnkd.in/eSu6fi2J

This past weekend, MVVA Partner Emily Mueller De Celis helped kick off a yearlong celebration of Wellesley College's landscape turning 150, sponsored by the school's Art History department. She joined fellow Wellesley alumnae and landscape architects to give a talk titled, "From Campus Green to Climate-Smart Parks: Lessons from the Wellesley Landscape." Guided tour of the campus-wide gardens followed. Photos of Wellesley's campus by Lexi Van Valkenburgh.

A walk at the Menil Collection in Houston earlier this summer. Photographed by Lexi Van Valkenburgh for MVVA.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, ninety-five percent of City Park was flooded for weeks, contributing to the loss of thousands of trees. Now two decades later, landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc. (MVVA), the City Park Conservancy, and NEW ORLEANS CITY PARK IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION have released City Park 2050, a new master plan that “attempts to look past recovery toward endurance.” The plan is the result of more than 30,000 public comments. Read more in ASLA's THE DIRT: https://bit.ly/3I17W3j Image credit: City Park 2050, New Orleans, Louisiana / MVVA, Courtesy of City Park Conservancy

MVVA's decades-long Port Lands Flood Protection project was recently featured in The Architect's Newspaper, documenting architectural designer and writer Sebastian López Cardozo's visit to the site following the opening of Biidaasige Park earlier this summer. "At the foot of the bridge, people slowed and looked: Here was their city as they’d never seen it before, set behind a freely flowing Don." You can read more about his visit, and the project at large, at the link below. https://lnkd.in/eDGS77BA

We're excited to share that our University of Toronto project has won a 2025 Toronto Urban Design Award of Merit! "The Jury applauds the scale and ambition of this project, and its demonstration of the profound role landscape can play in enhancing the human experience, ecological resilience, and the overall functionality of a complex precinct at the heart of the city." - 2025 Toronto Urban Design Awards Jury You can read more about the project at mvvainc.com.