1.5 ConEd Learning Hours

Integrating nature-based solutions into urban infrastructure has become an important policy objective to mitigate climate change impacts and build more resilient urban landscapes. However, urban waterfront sites present several challenges that require creative design solutions and revised standards and policies. Drawing from examples of streetscape designs and an implemented pilot project on Toronto’s waterfront, this presentation explores the many challenges of implementing green infrastructure and Low Impact Development (LID) principles in highly constrained and regulated urban environments.

Learning Objectives

1. Learn what site constraints and regulatory barriers prevent broad adoption of green infrastructure in urban streets and waterfront sites.
   
2. Understand how to enhance ecological performance of urban infrastructure such as roads and transit ways.
   
3. Get inspiration from innovative streetscape design projects on Toronto’s waterfront that integrate Low Impact Development (LID) measures for stormwater management.
   
4. See how architects working on both public infrastructure and development projects can contribute toward nature-based solutions to urban infrastructure while enhancing the public realm.
   

Speakers

Sonja Vangjeli (landscape architect and design project manager, Waterfront Toronto)

Sonja Vangjeli is a landscape architect and design project manager at Waterfront Toronto, where she oversees design and implementation of public realm projects that aim to integrate nature‐based solutions with urban infrastructure. Interested in the potential of streets and public realm to contribute to the greater urban landscape system as vital ecological infrastructure, she works on urban design strategies that balance development priorities, with site identity, public amenity, and ecological performance. She has international experience as a landscape designer with West 8 and Sasaki, and as a researcher with the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure. She is an alumna of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (MLA) and University of Waterloo School of Architecture (MArch). She has taught at the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture Landscape and Design, and continues to pursue her research interests through publications and conferences.