Our keynote speakers will include:

Julie Bargmann, the principal designer and founder of D.I.R.T. studio (Design Investigations Reclaiming Terrain) in Charlottesville,Virginia, As Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, Bargmann’s graduate design studios challenge the restrictive policies and conventional remediation practices that plague Superfund sites and Brownfields. Professor Bargmann is committed to creating beauty in a landscape littered with mine refuse and polluted by acidic run-off, and the potential of the “regenerative park.”

Larry Beasley, who as Co-Director of Planning and Director of Current Planning for the City of Vancouver, has initiated the land use and transportation plans that are dramatically reshaping Vancouver’s inner city. The United Nations has honoured his work as one of the “World’s 100 best planning practices” and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada conferred on him it’s 2003 Medal of Excellence as “Advocate for Architecture.”

Tom Leader, Tom Leader is a landscape architect based in Berkeley, California. In his current work, he explores the device of “screening”—partly aesthetic impulse and partly analytic tool—and its emergence through instinct in his Studio’s practice. Instances include continuous sectioning through Roman history, New York landfills, and the Berkeley shoreline, use of scaffolds to create landscape in Sorrento and Fresno. During his time as a design partner with Peter Walker and Associates, the firm received National Honour Awards from the ASLA for two projects under his direction: Longacres Park, Seattle, Washington, and Asahikawa River Park on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. Tom’s recent work includes Shanghai Carpet, the Shanghai Yang Pu University City Hub, and the Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena, California.

Leonie Sandercock, heads up both teaching and research in planning theory and history at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. Originally from Australia, she now teaches in the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at UCLA. Professor Sandercock has recently published her 10th book: Cosmopolis 2: Mongrel Cities of the 21st Century, for which she received the Davidoff Award from the American Collegiate Schools of Planning. In 2005 she also received the Dale Prize for Excellence in Urban and Regional Planning, awarded by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at California State Polytechnic University. Sandercock loves the irrepressible chaos and contradictions of cities, but worries about their 'sustainability', in the broadest sense.

Mark Kingwell teaches Philosophy at the University of Toronto, specializing in political and cultural theory, justice and citizenship, and the philosophy of art and architecture. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his writing on political theory, his essay-writing, and his contributions to art theory and criticism. Mark writes on philosophy and cultural theory, as well such subjects as the photographic history of the twentieth century, and he contributes to many magazines both popular and academic, with his writing being translated into eight languages. He is currently writing a book that examines the relationship between cities and consciousness.

John Ralston Saul, CC , Ph.D is a Canadian essayist, novelist, and philosopher. His latest book is The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World (2005). His writings are aimed at a new humanism through what he calls responsible individualism. His philosophical trilogy and its conclusion—Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense, The Unconscious Civilization and On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism—has impacted political thought in many countries. Co-Chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, Founder and Honourary Chair of French for the Future, and Chair of the LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium, Saul is a Companion in the Order of Canada and a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.

Other invited speakers are:

Vincent Asselin is a graduate from the University of Montreal, and is a principal of WAA- Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui et Associés inc., a well established landscape architectural firm specializing in parks and public spaces, as well as research in historical preservation and environmental planning. He has received national recognition both in Canada and China for the design of both Yan’an Zhong Lu Park and Xujiahui Park in Shanghai. Mr. Asselin is Past President of the CSLA and the AAPQ (Association des Architetes Paysagistes du Quebec), and is currently the Vice-president of Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF). He is currently preparing a book on Landscape Architecture in Canada scheduled for publication in Beijing later this year.

Trevor Boddy has taught studio and urban design, architectural history and theory at the University of British Columbia, as well as in Oregon, Manitoba and Toronto, and lectures globally on contemporary architecture and urbanism. Boddy has worked as a staff urban designer for planning departments in Calgary and Edmonton, consults on urban spaces and historic preservation, and has acted as advisor and jury member for design competitions and designer selection processes in North and South America. As curator, his exhibition "TELLING DETAILS: The Architecture of Clifford Wiens" is currently touring nationally, and he convened the recent "Dialogue of Cities", a global gathering of urban writers. As architecture critic and civic commentator, he has been awarded the 'Alberta Book of the Year' prize (for the critical monograph "The Architecture of Douglas Cardinal") and the Western Magazine Award for arts writing (for the feature story "The Californication of British Columbia.")

Patrick Condon holds the UBC James Taylor Chair of Landscape and Liveable Environments. He has published widely and lectured at many North American universities. As an extension of his work with Moriarty-Condon Ltd., a Vancouver planning and landscape architecture firm specializing in sustainable design, Condon has developed a practical set of alternative development standards for sustainable communities. He will lead a one-day charrette as part of the “UBC Sustainability by Design” project, engaging 200 designers and planners to collaboratively develop a vision of what the separate cites and districts in a sustainable Greater Vancouver Regional District would look like. Both the product and the broader process by which it is developed will be shared with the world at the UN World Urban Forum and as part of the 2010 Sustainable Region legacy.

Mike Houck directs the Urban Greenspaces Institute out of the Center for Spatial Analysis and Research at Portland State University where he is an adjunct instructor, and continues in his role as Urban Naturalist at Portland Audubon Society part-time. Dedicated to preserving green spaces and promoting urban parks and trails throughout Portland, Houck helped found the Urban Streams Council in 1993 and the Coalition for a Livable Future in 1994, and now speaks internationally on issues related to urban natural resources and sustainable development. Houck was awarded the Architecture Foundation of Oregon's 2005 Honored Citizen Award. He serves on the national steering committee of the Ecological Cities Project, on the Portland Metro Greenspaces and Technical Advisory Committees, and on the City of Portland’s citizen park board and Sustainable Development Commission.

Marc Imhoff, who is a Principal Investigator in NASA’s Carbon Cycle Science and Land Cover Land Use Change Programs at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre. As a specialist in the application of remote sensing and computer modeling to study changes in the biosphere and climate, his research is directed towards studying the effects of urbanization on biodiversity, food security, and climate.

Gordon Price is the newly appointed Director of The City Program at Simon Fraser University. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. He has served as a Vancouver City Councillor, on the Board of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, and on the first board of the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority (TransLink). Price is also a regular lecturer on transportation and land use for the City of Portland, Oregon and Portland State University. He has written several extensive essays on Vancouver and transportation issues and has been published in numerous journals, including those of the American and Canadian Planning Associations. In 2003, he received the Plan Canada Award for Article of the Year—"Land Use and Transportation: The View from '56"—from the Canadian Institute of Planners. He sits on the Boards of Northwest Environment Watch and the International Centre for Sustainable Cities. Price will introduce delegates to Vancouver, and will contribute his extensive knowledge of waterfront development, transportation planning, and urban design to the larger discussion.

Ron Williams is a landscape architect and architect, and a professor at the École d'architecture de paysage of the University of Montreal. As a founding partner of the Montreal landscape architecture and urban design firm of WAA (Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui and associates), he has contributed to many award-winning projects including the Montreal Beach Park on Ile Notre-Dame, the Biodôme de Montréal, and the Jardin de l’Espace Saint-Roch in Québec City. Ron is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and is currently writing a book on the history of landscape architecture in Canada.