As design professionals, we can use our skills to engage with the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as colleagues, stakeholders, and allies to create queer friendly and safe spaces that are so fundamental for a healthy quality of life. The most recent legislative and physical assaults on the queer and trans community fuel a sense of determination to make inclusive spaces accessible to all marginalized groups.

Everyone should feel like they can fully express themselves wherever they are, whether it’s in a park, workplace, or classroom setting. How can built environments better support LGBTQIA+ communities?īuilt environments can better support the LGBTQIA+ community by ensuring safety and inclusion are at the heart of the design process. Diversity and inclusion should always be at the forefront of landscape architecture and any discipline that serves the public realm. By actively listening to community groups, I learned to be an advocate for their needs in addition to being a designer. I started my career working in community design and realized the importance of connecting with communities as your authentic self…finding common ground and interests among groups who are underserved, lack the capacity or funding to seek design and planning services. Marginalization can occur when designers and developers disregard the needs of communities.

How has being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community influenced your work in landscape architecture?Īs a queer woman, I often think about how people from different backgrounds and experiences, especially those who are “othered” in society, can connect to a place and feel heard during the design process. Today, we’re sharing the next set of profiles, of Natalia Bezerra, Matthew Mitsuaki Higa, Associate ASLA, Alyssa Gill, Arturo Merino, ASLA, Margot McLaughlin, Associate ASLA, and Shawn Balon, ASLA. Last week’s post highlighted the panelists from ASLA’s June 12 webinar, Queer Emergence: An LGBTQIA+ Conversation in Landscape Architecture: Cheri Ruane, FASLA, Kelley Oklesson, ASLA, Max Dickson, Jordan Chiang, Assoc. Clockwise from top left: Natalia Bezerra / image: Caroline Kemp Matthew Mitsuaki Higa, Associate ASLA Margot McLaughlin, Associate ASLA / image: Carrie Miller Shawn Balon, ASLA / image: Kim Peters Alyssa Gill Arturo Merino, ASLAĪSLA’s celebration of Pride Month continues on The Field as we share a second set of landscape architect profiles to promote LGBTQIA+ visibility and acceptance in the landscape architecture and architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professions.

Human design profiles