B.E.S.T. Lecture: "Sustainable Drainage: The Intersection of Performance and Experience in the Lands

Laura Solano
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
230 College Street, Room 103 | 6:00 PM


Laura Solano is a Principal at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Landscape Architects (MVVA), where she provides strong leadership in the development of the firm’s ecological approaches to site design and site technology. Through her work she explores the creative overlap between landscape technology and landscape design, including the integration of biological management programs in planting design, the use of sustainable soils, stormwater innovations and the imaginative use of natural materials. Ms. Solano has been a visiting critic and lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design since 1992 where she teaches classes in Landscape Technology. In 2010 she was the recipient of the Boston Society of Architects’ annual Women in Design Award of Excellence. She serves as a Board Member for the Landscape Architecture Foundation and is a registered landscape architect

Her presentation will demonstrate multiple ways in which drainage can be used as a resource in site design, improving ecological performance and landscape resilience. Ms. Solano will share her work on major current and recent projects by MVVA in the U.S. and Canada to illustrate a variety of different approaches. These will include the Lower Don Lands project in Toronto, where a naturalized mouth for an industrialized river will support flood control and new urban development, the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas where a native prairie ecology will be sustained by rainwater that has been collected and stored on the site, and Alumnae Valley at Wellesley College, where surface runoff for a large area of the campus is cleansed through landscape interventions, among others. The lecture will showcase the collaborative environment that allows progressive technology to inform progressive design, and will reinforce the need for multivalent drainage strategies that conserve resources while also supporting human experience.


Each B.E.S.T. lecture = OAA 2 structured learning hours.

Free admission followed by snacks and refreshments.

Lecture series proudly sponsored by:

Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) and Tremco Roofing.