Women’s Equality in Landscape Architecture

Today, August 26, is Women’s Equality Day, celebrating when women secured the right to vote in 1920. Since then, women have made tremendous strides in achieving equal rights—but there’s still work to be done in our field. Thankfully, there are many groups out there striving to make landscape architecture a more equitable profession for women. We’d like to recognize them and thank them for all they’ve done. 

VELA Project (Visualizing Equity in Landscape Architecture) 

Led by TJ Marston and Samantha Solano (with help from Catalina Dugand and many others), the VELA Project is a women-led research collaborative aiming to reveal gender narratives in our field through accessible data—data that has been missing in landscape architecture for years. Having this information is incredibly important, helping us see where we’re starting from in order to move forward. Learn more at www.velaproject.org and follow VELA Project on Instagram. 

WxLA

Founded by Rebecca Leonard, Gina Ford, Cinda Gilliland, Steven Spears and Jamie Maslyn Larson, WxLA was established as a vocal advocacy initiative for gender injustice in landscape architecture. The movement gets right to the heart of the issue by raising awareness and giving a platform to women in the industry. WxLA raises awareness for the challenges preventing women from reaching their highest potential and provides strategies for implementing change. Learn more at www.wxlandscape.org and follow WxLA on Instagram. 

WoLand Foundation 

Founded by our friend Ely Van Dillewijn, the WoLand Foundation is a non-profit organization led by landscape designers who are dedicated to empowering their colleagues to give back through mentoring, workshops and “wominars” (gender equity-focused seminars meant to benefit the younger generation of landscape architects). By inspiring and motivating, the WoLand Foundation aims to empower women to succeed in this industry. They’ve held many successful events over the course of the past few years, and we’re so impressed with their passion and drive. Learn more at www.wolandfl.org and follow the WoLand Foundation on Instagram. 

Field Day Camp 

Inspired by his daughter, landscape architect Jonathon Geels founded Field Day Camp, a virtual introduction to landscape architecture for girls in grades 4 through 6. Landscape architecture typically isn’t an industry most people know about until much later in life, but Field Day Camp is working to get young girls thinking about it as a viable career from an early age. Introducing children to the concepts of designing quality spaces is important for our profession, as well as for our built world. Follow Field Day Camp on Instagram and read more about it here.

Womxn in Design 

Womxn in Design is a student-led organization at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. This organization changed its name to encourage inclusion and participation by all designers: women, men, and anyone who identifies as a woman. While they focus on their Harvard campus, their actions are inspirational to other schools and to many designers around the world. Learn more at www.gsdwid.com and follow Womxn in Design on Instagram. 

WILA (Women in Landscape Architecture –– ASLA PPN) 

ASLA’s Women in Landscape Architecture PPN, known as WILA, works to encourage discussions about gender equity and other issues women face in our industry. They provide resources and offer mentoring opportunities and webinars that help empower women to take on leadership roles. Most importantly, they celebrate the amazing work female landscape architects are doing and have done in the past. In fact, they teamed with WxLA to create The Wikipedia Project to promote the history of women in landscape architecture on Wikipedia. Learn more at www.asla.org/wila. 

Making landscape architecture a more equitable profession will not only help diversify our industry, but it will also re-center marginalized voices and introduce new perspectives into our designs. And thanks to the hard work of these organizations, and many others, we’re well on our way to achieving that.