Practical takeaways from the American Society of Landscape Architects conference in Los Angeles: storytelling, biodiversity design, planting strategy, data for decision-making, and the operational realities that shape lasting landscapes.
Storytelling in landscape design requires time for engagement and loose narrative elements so users can form their own meanings.
Designing for biodiversity demands balancing engineering constraints with ecological knowledge of pollinators, agents, seasonality, and succession.
The 2026 American Society of Landscape Architects conference in Los Angeles ran three days of sessions, awards, site tours, and an industry expo. The event gathers thousands of practitioners, allied professionals, government staff, and academics. The editor of World Landscape Architecture attended a mix of panels and conversations and distilled a set of practical lessons that apply to everyday practice.
Designers should treat storytelling as a design tool. Stories can be conveyed physically through form and planting, or through interpretation and narrative. The practical point is to design with time and engagement in mind: allow space for stories to develop and leave deliberate "loose ends" so users can create their own meanings. That approach affects program, sequencing, signage, and how interventions age in place.
Multiple sessions flagged a common tension: engineering solutions and ecological goals do not always align. Designing for biodiversity requires attention to pollinators, ecological agents, plant seasonality, and successional processes. Practically, this means integrating ecological knowledge early in design, selecting plants for multiple functions, and anticipating how a planting will change across seasons and years rather than only its initial appearance.
Good planting design begins with the site's capacities. That includes soil, microclimate, expected disturbances, and long-term succession. The conference emphasized design for changing conditions: choose species and cultivation methods that fit the site, plan for maintenance cycles, and accept that plant communities will evolve. Designers should create specifications that support cultivation and succession rather than freeze a planting in a single moment.
Evaluating Landscapes: Data and Standards
Measuring landscape benefits remains difficult. Presenters noted inconsistent standards, disparate data sources, and insufficient evidence tying landscapes to outcomes like health, jobs, or economic value. The practical implication is to be cautious when citing broad claims and to push for better data collection methods linked to clearly defined metrics. Where possible, pair qualitative observations with targeted quantitative measures relevant to the project's goals.
Heat Mapping and Local Climate Data
Heat mapping is a useful decision tool, but regional climate data often masks local variation. The conference highlighted the value of block-scale measurements. Citizen scientists and inexpensive data loggers can fill gaps and provide actionable information for design, such as locating priority cooling interventions or validating the effectiveness of green infrastructure. Use local measurements when planning for public health outcomes.
Maintenance and Workforce Realities
Maintenance surfaced repeatedly as a practical constraint. Clients and the industry often underbudget maintenance or lack horticultural knowledge. Sessions recommended clearer maintenance manuals, better education of clients about ongoing costs, and recognition of workforce limitations. Design decisions should account for realistic maintenance regimes, and specifications should be written to aid the teams who will care for the landscape.
New session formats—conversations between established practitioners—examined origin stories, mentorship, and career variability. The takeaway is that landscape careers are non-linear, with periods of stress, growth, and reinvention. These conversations reinforced the value of mentorship and the role of personal networks in career development.
Looking Forward: Stewardship Beyond the Site
An Executive Forum message stood out: landscape architects should help clients see themselves as stewards of place. That requires education beyond site-level constraints to consider wider community impacts. Practically, this expands the scope of client conversations to include long-term stewardship, community benefits, and systemic effects of site decisions.
The conference combined presentations, social exchanges, and site-based learning. For practitioners the immediate value is concrete: use storytelling deliberately, ground biodiversity work in ecology and succession, collect local climate data, and write maintenance into project budgets and specifications.
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