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The Future of the Public Realm

WED-B09: Innovating Bridge Design with Landscape Architecture

Wednesday, September 16, 2026
10:45 AM - 12:00 PM PT
1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW

Landscape architects are redefining bridge design as collaborative leaders. By situating bridges within the broader landscape, teams can achieve innovative outcomes that integrate habitat systems, civic space, and human experience — moving beyond the "bridge as object" toward an expanded, rich public realm.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Apply collaborative leadership structures with bridge engineers by integrating client and site perspectives to shift design processes and guide innovative projects from vision to reality.
  • Develop design strategies rooted in iterative exploration, understanding how thoughtful, phased processes produce impactful and contextually responsive landscapes.
  • Evaluate the value of empirical data, landscape ecology principles, and adaptive delivery frameworks to the design and implementation of habitat crossings, leveraging infrastructure to restore ecological permeability across fragmented ecosystems.
  • Articulate the range of leadership and services landscape architects can offer infrastructure projects, and how the values inherent to our profession can be expressed in this category of work.