Urban Design & Architecture Awards Symposium

How to Make a Greener City: Growing Hamilton’s Urban Forest

The City of Hamilton is hosting a How to Make a Greener City: Growing Hamilton’s Urban Forest symposium ahead of the 2025 Urban Design and Architecture Awards. 

This event will feature:

• panel of experienced professionals specializing in urban forestry, streetscaping, landscape design and green infrastructure, all with a strong focus on urban ecology. 
• discussion to explore ways to promote and incentivize eco-friendly landscape development in Hamilton and grow the urban tree canopy. 

Panelists

Lesia Mokrycke - Tropos Art + Design + Landscape
Lesia Mokrycke is the founder of Tropos, a multidisciplinary landscape studio based in Hamilton. She is recognized as a contemporary voice for art and landscape architecture in Canada and is known for her creative, conceptual, and contemplative approach to shaping distinctive landscapes. Lesia leads urban design, restoration, and environmental art processes to develop projects that address issues of climate adaptation. Her work focuses on water, rethinking relationship with atmospheric cycles and their relation to sensory experience, environmental infrastructure and the degradation of urban forests. She brings a wealth of knowledge from fifteen years of experience as a public artist to each landscape architectural project she undertakes. Lesia is an Instructor at the University of Waterloo in Cambridge, where she teaches landscape architecture courses in the architecture department.

Mario Patitucci - Partner at Adesso Design Inc.
Mario is a landscape Architect with over 18 years of experience in Canada. He is a registered landscape architect in the Province of Ontario, and a full member of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA). He has extensive experience in the design of public and private spaces including numerous parks and communities across Southern Ontario. Mario is the founder of Adesso design inc. His vision was to create a landscape architectural firm with a collaborative approach to design and a focus on sustainable development. As a principal of the firm, he is responsible for the comprehensive management of various projects throughout Southern Ontario. Over the past ten years, Mario has been the lead on several City of Hamilton park design projects, including Binbrook Park and Stinson School Park, which both received Urban Design Awards of Excellence in 2015.

Adam Nicklin - Principal, Public Work
Adam Nicklin is a principal and co-founder of PUBLIC WORK, a Toronto based design studio whose work focuses on the intelligent evolution of contemporary cities. He is a landscape architect, planner and urban designer with more than 25 years of experience in the UK, USA, and Canada. Over his career Adam has successfully led numerous large, multi-disciplinary teams in the execution of complex urban renewal and landscape projects. Adam’s experience includes community design, public realm and parks design, major transportation and marine infrastructure projects. Adam brings a strong focus and understanding of the synergies between civil engineering, major infrastructural works and landscape architecture in order to advance the design of the public realm.

Giuliana Casimirri - Executive Director, Green Venture
Giuliana Casimirri has a PhD in collaborative forest management from the University of Toronto, a Masters degree in Forest Conservation and over 15 years of experience in socio-ecological research, community engagement, and non-profit management. Giuliana is Executive Director of Green Venture in Hamilton. Green Venture has developed several community environmental engagement and urban greening projects, including Hamilton’s first green infrastructure rebate program for homeowners, a Tree Equity research project with CityHousing Hamilton, and several Mini Forest pilot sites. Giuliana was previously Executive Director of Oakvillegreen Conservation Association, where she developed youth-focused, as well as corporate stewardship engagement programs, and a backyard tree planting program. Giuliana co-founded the Hamilton Urban Forest Coalition and led a campaign to push for the development of woodland conservation bylaws and Hamilton’s urban forest strategy.

Learn more about the Urban Design and Architecture Awards