WxLA - Champions for Equality in Landscape Architecture

Honor Award

Communications

United States
WxLA

Telling Our Stories

Founded by a group of volunteers in 2018, WxLA provides a voice for our profession’s women, a mechanism for enacting positive change and an inspiration to motivate practitioners.

Image Credit: Jeri Hetrick
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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WxLA in Landscape Architecture Magazine

Following a panel discussion at the 2018 Conference on Landscape Architecture, WxLA founders authored a feature article in Landscape Architecture Magazine (April 2018). The piece described the contemporary experience of women in practice and advocated for gender justice.

Image Credit: Landscape Architecture Magazine
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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WxLA in the News

Appearing in industry press around the world, WxLA and the fight for gender equality was named one one of 2019’s top trends in landscape architecture by World Landscape Architecture.

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Creating Advocacy Tools for Gender Justice

WxLA translates the ideas and aspirations of its supporters - like those recorded during an interactive convening at the 2019 Conference on Landscape Architecture - into a series of tools for gender-just practice.

Image Credit: Jeri Hetrick
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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The Women’s Landscape Equality (re)Solution

Published in the Fall of 2018 and signed over 5,100 times since, the (re)Solution offers a high-level summary of gender-based challenges and barriers, a call for action and a series of commitment for signers to accept.

Image Credit: WxLA
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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Tools for a Gender Just Workplace

Published as “Designing the Bigger Time: Tools for a Gender Just Workplace” in World Landscape Architecture Magazine, a series of tangible and actionable research, strategies and best practices give guidance to both firm leaders and team members alike.

Image Credit: WxLA
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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Building a Coalition Using Online Platforms

Using a variety of online platforms, social networks and supportive industry publications as well as an entirely-volunteer leadership and membership following, WxLA is using contemporary tools to build a coalition for change.

Image Credit: Jeri Hetrick
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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Leveraging Online Tools

WxLA is strategic and effective in its use of select online platforms for maximum impact: a website for ongoing updates on events and issues, an Instagram feed for real-time sharing and YouTube for occasional special events like a podcast series.

Image Credit: WxLA
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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WxLA Instagram Campaign: Celebrating Women-led Practices

With over 2,000 followers, WxLA’s Instagram feed features quotes, facts and faces of women leaders in the profession.

Image Credit: WxLA
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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A Brand Identity that Leans In

WxLA’s custom logo celebrates female ambition (it literally leans in) and different voices (by deploying various shades of purple), reinforcing the beauty of diversity.

Image Credit: WxLA
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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The WxLA Brand in Action

Hundreds of custom WxLA branded t-shirts and sweatshirts have been sold and are proudly worn by the supporters including for various selfie campaigns over the past few years.

Image Credit: WxLA
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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WxLA Instagram TakeOvers

WxLA leverages its Instagram platform for allied efforts in the women’s equality movement, with multiple takeovers. Here, the VELA Project, the Wikipedia Project and a volunteer effort for Black History Month all shared content.

Image Credit: WxLA
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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Investing in Next Generation Leaders

WxLA spread the word with young professionals, including the inaugural class of WxLA Scholars, shown here. These seven incredible women from across the country benefited from the networking and educational opportunities of the Conference on Landscape Architecture.

Image Credit: Jeri Hetrick
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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The WxLA Scholarship

Eager to invest in the next generation of female landscape leadership, WxLA raised over $40,000 in cash and in-kind services to fully support eighteen women to attend the annual conference on landscape architecture in 2019 and 2020.

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Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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The WxLA Scholarship

In 2019 and in 2020, two world-class and diverse juries of seasoned and emerging leaders collectively evaluated the over 100 applicants from around the world, ultimately selecting 18 scholars. Here is the 2020 WxLA Scholars!

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A WxLA Convening in San Diego

From five founders to thousands of followers and volunteers, WxLA is a mobilized and empowered movement, providing a voice for women in the profession, a mechanism for enacting change and an inspiration to legacy and next-generation practitioners alike.

Image Credit: Jeri Hetrick
Media: Please submit high-resolution image requests to images@asla.org

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“

Starting in 2018, WxLA began advocacy for gender justice, growing from five founders to a movement within the landscape architecture profession toward equality. With its first act—a resolution geared toward addressing gender parity through commitments to change—and continuing in impactful research and messaging, WxLA has investigated gender-based workplace challenges and opened new avenues toward parity. These efforts include collaborations with the VELA Project and the Wikimedia Project; Instagram takeovers; a scholarship for 18 young professionals to attend conferences; and a digital toolkit of resources aimed at a better, more equitable path for the profession.

”

- 2021 Awards Jury

Project Credits

The VELA Project, Collaborator

The Wikipedia Project, Collaborator

The Black History Month Takeover Team, Collaborator

Landscape Architecture Magazine, Collaborator

World Landscape Architecture Magazine, Collaborator

Llamo Collectivo, Collabortor

The Woland Foundation, Collaborator

Project Statement

Inspired by civic action, equality movements around the world, and the personal experience of its founders, WxLA emerged in 2018 as a vocal advocacy initiative for gender justice in landscape architecture. WxLA raises awareness for the challenges that prevent women from reaching their highest potential, illuminates the barriers to women, provides strategies for change and celebrate new models of working. In three potent years, WxLA spearheaded action-oriented initiatives such as the (first-ever) Women’s Landscape Equality (re)Solution, a dynamic media presence including an instagram campaign and website, a successful WxLA Scholarship and a Toolkit for a Gender Just Workplace.

From five founders to thousands of followers and volunteers, WxLA is a mobilized and empowered movement, providing a voice for women in the profession, a mechanism for enacting change and an inspiration to legacy and next-generation practitioners alike. Awarding these efforts will continue the momentum and send a message about the ASLA’s commitment to equality.

Project Narrative

Inspired by increased civic action, energetic equality movements around the world and the personal experiences of its founders, WxLA emerged in 2018 as a vocal advocacy initiative for gender justice in landscape architecture. WxLA raises awareness for the challenges that prevent women from reaching their highest potential, illuminates the barriers women face, provides strategies for change and celebrates new working models.

Using a variety of online platforms, social networks and supportive industry publications as well as an entirely-volunteer leadership and membership following, WxLA is using contemporary tools to build a coalition for change. In its potent first three years, WxLA spearheaded action-oriented initiatives including the following:

Writing and Telling Our Stories
WxLA’s story begins with four senior female professionals leaving leadership positions in large and internationally recognized landscape firms to begin their own practices in and around 2017. Recognizing the similarities in their own personal experiences of gender-based challenges in the workplace and an emerging trend of new women-led practices, a senior male professional gathered these women and facilitated a panel discussion at the 2018 Conference on Landscape Architecture in Philadelphia.

Eager to have broader impacts beyond the benefits of a one-time discussion, this group coalesced as the founders of WxLA, a name that emerged organically through early actions. Committed to an action-oriented, collaborative and effective long-term process, one of WxLA’s foundational efforts was the creation of the Women’s Landscape Equality (re)Solution, launched at the panel discussion. Immediately following, the founders captured this organic evolution and formation in writing in a feature article called “The Bigger Time” in Landscape Architecture Magazine published in April of 2019.

Though nascent in its life as an advocacy organization, WxLA, its stories and its coalition have been featured in numerous national and international publications including the New York Times, Landscape Architecture Magazine, World Landscape Architecture Magazine and The Dirt. Its founders and allies have been invited to speak at and led discussions at universities and conferences around the country including The University of Texas at Austin, the Florida ASLA Annual Meeting, the New York ASLA Annual Meeting, LABASH 2020, the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture in 2018, the ReVision Conference of 2020, Ottawa ASLA, the Victor Stanley Lecture Series and the Mind the Gap Lecture Series at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

Creating Advocacy Tools for Gender Justice
WxLA created the first-ever Women’s Landscape Equality (re)Solution. It begins, “As landscape architects, we know that diversity brings life, health, and wonder to our planet. We also know that where ecosystems have declined in diversity, restoration takes active intervention. Now is time for landscape architecture to address gender parity in the profession through a conscientious, courageous, and active declaration of change.” This one-page document, posted to change.org in the Fall of 2018, provides a summary of the challenges to women in leadership and a straight-forward series of commitments for practitioners and firm leaders to read and enact. To date, the (re)Solution has been shared across online platforms, publications like Landscape Architecture Magazine and on firm websites around the country. To date, the (re)Solution has garnered over 5,000 signatures.

In 2021, WxLA launched its “Tools for a Gender Just Workplace”. Developed first as a presentation for state chapter engagement, the toolkit provides tangible and actionable research and best practices aimed at both firm leaders and team members alike. The work went on to be published in article form in World Landscape Architecture during Women’s History Month. The toolkit is framed through organizing themes: transparent business, flexible human resources, systems of recourse and gender-just culture. It both summarizes the attrition of women from the profession, acknowledges the specific challenges they face and offers a concrete and more equitable path forward.

Building a Coalition Using Online Platforms
WxLA uses a few strategic tools to spread its message, share information and create dialogue among its coalition. Following on the success of the (re)Solution, the WxLA team launched a vibrant instagram site that has since hosted a number of energetic campaigns. As one example, a call for nominations led to over 50 women-led landscape practices being celebrated on the site. Each firm profile included its leadership, mission, and reasons for being lauded as innovative. As another example, WxLA invited selfies of followers wearing their custom-designed WxLA-branded t-shirts and sweatshirts. Hundreds of these selfies have been shared with thoughts, ideas and empowering messages as a lead up to different events or online happenings.

WxLA further leveraged its instagram platform to raise awareness of other women-led initiatives. Over a week in July of 2019, The VELA Project (an initiative focused on visualizing equality in landscape architecture through its own data-driven analysis) shared its findings. Over a week in December of 2019, the Wikipedia Project showcased its work researching, writing and contributing profiles of women landscape architects to Wikipedia. During Black History Month in February of 2020 and 2021, volunteers populated the WxLA instagram feed with inspiring posts and stories about black women who have helped to share the profession and inspire us all, and particularly women of color. On International Women’s Day of 2021, WxLA hosted a takeover of National ASLA’s instagram, sharing its work and research with ASLA’s 60,000 followers. To date, WxLA’s instagram has over 2,000 followers.

WxLA’s online presence is enhanced by its website: wxlandscape.org. The website offers vivid imagery of the coalition, information about initiatives, a summary of the organization’s back story and a tribute to its extensive donor base. From the website, visitors can also find and explore the various advocacy tools (like the reSolution, recent articles and publications), learn about the scholarship and its application process and visit photography and podcasts from various convenings. The website also allows visitors to sign up to stay informed of upcoming initiatives via quarterly newsletters.

Investing in the Next Generation of Leaders
Feeling the need to reach next-generation practitioners, the WxLA created a WxLA Scholarship program in 2019. Fundraising over $30,000 via a GoFundMe campaign, garnering another $10,000 of in-kind donations and generating thousands more on a custom t-shirt campaign, the scholarship enabled eighteen young professional women to attend the Conference on Landscape Architecture in San Diego (2019), the ReVision Conference (2020) and a series of mentoring events and smaller educational forums. Two distinct and diverse world-class juries of professionals evaluated and selected the scholars from over 100 applicants from around the world. Scholars are enlisted and sometimes volunteer to participate in events - including takeovers, workshops and presentations - to advance awareness and help grow empowerment.

In addition to its own advocacy, WxLA leaders and coalition members have also assisted other burgeoning and forming initiatives. Invited by ASLA, the WxLA founders presented the challenges and successes of starting an advocacy initiative with emergent groups of LatinX and LGBTQX professionals. WxLA has supported grant writing, fellowship applications and nominations for a number of its scholars and affiliates. Further, it continues to use its online platform to shine its light on the good work of other mission-aligned initiatives like NAMLA (National Association of Minority Landscape Architects), BlackLAN, Llama Colectivo, the VELA Project, the Woland Foundation and the JSR Foundation.

From five founders to thousands of followers and volunteers, WxLA is a mobilized and empowered movement, providing a voice for women in the profession, a mechanism for enacting change and an inspiration to legacy and next-generation practitioners alike. Awarding these efforts will continue the momentum and send a message about the ASLA’s commitment to equality.