重口味SM

Future city builders: Shelley Long

photo of Shelley Long
U of T alumna Shelley Long is a landscape designer at Hapa Collaborative in Vancouver (photos courtesy of Shelley Long)

They're the new generation of Toronto city builders. Meet the ambitious 重口味SM students and recent grads poised to become big players in shaping urban identity and city development. 

U of T News writer Romi Levine continues the Future City Builders stories with a profile of U of T alumna Shelley Long, a landscape designer in Vancouver.


Whether it鈥檚 the hint of greenery between skyscrapers or a leafy inner-city courtyard 鈥 there鈥檚 an art to finding the balance between the built and natural environments in a city.

It鈥檚 this interaction that drew Shelley Long to landscape architecture. 

鈥淲ith landscape projects, the day you finish building your project, it starts to grow and change. Whereas, with buildings, the day you finish your project, they start to deteriorate in a sense,鈥 says Long, who received her master's in landscape architecture from the 重口味SM鈥檚 . 

For her , Long explored these notions of native versus invasive landscapes by re-imagining the Trans-Canada Highway between Calgary and Banff as Canada鈥檚 next national park. 

鈥淎long the way you experience a spectrum of different human ecologies from the city to an industrial cement mine to agricultural fields to First Nations reserves, which are very Canadian landscapes 鈥 and finally, the national park itself,鈥 she says. 

Long currently works for Hapa Collaborative, a landscape architecture and design firm in Vancouver. 

At Hapa, she鈥檚 been able to work on a range of different projects 鈥 from residential developments to revitalizing areas of the Simon Fraser University campus. 

But it鈥檚 the art installation projects that she talks about most enthusiastically.

This year, she was part of a team who designed and created a giant megaphone in a west-end Vancouver plaza. The sculpture, called 鈥,鈥 (pictured below) pays tribute to Jim Deva, an active community member and LGBTQ advocate. 

Megaphone in Jim Deva plaza

鈥淭hat was a whirlwind process, but it was really exciting to start a project and see it built in a span of 2 1/2 months,鈥 says Long. 

鈥淧eople put boom boxes behind it. Musicians perform inside it,鈥 she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been a really successful centrepiece of that part of the west-end.鈥

Having lived both in Toronto and Vancouver, Long has observed the cities鈥 different approaches to city building.

鈥淰ancouver is very outward-focused city in that we are blessed with this abundance of scenery and natural life,鈥 she says. 鈥淥ur architecture and our built environment definitely reflect that. Our sea wall is the most important public space in the city.鈥

鈥淭oronto is a much more inward-focused city in that it really loves itself,鈥 says Long. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 say that in a bad way. I say that in a way that it really celebrates its identity. It鈥檚 much more culturally focused. It鈥檚 much more multicultural. That really comes across in the built landscape.鈥

Long says Vancouver can learn from Toronto鈥檚 rethinking of the waterfront and ravines with an emphasis on landscape architecture. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e saying how can we reintegrate these waterfront spaces and give them back to the public in really interesting ways and develop them into new communities. Likewise, how can we naturalize our streams to make more resilient storm water systems.鈥

She hopes to see similarly bold perspectives on city building in Vancouver. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 starting to happen, but it鈥檚 a long process.鈥

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