Elsa Brobbey, Author at LEES+Associates

Alberta Cemeteries Embrace the Needs of Both Living and Dead

Fairview Cemetery, Lacombe, AB

Our founding principal, Erik Lees, was featured in a recent CBC article on how Alberta cemeteries are adapting to serve both the living and the deceased.

In the article, Erik emphasized the evolving role of cemeteries in urban life:

“They are places of passive recreation and contemplation, which in our increasingly densified and urbanized environment is really an important aspect of cemeteries.”

He also noted how changing practices are shaping cemetery planning:

“Cremated remains, even when they are interred in the cemetery, consume a fraction of the space that a traditional casket burial will consume.”

These remarks highlight the importance of creating multi-purpose and respectful spaces. Places where people can both honour memories and find comfort in nature. We’re honoured that Erik’s perspective was part of this meaningful conversation.

You can read the full article here: How Alberta cemeteries are adapting to serve both the living and the dead (CBC)

Summer News from LEES+Associates

We’re proud to share a few recent updates that reflect our values and growing presence across Canada.

Mentorship Moment in Landscape|Paysages Magazine

Heidi Redman, LEES Principal and practice lead for our Northern Office, recently contributed a “mentorship moment” to Landscapes/Paysages Magazine (LP), honouring the mentorship she received from Catriona Hearn, who was a Senior Associate at LEES when Heidi first joined the firm. Read Heidi’s feature here (page 47)

LEES+Associates is a Living Wage Employer

LEES is proud to be a certified Living Wage Employer. According to Living Wage BC, a living wage is the hourly amount that someone needs to earn to cover basic expenses, from housing and food, to transportation and childcare. While the minimum wage is legislated by the provincial government, the living wage standard allows employers to do better.

Becoming Living Wage Certified reflects LEES’ desire to support our staff’s health, well-being, and quality of life. Fair compensation helps our team thrive. Ensuring fair pay reflects our vision to build a sustainable company that has a meaningful impact on people, the land, and communities.

We are proud of our work in Canada’s northern regions

While LEES has had an office in Whitehorse since 2016, we have recently expanded our Yukon presence, with a larger team, a dedicated webpage specifically for the Yukon office, and a new workspace in downtown Whitehorse, at 1114 Front Street!
Learn more about our Yukon office

We’re excited about these milestones and grateful for the communities we serve.

Port Moody’s Vision for Greener, More Connected Parks

Port Moody is looking ahead to 2050 with an ambitious Parkland Strategy endorsed by Council this June. With population growth, climate change, and evolving recreational needs on the horizon, the city is taking a proactive approach to how it plans, expands, and connects its green spaces.
At the heart of the strategy are three goals: expand parkland, improve what already exists, and connect parks to neighbourhoods and people. Indigenous partnerships, sustainability, and public input have all helped shape the plan, making it a roadmap for future parks and a reflection of community values.

Curious how it’ll all come together? You can read the full story and explore the full parkland strategy here.

First Nations Grant Opportunity

Are you a B.C. First Nations storyteller, artist, or arts organization sharing about the perseverance of stories, knowledge, and arts practices in your community?

First Peoples’ Cultural Council (FPCC) is offering an Arts Vitality Grant, which is a one-time opportunity to receive up to $10,000 in funding for creative projects that contribute to research on the status and strength of B.C. First Nations storytelling and arts knowledge and practices.

Applications for the Arts Vitality Grant will be accepted until May 28, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. PT. Visit the program page for more information. For questions, please email the program contact at avg@nullfpcc.ca. Program staff will be available to support requests for one-on-one application assistance up until May 13, 2025.

LEES and the Healthy Built Environment Toolkit

The design of our neighbourhoods, housing, transportation systems, parks, natural environments, and food systems affects the health of our communities. For over a decade, LEES+Associates has worked with the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) on a number of projects around Healthy Built Environments, including the HBE Toolkit that provides an overview of plans, policies, and research relating to health and the built environment.

Last year, we helped kick off an update to this toolkit to incorporate how climate change impacts such as flooding, drought, wildfires and smoke, and extreme heat and cold affect communities. We researched policies and evidence from different levels of government and NGOs to help PHSA frame key research questions and methods. LEES’ expertise in planning and policy, as evidenced by their work on the HBE toolkit, is one of the things that makes us unique.

What is the Healthy Built Environment Toolkit?
LEES worked with the PHSA on the Healthy Built Environment Linkages Toolkit that remains a go-to resource for understanding the connections between human health and the way we build our communities. The original toolkit focused on the five physical features of the built environment: neighbourhood design, transportation networks, natural environments, housing, and food systems. The Toolkit was developed together with over 50 stakeholders from health, planning, and policy to show evidence-based health research in a visually accessible way for a broad, interdisciplinary audience. The toolkit aims to provide health evidence to public health practitioners, planners, design professionals, and others involved in community design.

Since the original toolkit, there is an increasing body of evidence showing that the way we design our communities impacts health, and climate change is further exacerbating poor design. Improving our urban ecosystems, enhancing tree canopy in urban areas, creating active transportation connections, and ensuring people have access to green spaces are all critical to building resilience for climate change, as it brings more extreme heat and cold, as well as wildfire smoke.

The Toolkit provides easy-to-read graphics to quickly assess evidence-based information to aid in decision-making. For example, preserving and connecting environmentally sensitive areas impacts tree canopy and biodiversity, which can then lead to lower costs for air pollution removal and storm management while providing energy savings to homeowners and renters. There is also emerging research that shows that preservation of biodiversity likely supports healthier human communities.

If you are interested in learning more and keeping up with BC Provincial Health Authority’s work on the Healthy Built Environment, you can visit the HBE webpage for more resources or apply to join the Healthy Built Environment Alliance for regular updates and emerging research.

Shoreline Restoration Design for Whey-Ah-Wichen/Cates Park

As part of a consultant team led by Hatfield Consultants, LEES+Associates supported the Shoreline Restoration Design for Whey-ah-Wichen/Cates Park on behalf of the District of North Vancouver. Our role focused on the human use and interface aspects of the site and included a desktop review, site assessment and report, climate change analysis, and stakeholder feedback analysis to inform the restoration design and support permit applications.

Learn more about the project – Reviving the Shores: A Transformative Shoreline Restoration Project at Whey-ah-Wichen.

City of Regina Parks Master Plan

The City of Regina commissioned LEES+Associates to develop a Parks Master Plan for the city. This plan focuses on park policies and provides a clear path to sustain, improve, and develop Regina’s parks in the future. Through community engagement activities, we helped articulate Regina’s goal to create sustainable and inclusive year-round parks, offer enriching experiences, and connect communities through nature and culture to improve the quality of life of residents and visitors.

We created the Parks Master Plan by facilitating extensive community engagement to help Regina understand how the broader community wants to use their park spaces. We conducted 15 online interviews and workshops with community groups, two online surveys, and incorporated a separate Indigenous Engagement project done by Wicehtowak Limnos Consulting Services.

The City of Regina prioritized Indigenous worldviews into their Parks Master Plan, as part of a larger strategy of moving more meaningfully towards reconciliation. Sessions were held with the Touchwood Agency Tribal Council, File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council, and the Metis Nation Saskatchewan, where there were a mix of political figures, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and invited delegates. Overall, the First Nations groups recommended incorporating signs, educational plaques, and other displays to teach Regina citizens more about Indigenous use of the land, Treaties, and the histories of the First Nations of the area as well as increased naturalization and making the parks more accessible.

First Nations representatives emphasized how naturalizing some of the urban colonial public spaces could transform them into sites of greater inclusivity, and that sentiment was also echoed by broader community feedback. In response, Regina aims to naturalize 25% of its park spaces by 2028 to achieve benefits including support for biodiversity, climate resilience, reducing potable water use, and creating a sense of place for all visitors to the parks. Part of the naturalization will also include reintroducing Indigenous plants and medicines into the park landscapes, such as sage, sweetgrass, choke cherries, and other medicinal plants. Naturalized spaces will also offer trails, outdoor education, and nature appreciation to connect us to the wonder of the world around us.

Making parks more four-season friendly is also an important part of making the parks more accessible to all Regina’s citizens. Recommendations for making the parks more appealing in the winter included more events to bring people into the parks, increased lighting, improving snow clearing for pedestrians and cyclists, and planting vegetation that can protect against prevailing northwest winter winds. These steps will bring people into the parks, make them feel safer, and also encourage more casual winter activities like skating, cross-country skiing, and tobogganing.

In May 2024, the Regina Executive Committee voted 6-0 in favour of endorsing the city’s first Parks Master Plan.

Tse’k’wa Amphitheatre Project

The Tse’k’wa Heritage Society commissioned LEES+Associates to design an amphitheatre at the Tse’k’wa National Historic Site as part of their initiative to incorporate interpretive elements into the site.

The site’s location, on the plateau of the Peace Region near the City of Fort St. John, lies along early routes of northward migration for the Dane-zaa First Nations; they consider the site to be a hallmark of their long history in the Peace River region.

Tse’k’wa means “Rock House” in Dane-zaa/Beaver language and has been the gathering place of the Dane-zaa people for more than 12,500 years. Discoveries at the Tse’k’wa site, such as this fluted stone point (pictured left) found at Tse’k’wa in the 1980s, are among the earliest evidence of people living in the Americas. The Dane-zaa people have always known that Tse’k’wa was a significant site. In 2013, three local Treaty 8 Nations—Doig River, Prophet River, and West Moberly First Nations were incorporated into the Tse’k’wa Heritage Society to collaborate as stewards of the site. Under their leadership, Parks Canada designated Tse’k’wa as a national heritage site in 2019, making it one of very few Indigenous-owned and managed national historic sites in Canada.

Close collaboration with the three Dane-zaa Nations informed our design approach for the site. The amphitheatre was envisioned as part of a larger initiative to welcome people to the Tse’k’wa lands, share the Dane-zaa culture, and bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples together for cultural learning, sharing, and celebration. In designing the amphitheatre, we were inspired by the shapes and forms of the cave.

The amphitheatre provides a storytelling and performance space for gathering, drumming, interpretive events, outdoor classrooms, and presentations. We incorporated natural materials into the design, focusing on native plants with traditional and medicinal uses. For example, a band of wild rose and edible berries were planted to frame the seating area and native aspen trees provide a backdrop to the amphitheatre. We sourced some of the plants from Twin Sisters, an Indigenous-owned native plant nursery.

In designing the amphitheatre, the key design consideration was aligning the space with the Dane-zaa worldview and culture. The shape of the amphitheatre emphasizes the shape of the horizon and incorporates views of the sun and moon, which are both significant in the Dane-zaa worldview. The amphitheatre’s shade sails are also meant to remind viewers of a drum, reminding them of the cultural activities that will take place in the space.

Due to the site’s archaeological significance, our design minimizes ground disturbance and works with the natural slope of the site to minimize any potential damage to archaeological evidence still below the surface. Archaeological digs are ongoing at the site.

Construction on the amphitheatre was finished last year. Since then, the site has been actively welcoming visitors to learn about the Dane-zaa and their culture.

Looking Forward: Kwanlin Dün First Nation Community and Education HUB in Whitehorse, Yukon

LEES+Associates has been working with Reimagine Architects and the Kwanlin Dün First Nation (KDFN) since 2018 on redeveloping and expanding the landscapes and spaces around their civic buildings in Whitehorse, Yukon. The KDFN consists of peoples of Southern Tutchone, Tagish, Tlingit, and other diverse backgrounds who live in the lands that define their traditional territories along the headwaters of the Chu Níikwän (known today as the Yukon River). Their name comes from what their ancestors called the area, “Kwanlin,” which means “running water through canyon” in the Southern Tutchone. The Kwanlin Dün have lived, hunted, fished, and traded in the region for millennia; they have discovered stone tools in the region dating back approximately 5000 years.  The design of their new civic buildings aims to reflect the KDFN vision of their traditional lands by preserving as much of the surrounding forest as possible as well as by incorporating water elements and natural materials.

The recently completed KDFN Kashgêk’ Building includes the nation’s chief and council offices, supportive services, and office administration for the nation. The Education HUB, currently in the detailed design phase, sits across the street and will feature an immersion play area and cultural learning outdoor classroom along with a natural play area for the KDFN’s Dusk’a Play children’s program.

The Education HUB Building blends a traditional plaza with a more park-like design approach that serves as a multi-functional gathering and events space. Blending the Yukon River into the site of the building, the dry riverbed runs from the Kashgêk’ Building and along the front of the Education HUB building. This riverbed will be fed with snowmelt and rainwater, culminating into a basin within the central courtyard and visible from the windows of the HUB’s healing room.

The Education HUB will sit across the street from the Community HUB. A circular building that starts with a single story and slowly builds to a second floor symbolizes the growing enlightenment and education that the building will enable.

The site reflects how Indigenous communities have traditionally used the land. Buffered by forest, the Education HUB highlights the larger river theme continuing from the Kashgêk’ Building across the street. Featuring a central courtyard, this Education HUB’s outdoor space will use natural materials, such as boulders, logs, and embankments, to create seating and a stage for ceremonial gatherings.   Around the outside of the building, organized by a perimeter path, there will be two play areas featuring natural elements. A cultural teaching area will provide space for traditional activities such as hide tanning, drying fish, and canoe carving.

The landscape design for these two interconnected sites aims to create a place that reflects and celebrates KDFN culture and values, responds to the needs of families, children, visitors, and staff, and is rooted in the values of language, culture, and lifelong learning.

Kwanlin Dün Community Hub Landscape Design – Project page

Looking Back: Woodlands Memorial in New Westminster, B.C.

Last summer, LEES+Associates celebrated 25 years of serving the people, parks, memorials, and cemeteries of Canada. We’re so proud of the work that we’ve done over the past quarter century that we’d like to spend some time showcasing some of our early, award-winning work.   One of LEES+Associates’ early projects was the Woodlands Memorial in New Westminster, BC, which memorialized Canadians with developmental disabilities who died while hospitalized in the Woodlands School.

The institution known as the Woodlands School was founded in 1878 as the B.C. “Provincial Lunatic Asylum.” While it closed in 1996 after long-standing allegations of abuse, the institution had an attached cemetery that held the remains of three thousand and thirty-seven people who died while living there. The cemetery had been closed to new burials in 1958 and, in 1977, the cemetery’s over 3000 grave markers were removed. Over time, the site was turned into a dumpsite and many of the gravestones were misplaced or misused. Some were used as patio stones. Only nine markers had been left in their original locations.

In 1999, the BC Self Advocacy Foundation and the B.C. Association for Community Living (BCACL) began work on planning a memorial to commemorate the patients who had died there. LEES+Associates helped guide the concept design process that took place over several years. Working with BCACL, our goal was to create a space where people could remember and celebrate the lives of the people with mental illness and developmental disabilities who lived and died in these institutions. More than 500 of the original grave markers were recovered and restored, although we still receive calls when additional grave markers are discovered.

In 2005, the BCACL recognized LEES+Associates with a Partnership Award for the firm’s dedicated and creative work on the garden. The garden design had three key elements: a structure called the “Window Too High” that reflects the experience of institution residents who could not see out of the high barred windows of the hospital; a pond that mirrors the pattern of burials at the cemetery; and memorial walls with the names of all those buried in the cemetery. Each memorial wall has one of the original grave markers from the site inset in its walls.

The Woodlands Memorial Garden reopened in 2007 at a ceremony hosted by the BC Ministry of Labour and Senior Citizens.   The site has continued to change as the area around it grows. When the memorial garden was built, there was nothing nearby except the Queen’s Park Care Centre next door. Now, the garden is completely closed in by new residential towers in New Westminster. In addition to being a space to commemorate the lives of the people who died at Woodlands, it’s now an important green space for this community. It acts as a quiet space for residents and care centre employees to enjoy a moment of contemplation.

While smaller collections of headstones had been found in the past, in 2022, over 100 more headstones were found in Langley. Working with archaeologists from Golder Associates’ Heritage Group, the headstones were catalogued and carefully moved. Many of the stones were broken and a significant amount of work needed to be done to put together names and reassemble broken grave markers. LEES then added a curved wall encompassing the path of the site to accommodate these new stones.

According to Leila Zeppelin, one of LEES’ senior landscape designers who has worked on the site, adding these new locations to the original memorial is itself an important part of the story of the Woodlands Memorial. The new discoveries of gravestones remind us that these things were lost. The beauty and the challenge of memorializing a site like Woodlands is that its story is not a clean line. It has a troubled history; the site represents that trauma, in addition to the people who are buried there.