Research
Returning to Nature: A Virtue-Based Approach to Urban Sustainability
Cities and the Environment (CATE): Vol. 18: Iss. 1, Article 7 · July 2025
This paper advocates for a pragmatic and virtue-ethics-based approach to urban sustainability initiatives that prioritizes the consideration of moral responsibility. Looking at literature on rewilding, this paper argues that the principle of ecophronesis, and the larger discipline of ecopracticology, offers a compelling framework for integrating diverse opinions on the future of conservation from different disciplines and ecological stakeholders. Ultimately, an ecophronetic approach to urban sustainability initiatives facilitates a sense of conceptual rewilding that disregards the nature-culture dualism paradigm limiting Western environmental thought and may help address the perceived alienation from nature characterized by nature-deficit disorder.
On the Ruin and Conquest of Nature and the Otherworld
AESOP Time/Less Conference Book of Abstracts · November 29, 2024
Presented at the Time/Less: Sensing, Planning, Designing in Complex Cities & Regions conference hosted by AESOP’s Planning & Complexity thematic group in Aachen, Germany.
(Full article forthcoming)
An Industrial Oasis in the False Creek Flats
Third Places & Placemaking On Urban Industrial Lands · August 19, 2024
Co-authored a chapter in Third Places & Placemaking On Urban Industrial Lands focused on the creation of a rooftop garden on an industrial building in Vancouver, B.C. Our chapter explored urban sustainability, placemaking, and industrial land use adaptation.
The New Commons: How Citizen Science Can Support Naturally Managed Areas
CityStudio Vancouver · April, 2020
This project was a collaboration between CityStudio Vancouver, the Vancouver Park Board, and Simon Fraser University, aimed at developing and applying a novel methodology for assessing ecosystem health in Vancouver’s naturally managed areas with a focus on Vanier Park. Our approach focused on creating an assessment strategy that could be used by both professionals and the general public to assess ecological health in a holistic sense. The goal of creating a broadly accessible ecological assessment was two-fold: we wanted to increase the autonomy of individuals to positively impact their environment while also distributing the responsibility of caring for these naturally managed areas over a greater number of stakeholders. Upon completion, our project was selected to be part of CityStudio's HUBBUB 14 event showcasing innovative projects related to urban planning within Vancouver, British Columbia.