Nina-Marie Lister, Principal, MCIP, RPP, Affiliate ASLA
Nina-Marie Lister is the Founding Principal of plandform studio. A Registered Professional Planner (MCIP, RPP) with a background in landscape ecology and environmental planning, Lister’s career has spanned public and private sectors over 20 years, working with developers and designers, policy makers and planners. From the City of Toronto to the Ontario Ministry of Environment to Canada’s National Roundtable on Environment and Economy, her work is known for creative, effective and accessible integration of science and policy with planning and design. In 2006, she launched her creative studio practice to explore the relationship between landscape, ecology, and urbanism through an integrated design-research approach. Her research, teaching and professional practice work in synergy, and are currently focused on the resilience of landscape infrastructure and ecological processes within urbanising regions.
At Ryerson University in Toronto, Lister is Associate Professor and Associate Director of Urban + Regional Planning. She is currently Visiting Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape + Design. From 2009-2013, she was was Visiting Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. In 2012, Lister was named Senior Scholar with the Centre for Humans and Nature. She is co-editor of Projective Ecologies(with Chris Reed, Harvard GSD and ACTAR Press, 2014) and theThe Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for Sustainability (with David Waltner-Toews and the late James Kay, Columbia University Press, 2008), and author of more than 30 professional practice and scholarly publications. These include contributions to Ecological Urbanism (Harvard GSD with Lars Müller Publishers 2010) and Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press 2008, winner of the J.B. Jackson Book Prize). She recently served as Guest Editor of the Journal of Ecological Restoration for a special issue on landscape connectivity (Dec. 2012).
Her work has been featured in several planning and design exhibitions, including the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the Toronto Design Exchange, and the Van Alen Institute in New York. Lister served as the Professional Advisor for the 2010 ARC International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition, which developed the concept designs for a wildlife bridge to be built at the Vail Pass in Colorado. The concepts designs are part of a public exhibition on wildlife, infrastructure and urbanism: XING – (Re) Connecting Landscapes which launched in Toronto at Evergreen Brick Works in 2013 and opens in Calgary in 2014.
