Awards & Grants

2007

Toronto Urban Design Awards – Award of Excellence, Agora|Theatre – Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization
Best of Canada / Interior Design Magazine – First prize, Ravine Forecourt
Torsanlorenzo International Landscape Award:
 First Prize – Roxborough Garden One
 Second Prize – Foote’s Pond Wood
Fresh Ground award winner for multi-disciplinary works – Harbourfront Centre
Winner – Nathan Philips Square Revitalization Competition
Winner – Dublin Grounds of Remembrance (Veterans Memorial) Competition

2006

Design Exchange / National Post Silver Award – Ravine Forecourt
Winner – Stratford Market Square Competition

2005

OAA Award – Honourable Mention – City Instrument, XXI Milan Triennale
ID Magazine Design Distinction Award – Conversation Piece
Wood Design Award of Honour – Conversation Piece

2004

Design Exchange / National Post Gold Award – Conversation Piece

2003

OAA Award – Honourable Mention – Tranby Garden
Protegé Award, Toronto Arts Council
Canada Council for the Arts – Travel Grant

2002

Canada Council for the Arts – mid-career grant to create Conversation of Views

2000

Emerging Voices Award by the Architecture League of New York
Canada Council for the Arts – Travel Grant

1998

Canada Council for the Arts – Travel Grant

Canada

2007

Emily Norris, "Modern Treehouse" Gardening Life, Summer 2007

Lesley Johnston. ed, HYBRIDS: Reshaping the Contemporary Garden in Metis, p.130-133, Blue Imprint, 2007

Sheri Craig, "Best of Canada Design Competition" Canada Interiors, July/August 2007.

Lisa Rapoport, "Greener P" TSA Newsletter, Summer 2007

Terry Pender, "Squaring Off Over Design" Kitchener Waterloo Record, 30 June 2007

David Steiner, "Back to Square One" AZURE, June 2007

Kelvin Browne, "Making an Entrance" AZURE, June 2007

Ian Chodikoff, "Editorial + Announcement" Canadian Architect, April 2007

John Barber, “Changes for the ‘great play space’”, The Globe and Mail, 21 February 2007

Rob Granatstein, “Making it hip to be square”, Toronto Sun, 21 February 2007

James Cowan, “Visions of the final four”, National Post, 21 February 2007

Christopher Hume, “Squaring the future of Nathan Phillips”, Toronto Star, 21 February 2007

Carolyn Leitch, “Creating a matchless kitchen”, Globe and Mail, 9 February 2007

2006

Kelvin Browne, “Subtlety, simplicity define Branch”, National Post, 10 August 2006

Ian Chodikioff, “Banff Session 2006: New Modes of Practice”, Canadian Architect, May 2006

Trevor Boddy, “Banff Session 2006: Pastoral Inclinations”, Canadian Architect, May 2006

Marjorie Harris, “Open Concept”, Gardening Life, May 2006

Elaine Carey, “Changing colours define garden”, The Toronto Star, 11 February 2006

Elaine Carey, “Apartment yard redesign ties into adjoining ravine”, The Toronto Star, 14 January 2006

2005

Elaine Carey, “Garage rebuilt to open up living space”, The Toronto Star, 3 December 2005

Carolyn Leitch, “A Backyard That Stands Front and Centre”, The Globe & Mail, 4 November 2005

Ian Chodikoff, “Ground Plane”, Canadian Architect, July 2005

Marjorie Harris, “A Room That Renews”, The Globe & Mail, 2 July 2005 link>

Kathryn Hayward, “Pastoral Suite”, Saturday Night, Summer 2005

Tim McKeough, “This chair really rocks”, The Globe & Mail, 21 May 2005 link>

Kelvin Browne, “un_seated explores the concept of chairs”, National Post, 12 May 2005

Craille Maguire Gillies, “Reinventing the Garden”, EnRoute, April 2005

Lisa Rapoport, “Pedestrian Landscapes: Why do they have to be so pedestrian?”, TSA Newsletter, Winter 2005

Jessica Johnson & Sheree-Lee Olson, “From whimsical wall coverings to questionable couture, we look back at the best and worst of 2004”, Globe and Mail, 1 January 2005
“Plant Architect Inc.'s lovely installation at the 2004 Interior Design Show, called Conversation Piece, reminded us where the heart of the home is. Hint: It's not the media room.” link>

2004

Jordan MacInnis, “PLANT Architect Inc.”, Designlines / AZURE, Fall 2004

Amy Verner, “Wealth management”, Canadian House and Home, June 2004

Jordan MacInnis, “Delivering the Goods”, AZURE, May/June 2004

Mara Subotincic, “2004 IDS best in show”, Style at Home, May 2004

Julie Allin, “Toronto the bene”, Canadian Interiors, March/April 2004

Jane Gadd, “Hot stuff: New design spices up tired kitchen”, Globe and Mail, 19 March 2004

Alex Newman, “A few stars shine at Design Show”, Toronto Star, 19 February 2004
“The possibilities for interaction – and for dreaminess – are endless in a place such as this. … Think Chekhov in Muskoka and you get the idea.”

Tralee Pearce, “Money can't buy you love”, Globe and Mail, 14 February 2004

Danny Sinopoli, “The Next Wave: Who’s Who”, Gardening Life, January/February 2004

2003

Aurora, Milan Triennale, April 2003, Real-Time Gallery, Toronto, Summer 2003.

Andrew King, Jocelyne Belisle, Lawrence Eisler, Building/art pp 68–71, University of Calgary Press, 2003

“Wells Street Bathroom”, Wood Design and Building, #26 Winter 2003

Nyla Matuk, “Garden of Earthly Distortions”, Canadian Architect, October 2003

Kenneth Hayes, “Nature Talk”, AZURE, September/October 2003

“Green Talk: People”, Gardening Life, August/September 2003

Katherine Ashenburg, “Green Peace”, Toronto Life, August 2003

Marjorie Harris, “Three Outdoor Rooms for Summer”, Globe and Mail, 2 August 2003

“Tranby Garden Award” Perspectives, Summer 2003

Craig MacBride, “An Exploration of Landscape”, Oakville Beaver, 11 July, 2003

Elaine Hujer “Savour Inventive Conversation of Views” The Hamilton Spectator, 5 July 2003

Kenneth Hayes, PLANT: Conversation of Views, Oakville Galleries, 2003

“A Tiny Toronto Backyard Transformed” and “Tranby Garden Wins Accolades”,
The Globe & Mail, 9 May 2003

Sarah Murdoch, “Next to Nature”, House & Home, May 2003

Melanie Chambers, “Canadians Remake Milan” AZURE, Mar/Apr 2003

ElaineHujer “Savour Inventive Conversation of Views” The Hamilton Spectator, July 5, 2003

2002

Georgie Binks, “Makeover the Patient Way”, The National Post, 7 September 2002

Rachel Gotlieb, New Landscape: Design Transforms Canadian Furniture, p18, Design Exchange 2002

Tralee Pearce, “The Paper Chaise: reduce, reuse, recline”, The Globe & Mail, 9 February 2002

News spot: Superlegible furniture, Fashion Television the Channel, February 2002

2001

Hubert Beringer, Chambres Vertes/Garden Rooms, pp. 28-34, Metis, 2001
“Le Jardin du repos follows in the tradition of arranging a garden to provide definite viewpoints, a technique generally reserved for larger-scale projects but here adapted to the domestic scale. Through this game of transposition, it draws visitors’ attention to the potential for relation and sensory pleasures that this variety of viewpoints can bring even in a small space.”

Beth Kapusta, “Urban Offshoots” AZURE, September/October, 2001
“The strength of the design lies in their solid architectural frameworks made to accommodate the desires and habits of the clients, and in their ability to transform and evolve over time.
Both designs bring a refreshingly rigorous approach to the challenge of landscape design combining utility with a sense of poetry. Arcadian notions are quietly displaced by austere modernist lines that take their cues from the urban context. Both gardens can as easily bring the city into the backyard for a good dinner, as they can allow one to escape the city to a quiet, solitary place.”

Rose-Marie Arbour “Festival International de Jardin a Metis” Espace 54. Winter 2000/2001
“Nothing more to do than to touch, feel, enter, walk, listen and even taste. This solicitation of the spectator’s senses and participation was a direct response to the issue of the spectator/work relationship. However, these installations were not only autonomous, expressive and meaningful works, they were also places for the creators to experiment with materials uncommon to architectural landscape projects.”

2000

Diane Bos “Jardins de Métis”, AZURE, November 2000

Charles-Antoine Rouyer “Quite Contrary” Canadian Architect, October 2000

Dallas Hong “Plant: After Sweet Farm” Trace Four – University of British Columbia Journal,
Summer 2000

Gary Michael Dault, “The Garden as Art” The Globe & Mail, August 12, 2000
“Like any other form of art Le jardin du repos poses and strives to answer some big questions: So what exactly is a domestic scene? What does it really feel like to be private? "We’re simply trying to heighten people’s experiences." Which is what all art tries to do.”

Rachel Rafelman “Hotbeds of Ideas” The National Post, July 22, 2000
“PLANT’s site contains a field of artemisia that blows in the breeze like waves on the river, a chaise longue made of stones and shells, a hay-bale fence and a bench made of stacked firewood, all of which encourage visitors to put their feet up and look for new ways of seeing.”

Lisa Rapoport, “InsideOutside” Book Review, AZURE, March 2000

1998

Nyla Matuk, “Unique Interventions: Gardens of Delight”,
Canadian Architect, August 1998
“What emerges at Sweet Farm, as in Goldworthy’s work, is a hybrid landscape that negotiates between the raw and the refined.”

Christopher Hume, “Plant Partners Nurture Nature” The Toronto Star, March 7, 1998
“The site then becomes the sum of its history, not a spoiled Eden crying out to be restored to its original glory. PLANT wanted to celebrate the site, not lament its fall from grace. If the planet can’t be healed, at least it can be nursed.”

Pamela Young, “A Private Park Pulls Together” The Globe & Mail, March 7, 1998
“Their interventions are refreshingly unobtrusive. Instead of creating monuments to their own cleverness, the architects have consistently attempted to design structures that enhance one’s appreciation of the landscape and awareness of that landscape’s transitions.”

1996

Beth Kapusta, “Interior Architecture: Women’s Health”, Canadian Architect October 1996 –
Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Project (Susan Speigel Architect Inc., Lisa Rapoport Project Captain, Mary Tremain Designer)

Lisa Rapoport, “Hide and Seek: The Daycare Game” Canadian Architect, May 1996

Lisa Rapoport, “Kati Blom Lecture Review,” RAIC Journal

1990

Christopher Pommer “Forgotten Moderns 2: Girl Guides of Canada Headquarters”,
Splinter No. 3, Fall 1990

Christopher Pommer “Forgotten Moderns 1: St. Lawrence Starch Staff House”
Splinter No. 2, Spring 1990

Lisa Rapoport, “Design for an Herb Garden, Ronciglione, Italy,” UC Review, Autumn 1990

1989

Lisa Rapoport, Kim Storey, Karen Chisven “Daycare in the Workplace: 3 Projects”
TSA Newsletter 1989

USA

2007

Brad Kessler, "Weekend Garden: Gorgeous Gorge" Metropolitan Home, October 2007

Helena Grdadolnik, "Rethinking Nathan Phillips Square" Competition Magazine, Summer 2007

2005

Don Griffith, “Conversation Piece”, The Wood Design Awards – Wood Design & Building, Autumn 2005

“Conversation Piece”, ID Annual Design Review, July/August 2005

2002

Virginia Small, “Garden Architecture”, Fine Gardening, May/June 2002
“The strong lines and structural simplicity of this design provide a well-defined framework for the backyard space. A once dreary area now feels intimate and inviting.”

2001

Jane Amidon, Radical Landscapes pp 164-168, 180-181, Thames and Hudson, 2001
On Le Jardin du Repos: “The garden is a curated display of hand-crafted moments.
Local materials, distilled and re-presented in über-human proportions, cause visitors to pause and evaluate oft-ignored ingredients of the landscape with a level of attention typically reserved for known objects.”
On The Meadows Revisited: “Focusing on the creation of meaningful dialogue between existing visual and spatial characteristics of the land (many of which are culturally ‘invisible’) and outlying context, location and geologically specific constructs help visitors to understand site conditions?. Simply put, PLANT’s intention is to provide all parties with a different way of looking at and evaluating the infamous urban wetland. The sometimes-jarring juxtaposition of nature with the flotsam of human existence addresses changing notions of economic, aesthetic and public valuation.”

Heather Hammatt, “A Contemporary Conversion”, Landscape Architecture, September 2001
“The 18 x 22-foot courtyard landscape of the Tranby Garden flouts the gardenesque quality of more traditional Victorian landscape design. Instead, the garden incorporates clean, simple lines and materials to create a functional, contemporary outdoor living space.”

2000

Gavin Keeney “Post-Industrial Chic: PLANT and D.I.R.T” Oculus, October 2000

Raul Barreneche “The New Edens of Gaspé” New York Times, June 29, 2000

Gavin Keeney “Reclaiming the Meadowlands” Oculus, May/June 2000
“The blinds, blinkers and calibrated masts that frame and mark specific areas are interpretative environmental artworks calculated to alter the experience of the place by provoking historical reverie.”

Paul Makovsky “New Architecture Faces the Future” Metropolis, April 2000
(upon being named “Emerging Architecture Firm” by the Architecture League of New York)

1998

Philip Arcidi, “Into the Woods” Architecture, July 1998

Paul Bennett, “Sweet Intervention” Landscape Architecture, April 1998

International

2006

Alejandro Bahamón, Small Private Gardens, p. 88–91, teNeues, 2006

Tim Richardson, “Designers: Lisa Rapoport, Mary Tremain, Chris Pommer”, Gardens Illustrated, July 2006

2004

Zoe Deleuil, “Breaking new ground”, Gardens Illustrated, June 2004

Thomas Klein, “Interior Design Show Toronto”, Frame, May/June 2004

2003

Paco Asensio, ed. Garden Design, pp. 178–185, 215–221, 259–265, LOFT Publications, 2003

David Stevens, Small Spaces Gardens, p. 89, Conran Octopus, 2003

“Garden Prospects” Garden Design Journal, October/November 2003

“Zimmer mit Dusche”, Architectur & Wohnen, August/September 2003

Ulrich Timm, “Wohnzimmer für Schöne Sommertage” Häuser, March 2003

Gilberto Oneto, “Minimalismo Domestico” Ville Giardini, January 2003

2002

Edwin Heathcote ed., “We Like Junk”, Furniture and Architecture – Architectural Design, July 2002

Rebecca Cattano, “All Inclusive Package”, Garden Design Journal, June/July 2002
“…The architecture in their large landscapes is visually more subtle, and extremely intense in the small urban gardens. Both are intended to be surprising. The larger projects absorb the interventions – making the discovery a delight. In the small gardens, high detail, layering, transforming materials, reflection and shadows are used to intensify the experience – the subtlety being in discovering change.”

Juliet Roberts, “Writers’ Retreat”, Gardens Illustrated, May 2002

Superlegible, Creativebase Design Wire #6, online magazine, February 2002

2001

Leone Gribotto “Senza Soffitto” Ville Giardini, December 2001

Samantha Boddy “Far Out” Gardens Illustrated, January 2001

2000

Steve Hare “PLANT – Le Jardin de Repos” ZOO [Book/DVD], November 2000

Gilberto Oneto, “Utopia Canadese” Ville Giardini, November 2000
"…a stimulating mental exercise for both its makers and its observers."

Jill Billington, “Colour in the Clearings” The Garden Design Journal, Autumn 2000

Chris Young “Canadian Beauty” Landlines UK, September 2000

Tim Richardson, “Putting on a Good Show” Country Life UK, August 10, 2000

1999

Tony Hiss, “Increasing the Volume”, Gardens Illustrated, February 1999,
“…the senses are sharpened by the perfect balance of artifice and nature.
The sweetness of Sweet farm is that is fully displays the astounding beauty of this landscape. The discreteness of Sweet Farm is the subtle way it blends reverence and ruthlessness, to make us aware of our kinship with a forest that is busy healing itself, and with the generations of people who passed through the woods, using it, abusing it, and then vanishing, leaving it to its own devices.”

1998

James P. Deene, “Plant Formation” Architectural Review, July 1998

Laura Bossi, “Sweet Farm” Domus, April 1998

“Kitchens–Transformation” More Magazine NZ, June 1988
(Cook, Hitchcock and Sargisson Architects, Mary Tremain Designer, and Project Captain)

Exhibitions

Nathan Phillips Square Finalist Exhibition, City Hall, Toronto link>
Best of Canada 2007, Design Exchange, Toronto

Stratford Market Square Competition Exhibition, Stratford, Canada link>
Peripheral Sitings, installation as part of Sited group exhibition, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, September 2006

2005

un_seated, experimental furniture exhibit, New York, May 2005 link>

2004

Conservation Piece, Table and Benches, Mercer Living 2004: Better Living, Mercer Union, Toronto

Conversation Piece, Concept Interior, ID Show, Toronto, Canada, February 12 to 15 2004

2003

A Conversation of Views, Gairloch Gardens, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Canada (open 2003–2004)

Aurora Canadese – New Dawn: Canadian Designers in Milan, Juried ideas competition for objects of sound, light, and colour tracing an itinerary in Milan, Milan Triennale, April 2003, Real-Time Gallery, Toronto, Summer 2003.

2002

Superlegible Furniture: New Landscape: Design Transforms Canadian Furniture, Design Exchange, Toronto, January to July 2002, IIDEX, Fall 2002, and Canada House, London, England, September 2002 to February 2003

2001

ArtCity: Juried exhibition of critical urban architecture from emerging studios, Calgary, September, 2001; University of Alberta, Winter 2001/2002

Urban Beach Landscape Installation, The Interior Design Show, Toronto

2000

Le Jardin du Repos, at the Festival international de l’art des jardins contemporains
Les Jardins de Métis, Grand-Métis, Québec – experimental garden exposition, June to October 2000

1998

Sweet Farm 1994–1997, PLANT solo exhibition: Ballenford books on architecture, Toronto, February–April 1998; University of Waterloo, May to June 1998; University of Manitoba, University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, Dalhousie University, January to December 2000

Juried exhibition Canadian Practice: The Work of Sixteen Architects
Canada House & RIBA, London, England, May to July 1998;
Manifesto, Edinburgh Architecture & Design Festival, October 1998

1994

Street Kids International Kite Auction & Exhibition, Toronto
Redefining Paradise Exhibition – miniature gardens, Harbourfront, Toronto

1989

Artspark Installation, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto

1987

Quonset Huts on the River Styx
Bombshelter Design Competition and Exhibition: AIA Headquarters, San Francisco, Chicago, L.A.