Celebrating the Award-Winning La Semilla Project: A Catalyst for Environmental Justice and Climate Resiliency

We are thrilled to announce that the La Semilla project team has received a Merit Award in the Unbuilt Category at the 2023 AIA San Diego Design Awards. This recognition is a testament to the vision, dedication, and ingenuity of the team behind this groundbreaking neighborhood park located in San Ysidro, California, near the US/Mexico border. With the client, Casa Familiar Inc., Architect, Workshop B Architects, Inc., and Benjamin Arcia, M.U.D., of McCullough as Landscape Architect, the La Semilla project has become a shining example of climate resiliency and environmental justice.

La Semilla, meaning "the seed" in Spanish, symbolizes the numerous efforts of the park. Just like a seed holds the potential to grow into a mighty tree, this project serves as a launchpad for a neighborhood-scale movement focused on environmental justice and climate resiliency. Spanning over a 7,000 square foot lot, La Semilla not only functions as a demonstration area but also as a community connector, seamlessly integrating with Casa's Community Land Trust (CLT) properties on the Cultural Corridor. This corridor serves as the vibrant heart of San Ysidro, bringing together art, community, and greening initiatives.

At its core, La Semilla incorporates a permaculture program that not only produces food but also shares ecologically sound gardening practices with local residents. By connecting people to the living world around them and inspiring healthier food choices, the park becomes a catalyst for redefining consumption patterns. Visitors to La Semilla experience the joy of sinking their teeth into an organic, home-grown tomato, which often sparks a newfound passion for gardening. Beyond food production, the park serves as a showcase for affordable resiliency strategies. Through architectural components, site features, and special programming, it demonstrates off-the-shelf products, home modifications, and backyard installations that save money, energy, water, and time for the community. By presenting these solutions at a domestic scale, La Semilla empowers neighbors to embrace sustainable practices and embark on their own sustainability journeys.

Sustainability Through Urban Park Development

The project's goals encompass fighting climate change in a meaningful way, promoting affordable and low-maintenance gardening and construction practices, providing on-site photovoltaic panels for electric vehicle charging stations, and leveraging the proximity to a light-rail station to encourage active transportation as part of a multi-modal transportation strategy. La Semilla acknowledges the pressing need for safer food and cleaner air in the local community. While the park itself may not be able to feed everyone or single-handedly mitigate air pollution, it serves as a living laboratory for techniques and products that neighbors can affordably implement in their own homes. By disseminating knowledge and skills, the project enlists neighbors in a decentralized, egalitarian effort to transform consumption patterns and improve local air quality. The park's design also considers the abundance of off-street parking spaces in the neighborhood, envisioning their potential as areas for growing food or air-remediating plants. Moreover, La Semilla promotes alternative modes of transportation to reduce environmental impact, emphasizing the importance of walkability and accessibility.

In addition to its environmental and resiliency objectives, La Semilla aims to create a neighborhood park that caters to the daily rhythms, practical needs, and year-round celebrations of the community.

As part of the ongoing transformation of an alley into San Ysidro's pedestrian-oriented Cultural Corridor, the park acts as a catalyst for this process.

The surrounding neighborhood, although underserved in several aspects, benefits from a chain of existing parks that are highly utilized and cherished by residents. La Semilla builds upon this foundation, expanding the network of green spaces to further advance the pursuit of environmental justice.

The Merit Award for La Semilla recognizes the significant impact it will have on fostering environmental justice, promoting climate resiliency, and empowering the community. This accolade is a testament to the dedication and collaboration of the project team, whose innovative design and commitment to sustainability have set a new standard in urban park development. The La Semilla project serves as an inspiring example for communities worldwide, demonstrating the power of collective action and shared spaces in creating a more sustainable and equitable future.

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Benjamin Arcia Presents at World Design Capital Event | Transborder Landscapes | San Diego x Tijuana

Join us in revisiting a panel discussion held at Woodbury University, where established practitioners gathered to explore the intersection of design and our unique border cities: San Diego and Tijuana. In this captivating presentation, McCullough's Senior Associate, Benjamin Arcia, ASLA, MUD, shares his insights and ideas on the transformative power of urban design and landscape architecture in our region.

In his presentation titled "Separated/Together: Sketches of a Transborder Landscape," Benjamin Arcia invites you on a journey of imagination and exploration. Through vivid sketches and astute observations, he unveils a vision of what our streets and open spaces can become, considering the intricate tapestry of ecosystems, microclimates, and social dynamics that shape our surroundings.

Transborder Landscapes Course at Woodbury University

Transborder Landscapes Programme is a three-year long-term research on the US/MX Transborder Landscapes, addressing complex socio-political, climate and territorial questions.

Transborder Landscapes examines the Tijuana River juxtaposed between US and Mexico. San Diego and Tijuana face contrasting economies, cultures, and policies, despite the shared landscape. This dual governance led to the demise of the river landscape because of largely opposing agendas between the two nations.

In response to the socio-economic impact the landscape poses, Transborder Landscapes looks at the Tijuana River, an interface between San Diego and Tijuana, to inform policy through design interventions, cartography, and agency through the local communities. The course will look at the geomorphological process of the region and the methods in which each country manages the river. The stark differences between the two countries will be examined at the local level and the impacts it poses through its landscape.

McCullough was proud to sponsor this event, and we look forward to more World Design Capital related events.

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Designing for Tomorrow, Today - Lessons Learned from ULI's Climate Resilience Summit and Spring Meeting

Andrew Schlesinger, Associate at McCullough, recently attended the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) 2023 Resilience Summit and Spring Meeting in Toronto. In this article, Andrew delves into lessons learned at the Summit and reflects on key takeaways with Lindsay Brugger, AIA, Vice President of Resilience and Urban Resilience Director at ULI.  

The Importance of Investing in Resiliency Today

For those still skeptical of the effectiveness of resilience measures, consider this: imagine a commercial real estate property management company making a proactive decision to invest in more shade trees and shade structures as one aspect of resilience. By providing much-needed shade to alleviate the scorching heat of summer days, this foresight will greatly enhance the comfort and well-being of site users down the road and may reduce the building’s energy load.

Now, imagine the same property owner decides not to invest in a redesign to keep their property comfortable. Which space do you want to be in when we are experiencing a heat wave in 2035?

Resilience as a Multidisciplinary and Solutions-Based Approach

Lindsay Brugger, AIA, Vice President of Resilience and Urban Resilience Director at ULI and Andrew Schlesinger, Associate at McCullough

On Monday, May 15th, ULI hosted its Resilience Summit to kick off their Spring Meeting. Much like “sustainability,” the term resilience is a loaded concept. Rooted in design, resilience works to integrate solutions to current and future climate challenges into our spaces and places so we can thrive despite the climate challenges of our era and eras yet to come. (Think of more shade, less water usage, defensible fire spaces, stormwater runoff and sea level protection; the list goes on…)

With this concept of designed adaptation as its crux, the implementation of resilience presents a site specific, systems-based approach to addressing formidable global design challenges. The Resilience Summit brought together a diverse mix of design and development professionals to share best practices, lessons learned, and to strategize how to prepare buildings, cities, and communities most effectively for the impacts of climate change.     

Key Takeaways from ULI’s Resilience Summit 2023:

Providing the closing remarks at the Resilience Summit, Lindsay Brugger, AIA, summarized the event with five key takeaways. Here, we list Lindsay’s major concepts that we as designers, developers, and citizens need to be considering as we influence the built environment of our respective spaces and places:

1. Climate change is not a future problem – it’s a now problem

We often talk of years like 2030, 2050, and 2100 when on the topic of climate change. But the climate has already changed and continues to change. As designers and developers, we need to design for a range of future climate scenarios to ensure a prosperous tomorrow.

Elizabeth Yee, Executive Vice President of Programs at the Rockefeller Foundation presenting at the ULI Resilience Summit

To do this, we need to familiarize ourselves with the data projections that scientists, insurance companies, and others are publishing related to our cities and regions - 5, 10, 20 years down the road. This data needs to influence how we view our sites today.

As we study the trends and innovations of professional designers and developers, we also need to learn from community-led activists, who hold valuable lived experience and are generating their own cost-effective solutions to addressing climate change in their neighborhoods.

To learn more, visit Environmental Justice and Real Estate | ULI Knowledge Finder

2. Climate change is a threat multiplier that demands “progress over perfection”

Not only is climate change here today, but it’s also magnifying the challenges before us. From disasters that are increasing in frequency and intensity, to the billions of dollars in investment that we are losing in worker productivity due to extreme heat events, climate change is a compounding threat that will increasingly affect nearly every aspect of our lives.

We need economic, social, and environmental resilience to address the cascading impacts of climate change and need to prioritize strategies that offer co-benefits, paying dividends even on non-disaster days. There is no magic bullet for the multifaceted challenge of climate change and there is no time to waste. We need to lead with our best attempted solutions to these complex problems even if we risk occasionally getting it wrong in the process. We must prioritize progress over perfection.

To learn more, visit Greening Buildings for Healthier People | ULI Knowledge Finder

3. The importance of data and investing for multiple wins

Insurance companies are already leveraging AI and data analytics to predictively determine high risk areas and investors are similarly looking to better understand long-term climate risk and projected future site conditions.

Decarbonizing our built environment will help to stave off the worst-case scenarios of climate change. But we can’t stop there. Making real progress will require a balanced approach of combining the concepts of climate change mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and climate change adaptation (planning for living within our changing climate).

We need to be pragmatic with our objectives and work to integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts into all our scopes and scales of design and development, as informed by data and successful investment.

 To learn more, visit How to Choose, Use, and Better Understand Climate-Risk Analytics | ULI Knowledge Finder

4. The need for scalable innovation

As we seek this balance, it’s impossible to dismiss the sheer scope of our climate challenges. We need scalable innovation and solutions to tackle climate change effectively.

Learning from the best practices of the Resilience Summit, we should have our goals set high for advancing portfolio-wide risk reduction. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) assets may surpass $50 trillion by 2025 and we're already seeing innovative, scalable models of development that address multiple ESG goals. For example, this development creates new home for Toronto Public Library Branch (building.ca), which describes a model for social infrastructure that is now being replicated across the city.

This progress is inspiring, and we will need to continually scale up our solutions to meet the demands of climate change and adaptation in our built environment.

Read more here: Social Spaces Resilient Communities - Social Infrastructure as a Climate Strategy for Real Estate | ULI Knowledge Finder

5. The importance of partnership

We simply can’t do this alone. Each of us in our respective disciplines and professional circles need to leverage our strengths and collaborate with others.

Every single session at the Resilience Summit touched on this need for partnership. Whether partnerships between philanthropic, public, and private entities, or between developers, local governments, and community members, these collaborations have the potential to create jobs, accelerate investment, and catalyze the transformation of spaces and places.

There is always room for new partnerships. For example, ULI's Water Wise initiative includes a coalition on drought resilient development that brings together the public and private sector.

Applying Lessons Learned from ULI San Diego / Tijuana + McCullough

Chris Clark, Executive Director, ULI San Diego/Tijuana and Tatiana Perez, Senior Associate, ULI San Diego/ Tijuana with chapter members celebrating at the ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto

There is the famous Chinese Proverb: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.” This adage holds incredibly true, especially when connected with resilience and climate design work.

Around the world and even in San Diego, shade, and strategies for cooling cities are becoming priority number one for resilience agendas. Whether in Sierra Leone under the guidance of their Chief Heat Officer to new permitting requirements under San Diego’s Climate Action Plan to provide shade tree canopy coverage of at least 50% of all public right of way hardscaping area, cities are taking adaptation to climate change seriously, and for good reason. ULI created an in-depth report titled, Scorched, on the topic of managing extreme heat.

At McCullough, we are integrating resilient design strategies into every project. From selecting climate-ready trees that will thrive today and in the future despite hotter, drier conditions, to using more efficient drip irrigation methods, water recycling and reuse, or promoting “softscape” materials over hardscaping, we are working to prioritize both climate change mitigation and adaptation through our design.

We are working with our clients and project collaborators to reduce our negative climate impacts and to maximize regenerative and solutions-based design.

We are also implementing the use of Carbon Positive Path Tool, designed by landscape architects to allow project managers to track the carbon footprint and sequestration potential of proposed projects.  

Next Steps for ULI San Diego / Tijuana and McCullough

Working with our collaborators, McCullough will work to guide our clients and stakeholders to make responsible stewardship decisions for the long-term. We remain committed to leveraging landscape architecture to make the greatest positive impact on our environment – both in adaptation and mitigation – one project site at a time.

For those interested in learning more about resilience efforts in San Diego and Tijuana, here are a few resources and events to put onto your radar.

First, everyone should read San Diego’s 2022 Climate Action Plan, which lists the strategies used for a more sustainable place to live, work, and play.

Second, ULI San Diego / Tijuana will be hosting their Bi-National Resilience Summit (in partnership with World Design Capital) in April 2024. This event will bring together leaders in design and development to share best practices, innovations and insights into resilience and sustainability for our region. The summit will explore how professionals and communities on both sides of the border are addressing issues such as water resources, defensible fire requirements, heat and shade management, reuse of materials, and the latest in renewable energy and low-carbon building methods.

Mark your calendar for April 2024 and check back with https://sandiego-tijuana.uli.org/ for more information. We look forward to seeing you there!

Lastly, the Urban Land Institute will be hosting their 5th Annual ULI Resilience Summit in New York City, NY on April 12, 2024! Read more at www.uli.org/resiliencesummit.

Additional Resilience Resources:

To learn more about ULI’s Urban Resilience Program and inspiring case studies, please visit links below:

• Urban Resilience Program website: uli.org/resilience

• Major Reports and Resources: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/about/reports/

• City Resilience Strategies: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/city-resilience-strategies/

• Climate Risk and Real Estate Investment: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/climate-risk-and-real-estate-investment/

• Drought Resilience: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/drought-resilience/

• Flood Preparedness: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/flood-preparness/

• Heat Mitigation: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/extreme-heat-2/

• Wildfire Resilience: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/wildfire-risk/

Interactive Library of Case Studies:

• Home - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

• Firebreak: Wildfire Resilience Strategies for Real Estate - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

• Scorched: Extreme Heat and Real Estate - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

• Resilient Parks and Open Spaces - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

• Green Infrastructure - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

• Buildings Prepared for Sea Level Rise - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

• Policies Enhancing Resilience - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

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Landscape Architecture Firm is Risk that Paid Off

San Diego Business Journal

By Ray Huard

May 31, 2023

DESIGN: McCullough Working on Big Local, Int’l Projects

When David McCullough opened his own landscape architecture firm in 1999, he took a big risk.

His wife, Catherine McCullough, was pregnant, they had just bought a house, and the firm was just David, working out of a small office in the Gaslamp Quarter on 5th Avenue near the San Diego Convention Center.

He’d been working for another landscape architecture firm.

“I decided, you know what, I can do this on my own,” McCullough said. “It all worked out, fortunately.”

Catherine McCullough took a risk of her own, giving up a lucrative marketing career to join her husband in 2001.

David McCullough, ASLA, PLA
Founder and Principal Landscape Architect
McCullough Landscape Architecture

“We had our first child and a mortgage, and we already had taken a huge leap, so this was a second big leap to try to run a business together,” McCullough said. “In retrospect, I look back at it now and think, ‘Oh my God, what was I thinking?’”

Catherine McCullough took over the business end of the firm as CEO in 2002, and from those risky, early days, McCullough has grown, moving its headquarters to Hillcrest and expanding its staff to 15.

So, too, have the projects it does, reaching as far away as China.

McCullough Landscape is working with Gafcon as the landscape architect on the first two phases of Zizhu High Tech Industrial City – an 800-acre community in South Shanghai surrounded by a river and canals.

The first two phases include a lake, a commercial district, hotel, family entertainment park, arboretum and artist community.

As described by McCullough, the firm was asked to study the gardens that will surround a business hotel. The installation, known as the Purple Garden, will be on an island at the perimeter of Purple Lake, spanning nearly 100 acres and connecting both sides of the Huangpu River with a pedestrian-focused park system.

“As the landscape architect, we’re the ones dealing with everything that has to do with the site and stitching together the various architectural pieces with what we call the public realm,” McCullough said.

Closer to home, McCullough Landscape in 2013 was chosen as the landscape architect for San Diego State University.

The firm also is working with the City of Santee and architect Mark Steele, founder and president of the MW Steele Group, on the design of an arts district and updating the city’s specific plan.

The firm also is working with Toll Brothers and the North County Transit District on the redevelopment of the 10.20-acre site of the Oceanside Transit Center.

“It’s just an incredibly exciting project for me, because I just feel that Oceanside is such an incredible community,” said McCullough, who says he sort of fell into a career in landscape architecture.

In high school, McCullough wanted to be an architect. But when he got to Ventura College, a career counselor said that architecture was listed as an impacted program, meaning that there were lots of people wanting to take architecture courses. The counselor suggested landscape architecture as an alternative.

“My grandmother asked me why I wanted to mow lawns for the rest of my life. I had no idea what it was. Landscape architect wasn’t even a term for me,” McCullough said.

He quickly learned through an introductory course he took at Ventura College, before transferring to California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture.

“It’s such a broad profession,” McCullough said. “There are so many aspects. You have the ability to sort of design the profession the way you want it.”

McCullough said that the governing philosophy of landscape architecture has long been to preserve nature, but how that is interpreted has shifted.

“In the past, the way we would preserve nature is, we would put up fences around it and tell human beings to stay out,” McCullough said. “We’ve learned how to protect it. We’re pretty good at that as human beings. The next part is how do we become part of it in a symbiotic way.”

McCullough Landscape Architecture

Founded: 1999
Headquarters: Hillcrest
CEO and President: Catherine McCullough, FSMPS, CPSM
Business: Landscape Architecture + Urban Design
Employees: 16
Website: www.McCulloughLA.com
Contact: 619-296-3150

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Welcome to the Team, Will!

McCullough is pleased to welcome Will Glockner to the team as our Summer Intern.

Will is an accomplished professional with a background in Engineering Psychology (Human Factors Engineering) and Biomedical Engineering from Tufts University. He possesses a diverse skillset spanning various areas such as ergonomics, psychology, design, engineering, product development, research, sales automation, UI/UX, and front-end coding. Will recently left the tech industry to pursue his passion for Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona and is concurrently enrolled in UC Davis’ CE Program studying Oenology and Vineyard Management.

In the world of Landscape Architecture, Will has already been the lead designer for a project with the San Elijo Conservancy where he designed a wetland restoration and demonstration native garden. He is thrilled to be interning with McCullough Landscape Architecture to further hone his skillset. When Will is out of the office, he enjoys utilizing his extensive knowledge in Engineering, Psychology, Oenology, and Landscape Architecture to design Destination Agricultural Sites that utilize existing, natural feedback systems to restore degraded ecosystems and encourage wholistic farm/ranch management. Through this work, he hopes to enhance the aesthetics, profitability, resilience, and sustainability of small agricultural operations across the United States. 

A little-known fact about Will is that he has his PADI AOW (advanced open water) certificate with NITROX and enjoys spearfishing and diving around the globe.

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