Margery Winkler Lecture: Lisa Rapoport
- Date
- February 12, 2026
- Time
- 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. ET
- Location
- Department of Architectural Science, 325 Church St, ARC 202 (the Pit)
- Open To
- Public
- Contact
- alexandra.berceanu@torontomu.ca
Lecture Title: Design as Experience
Lecture Description:
How do we enable rich experiences of place? At PLANT, we do not ask what a project will look like, but instead how does it enable the visitor, user, or community to build their own experience, to revel in a sense of discovery, to want to touch it, to want to share it with other people. Our projects actively promote noticing the land and history, finding resonance in it, and building community by creating collective memory and experience. What ‘it’ looks like emerges from that exploration. As a practice that creates architecture, landscapes and installations, we have been able to explore these questions across a broad range of small to very large private and public projects. Some of these will be discussed in this presentation.
About the Speaker:
Partner, PLANT Architect Inc.
ES, BArch, OAA, FRAIC, LEED AP
A founding partner of PLANT Architect Inc., Lisa is widely known for her passionate and rigorous approach to the practice of architecture, and for her work exploring the relationship between architecture and landscape. Lisa leads architecture, urban design, and landscape projects for PLANT, and has taught at the architecture schools of the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto. Lisa was PLANT’s partner-in-charge on Ground Plane design and the document production phase of the Governor General’s Medal for Architecture-winning Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization. She leads the transformation of a former private estate into the Town of Newmarket’s 16-acre Mulock Park, a Central Park-style community cultural and recreational hub that will open in 2026.
About Margery Winkler
Margery Winkler was a landscape architect and professor of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Architectural Science at Toronto Metropolitan University from the 1982 till 2009, when she passed away at the age of 57 after a brief battle with breast cancer. A member of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects (OALA), she was admired for her community-oriented design and advocacy, dedication to teaching, and passion for fostering student creativity. With over 25 years of service at TMU, Margery deeply understood how students learn and constantly sought innovative ways to inspire them. She created and led the first Collaborative Exercise, where students designed bird habitats from recycled materials, incorporating community outreach by involving local youth in this hands-on activity. She was known for bringing people together to create sustainable landscapes designs, helping high schools transform their grounds, and collaborating with Canada Blooms. In 2006, as part of the (then) Ryerson campus plan, she developed and directed the RU GREEN Student/Alumni Sustainable Open Space Design Competition. Margery is survived by her husband, Vladimir Winkler, and their three children, Alexandra, Michael, and Jaclyn.