Tropos, meaning to turn, or to change, is built on the understanding that time and movement are essential parts of the design process and that change is a key part of the way we experience the world.
FORM
FUNCTION
SPIRIT
Hamilton is known as an industrial center and an arts city. It is also an Eco-city.
Tropos+ is the studio's award winning research space. Our work explores human connection to the land through the arts. Landscape architects have long investigated links between people, health, and nature, while artists play a key role in connecting us with issues of humanity. As part of our work, we explore approaches to science-based questions about art, design and issues of landscape.
TROPOS+
Design is a problem-solving exercise. Tropos operates as a think tank. Design emerges from our work as artists to inform strategies for ecological restoration and urban design at larger scales, often producing new and unexpected results.
Art. Engagement.
Landscape Architecture.
About –
Welcome to TROPOS+, the studio’s award-winning research space. Grounded in an in-depth understanding of artistic principles, our RESEARCH FOCUS bridges art and science to create integrated works of urban design, landscape architecture, and creative projects that restore the environment.
Landscape architects have long explored connections between people, health, and nature, while art helps us think about our deeper relationship with the land. Our studio research builds on both traditions, approaching science-based questions through the lens of art, design, and issues of landscape.
We work from this understanding to transform underused landscapes into naturalized urban spaces that support people and wider ecosystems.This page hosts a variety of community RESOURCES—offering opportunities for professionals, academics, and community members to engage directly with our Monument Tree Database.
Alongside these resources, this page features our Native Garden Toolkit—a practical guide to help homeowners design their own native gardens, with research directly informed by the studio’s ongoing Monument Tree research.
CASE STUDIES highlights the studio’s currently work with Urban Forest Networks, as well as the studio’s performance-based methodology, material studies, and site research that was developed in the early stages of Lesia Mokrycke's art practice.
These methods use a variety of 'experiments' to test ideas and allow different programs to play out in physical space – an approach directly reflected in the Monument Trees project.
Tree Technology
Biodiversity
Ecological Infrastructure
Water
Natural Systems
Community
Tree Index
Research & Mapping
Environmental Planning
Urban Forest Networks
Natural Systems Research
Monument Trees Citywide
Online exhibition
& public resource
Hamilton is known as an industrial center and an arts city. It is also an Eco-city.
Urban Forest Lab
Urban Forest Lab
Our research fosters new approaches to creative engagement, ecology, and social practice that enhance terrestrial ecosystems
Current work
BUILDING CONSERVATION NETWORKS is a creative urban design and public art project conceived by Lesia Mokrycke in 2018 that identifies historic, monumental trees as key anchors in the ecological and cultural life of the city. This large-scale art and urban design project presents a strategy for restoration that re-imagines conservation planning to enhance the urban forest.
Landmark, MONUMENT TREES contain information that give us clues about times past and can nurture stronger and more resilient urban forests. Through mapping the location of pre-settlement trees across the city, our research is laying the groundwork to create ecological infrastructure that can withstand changes in the climate. As cultural symbols, we value elder trees as repositories of memory and a foundation for sense of place.