Through the Parks Foundation’s always-free Next Generation of Parks™ events, global design innovators and thought-leaders showcase the most exciting new parks destinations, opportunities, and research and delve into important issues of place affecting the Twin Cities community today.
Join Us for the 2022-2023 Season

Play and Restoration in Our Post-Pandemic World, with Mikyoung Kim, FASLA
And moderator Alex V. Cipolle from MPR News
When: Thursday, March 30 / 7:00-8:30pm
Where: Rapson Hall, UMN College of Design
Cost/Tickets: FREE / Pre-Register via Eventbrite!
Mikyoung Kim wonders how landscapes make our lives better. Not just aesthetically, but how we as humans are part of these natural and built systems that have such a profound impact on human resiliency and belonging. Her first public talk in 2.5 years, Mikyoung’s Play and Restoration emerged from a consolidated incubation period of creativity. She’ll focus on the role public space plays in our semi-post pandemic world in reconnecting and restoring public engagement in our global cities, as well as the ethics of design and our collective goal of creating healthier and more equitable cities that spark our collective imagination.
About Our Speakers
Mikyoung Kim is an international landscape architect, urban designer, and founding principal of Boston-based Mikyoung Kim Design, which is the 2022 ASLA Firm of the Year. Mikyoung has received the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum Design award and the ASLA National Design Medal. Her studio has been named by Fast Company as one of the innovative architecture firms in the world and her talented and collaborative team has received the 2022 Fast Company “Innovation by Design Award” for their work for Ford’s Michigan Central. As a thought leader on restorative urban design, her ideas and work have been highlighted in numerous publications, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, National Geographic, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Architectural Record, Dwell, Surface, Garden Design, and the Chicago Tribune.
Alex V. Cipolle is a longtime arts and culture journalist. She is currently a senior arts reporter and critic for MPR, and she does contributing arts and culture reporting for the New York Times. She is interested in art, design , the built environment, and how these areas collide with political and social issues. Before joining MPR, she was an editor at Architect Magazine.
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Save the Date – the Season Continues in 2023
José González, Founder of Latino Outdoors
Thursday, May 4, 2023
Mill City Museum
More details coming soon!
Thank You to Our 2022-2023 Sponsors

Join Us As a Sponsor Today!
Email Jennifer Downham at jdownham@mplsparksfoundation.org
to learn more about sponsorship opportunities. Thank you!

About the Next Generation of Parks Event Series
In 2010, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation helped jump start a conversation about parks design and city-building with our first Next Generation of Parks™ Event Series, hosting landscape designers and park advocates whose work includes The High Line in New York and London’s Green Grid. We have produced a lecture series nearly every year since, always with the goal of demystifying the impact of great design – inspiring thousands to be champions for dynamic, vibrant public space in Minneapolis and throughout the region.
Series Videos 2010-2021
Find more on our YouTube and Vimeo channels.
Past Presenters 2010-2020
- Sabina Ali, Co-Founder & Chair, Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee
- Adam Regn Arvidson, author of Wild & Rare: Tracking Endangered Species in the Upper Midwest
- Paul Bauknight, Project Implementation Director, Minneapolis Parks Foundation
- Gia Biagi, Principal of Urbanism, Studio Gang
- Monica Bryand, wildlife photographer and Executive Director of Urban Bird Collective
- Kofi Boone, Joseph D. Moore Distinguished Professor and University Faculty Scholar in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at North Carolina State University
- Bruce Chamberlain, Minneapolis Parks Fellow, Minneapolis Parks Foundation
- Maurice Cox, Detroit City Planner
- Roger Cummings, Co-Founder & Creative Director, Juxtaposition Arts
- Jamie Dean, Principal Designer and Program Manager of London’s Green Grid
- Dudley Edmondson, wildlife photographer and author of Black & Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places
- Adriaan Geuze, WEST 8
- Robert Hammond, Friends of the High Line
- Eelco Hooftman, GROSS.MAX
- Mark Johnson, co-founder and principal, Civitas
- Janet Lansbury, parenting expert and author
- Tom Leader of Tom Leader Studio with Sheila Kennedy of KVA Architects
- Tabitha Montgomery, Executive Director, Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association
- Laurie Olin, founding principal of OLIN
- Kate Orff, Founder & Principal, SCAPE Landscape Design
- Gil Penalosa, Founder and Chair of the Board, 8 80 Cities
- Sean Sherman, Founder and CEO, The Sioux Chef
- Mitchell J. Silver, Commissioner, NYC Parks and Recreation
- Dr. Marla Spivak, Founder, Spivak Honey Bee Lab, University of Minnesota
- Ambreen Tariq, outdoorswoman, founder of @BrownPeopleCamping, author of Fatima’s Great Outdoors
- Lisa Tziona Switkin, of James Corner Field Operations
- Dana Thompson, Co-owner & COO, The Sioux Chef
- Florence Williams, Journalist and author of The Nature Fix: How Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative
- Lily Yeh, Founder, Barefoot Artists
- Dr. Robert Zarr, Park Rx America