Susanne Marshall & Graham Gagnon
Graham Gagnon and Susanne Marshall led the successful bid to bring EDRA56, the 56th annual conference of the Environmental Design Research Association, to Halifax in May 2025. EDRA is an international, interdisciplinary association dedicated to advancing research on the relationships between people and their environments. The conference gathers researchers, practitioners, and educators from around the world to share work on climate action, human-centered design, sustainability, and community resilience — themes that align closely with Halifax’s strengths as a conference destination in Canada.
Graham and Susanne championed the conference through their roles at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Architecture and Planning — Susanne as the lead for conferences and exhibitions, in addition to her work at Dalhousie Architectural Press, and Graham as Dean of the Faculty at the time— bringing academic and community perspectives together to make this international conference in Halifax a reality.
WHY THEY DID IT
Discover Halifax heard that EDRA was seeking a host outside the United States, and Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Architecture and Planning was invited to team up on the bid. Graham and Susanne took the lead, motivated by a belief in the value of community, collaboration, and cross-disciplinary dialogue. EDRA’s mission to break down barriers between disciplines (environmentalists, psychologists, architects, and planners) resonated with the values of the faculty. They also saw an opportunity to showcase Halifax’s unique blend of natural beauty, academic strength, and human-scaled urban environments.
For Susanne, Halifax was not just a convenient host: its scale and character made it especially well-suited to the EDRA community. She shared that “Halifax is big enough to accommodate them, and small enough that people really get to enjoy the city,” underscoring how delegates could engage deeply with both the conference and the surroundings. According to Graham, “Halifax has so much to offer … I think it’s probably one of the best places in Canada to host a conference. People get inspired very quickly.”
Graham and Susanne emphasized Halifax’s unique combination of natural beauty, vibrant waterfront, walkability, and energetic academic networks as key reasons the city was the right fit for this international conference.
OUTCOMES
The EDRA56 Conference attracted more than 450 researchers and practitioners from over 20 countries, putting Dalhousie University and Halifax on the map for global environmental design issues – as a good place to have complicated conversations with global implications.
Participants were deeply impressed with Halifax, with more than half of international attendees planning to extend their stay in the region or elsewhere in Canada. In just a few short days, the event generated an estimated $860,000 in economic impact for Halifax.
According to Susanne, “everybody should be having their conferences in Halifax… the impression it makes now is that of an energized, forward-thinking, safe, beautiful city whose human scale supports connections between people, and with place. There aren’t too many like it in North America.”
