Celebrating 5 Years of SpruceLab
This past June marked a significant milestone — SpruceLab turned five!
What began in 2019 as a small, purpose-driven landscape and planning studio has grown into a practice grounded in relationships, guided by Indigenous and ecological knowledge, and committed to community-led design. Over the past five years, SpruceLab has become more than a firm — it’s a space for rethinking how we plan, design, and care for land and people.
The vision that Sheila Boudreau carried into the co-founding of SpruceLab remains at the heart of everything we do. It’s a vision that asks us to look at the land differently — not just as something to design, but as something to listen to and learn from. It challenges the traditional frameworks of landscape architecture and planning, and invites new ones that center Indigenous sovereignty, resilience, and healing.
Since those early days, the work has grown in depth and reach. One example is our Earth Tending Green Infrastructure Training program. For the past four years this initiative has brought together Indigenous youth and adults across the GTA for six weeks of hands-on, land-based learning rooted in both green infrastructure techniques and Indigenous knowledge systems. The program emphasized the value of local ecosystems, cultural teachings, and offers paid training to open doors to meaningful, good jobs for 10 unemployed or underemployed Indigenous Peoples registered with Miziwe Biik. It’s a powerful example of what happens when education, environmental care, and cultural connection are brought together with intention.
Another transformative project has been the collaboration with Caldwell First Nation and their project team on their net-zero housing community. This work brought together land-use planning, sustainability, and cultural restoration — helping create a future-facing vision that restores connection to land, supports community well-being, and respects the Nation’s deep history. It’s not just a development project; it’s a form of return and renewal.
Other projects have expanded this impact — from shoreline restoration for Hiawatha First Nation, to the planning and design of the Biindigen Well-Being Centre in Hamilton, to supportive housing with organizations like Sacajawea Non-profit Housing. In each case, the work is about more than what’s built — it’s about how we build it, who we listen to, and how we honour both people and place.
Sheila recently shared the story behind SpruceLab’s founding in a blog post called The Origins of SpruceLab, reflecting on her Mi’kmaq heritage and responsibilities, her journey through planning and landscape architecture, and her commitment to land-based practice as a form of reconciliation and design justice. Owned collectively and with a growing team, this story continues to evolve and shape the way SpruceLab approaches every initiative we are involved with.
At five years in, the celebration isn’t just about longevity — it’s about alignment. It’s about continuing to do work that feels honest, respectful, and rooted in community. It’s about learning from Indigenous Elders, Knowledge Holders, and community voices, supporting youth, creating spaces of belonging, and helping restore relationships between people and land and water.
With each new project, partnership, and program, SpruceLab continues to imagine — and build — communities as resilient landscapes. There’s still so much to do, and so much to look forward to. We look forward to sharing more of this story with you in future years! See some photos of our staff retreat below
