Transformations realized by landscape architecture in our lifetimes fire our ambition as a practice. Our way of seeing and way of working, what we demand of ourselves, come from an awareness of what it takes to get landscape architecture right. What we do matters. How we do it is meaningful and distinct. This is an optimistic philosophical worldview that grounds our purposeful transformation of place. 

Of Place
Fit, Phenomena, Abstraction, Beauty  

Place is specific. Histories, ecologies, communities with their memories and rituals: reading and understanding place is the foundation of our approach, everywhere we are invited to work. A work has to fit. We are students of natural phenomena, of the corresponding physical features of the land, and of the many living populations with whom we share space. In interpreting place, we abstract, we intensify. A work is at once structural and sculptural, shaping experiences of the land and its meaning. Our clients thus encounter familiar, beloved places in entirely new ways. The correspondences between what has been and what is emerging establish a beauty of place.

On Design
Curiosity, Conversation, Exactitude, Change  

Design is inquiry, a shared pursuit of ideas, in service of action. Dialogue with clients, communities, and collaborators gives form to ideas. Our way of working is iterative and exacting. Design articulates these values through appeals to the senses, evocations of memories, reconciliation of histories, shaping individual and communal relationships to the land. Water, plants and soil are our medium, elements both distinct and inextricable. They remind us that change is inherent, at the scale of the seasons, of years, of generations. Design strives to anticipate and embrace the serendipity of change, recognizing that creating poetry in the work is in part about letting go.    

With Humility
Presence, Complexity, Time, Labor 

Humility is our approach. Landscape architecture encounters myriad complexities deserving of our vigilant presence of mind, within our standard of care. We intervene in robust living systems and regional ecologies. Through the creation of gardens or planting street trees we transform daily life in a season or over a generation. Landscape architecture takes time. To think across seasons, years, and generations nurtures a particular quality of attention to has come before and what will be in the future. We unearth rich stories of community heritage. We engage the legacies of environmental degradation, of segregation and slavery. Building well today means sourcing materials responsibly and accounting for carbon emissions. Commitment to beautiful detailing and craft motivates us to celebrate all labor embodied in our work.  

Toward Brighter Tomorrows
Aspirations, Invention, Health, Democracy 

Our work is in the future. We know what is at stake — and what’s possible. When we know a place viscerally, by instinct, and intellectually, through data; when we grow close to a community and feel their aspirations as our own, we find ourselves capable of our best work. We are students of what great landscape architecture has accomplished. To design the land, to open opportunities for renewal and invention, is to change lives. Landscape architecture is environmental and social resilience. Landscape architecture is public health. Landscape architecture is democracy. People and place, the land moves forward with purpose.