Why did you become a landscape architect?

For me the question really is, when did you discover that you were a landscape architect. That happened when, as a college freshman expecting to major in history, I read Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature. My antennae went up. I loved the thought of spending my life absorbed in the kinds of questions McHarg was asking. A month later, I applied to the landscape architecture program at Cornell, and I have never looked back.

What are your design principles?

When all is said and done, my work is about plants. I tend to see the best landscapes as assemblages of different program areas shaped by unique vegetation.

What is your formula for success?

I always start a project by seeing it as an opportunity to explore. Designing a landscape isn’t like looking up a recipe in a cookbook, buying the ingredients, and then following each step as written. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I start by taking stock of all the available ingredients and then begin thinking about things I can do with them.

What are the most challenging obstacles for the profession?

I am a bit troubled by the popular attitude right now that landscape architecture can save the world. It is not because I don’t want to save the world. What I can do is make the world better an acre or a square mile at a time and to me that’s a big contribution. It is going to take a global commitment to save the planet.

Talent: Scott Streeb

Who and what has influenced you?

Mother nature is certainly the best landscape architect and my greatest influence. I grew up among the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Exploring these monumental and sometimes severe landforms influenced my spatial and material instincts. It taught me to read landscapes as three dimensional and sculptural. Visceral experiences of being in nature continue to be the most significant driver of my design work.

Who and what has inspired you in your professional life so far?

People who use the parks we design are the greatest inspiration. We intend to create spaces that inspire feelings: joy, connection to our fellow humans, awe, peacefulness, and even sorrow. Being a “fly on the wall” walking through an MVVA park and seeing all the social interactions is a huge inspiration and something we talk about frequently during design conversations. Play spaces are my favorite environments to design, so I am particularly inspired by watching children interact in our parks.

Why landscape architecture?

I never did too well in traditional school subjects, and art class was always my favorite. My mother was an art teacher and facilitated a creative environment. My father was a carpenter, and I learned the value of composing materials in a useful way.

When I was in high school, I aspired to become a production potter, however, my parents had concerns with that as a career choice and encouraged me to pursue a degree at Colorado State University. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, until I stumbled into the studios of the landscape architecture department with physical models and drawings plastered all over the walls. I immediately knew this the perfect fit because it was a mixture of creativity and working with nature.

What are your design principles?
My design principles are that I try not to have design principles. I try and empty my mind and draw inspiration from the site itself, what it was, what it is and who is the intended user.

What is your special focus?
Understanding the psychosocial stages of development from infancy to maturity helps prove that we all need play in our lives. My special focus is to create whimsical, fantastical, and playful spaces. Additionally, I specialize in the sculptural aspects of landform.

What is your formula for success?
Trusting my gut when inspiration strikes and finding a way to articulate it has been a successful strategy for me. Often, my first ideas are fleeting and happen either late at night or early in the morning. The first step in my process is to solidify them as quickly as possible so that they are not lost. This requires seizing the time to capture them, often at unexpected maybe even inconvenient moments. Next, I allow the idea to develop in my mind a bit before inviting feedback from others. Once the open forum of design begins in our project teams, impassioned discourse and debate and dogged iteration bring our work to its final form.

What are the most challenging obstacles in the profession?
Advancements in technology and software have allowed the profession to become more efficient and collaborative and it is amazing and exciting. However, as a designer who learned to integrate digital tools into a strong analog foundation, I know we owe it to young designers to preserve the handcrafted aspects of our work. The fundamentals of hand grading and modeling instill nuance and apt sense of scale in designers that software cannot teach. We need to preserve the tactile traits of our profession.

What is the most important role landscape architecture has to play in the future?
To continue making beautiful spaces that people enjoy and that act as egalitarian melting pots for cities.