What We Think

We try to have it both ways… and hopefully it’s succeeding. We always seek a fresh, often alternative approach, to experiment with process, methods, and materials. At the same time, we know what we’re doing, who we’re doing it with, and who else needs to be involved. This helps make the experimentation productive. We don’t specialize in any type of work. We have broad experience over 30 years of practice with both public and private clients at all scales. But that hasn’t worn down our edges as much as sharpened our awareness of how to maneuver on behalf of clients, where to apply effort, where to yield, ways to be heard, and ways to listen.

We are designers. We love to make things, to build with strength as well as compassion. It’s essential to understand how things work, to investigate ecology and culture in our projects, to create landscapes that can sustain themselves. But we don’t expect a medal for any of those things. We’d rather get one for creating original, tangible experiences that grow out of that raw material. Each new landscape yields important data to inform and alter the next project. This is a time-honored process for which there is no substitute. Modes and fetishes are a distraction. Manifestos are boring. We are not landscape urbanists any more than we are digital prophets or protean art makers, not that there’s anything wrong with that! Our work is a social practice by necessity. We like to know a client as a person, what they seek and why they seek it. We like to know the community we are working in, because even for a brief period, we always join them.