QUESTION: World Landscape Architecture Month is about celebrating how landscape architects design healthy, beautiful, and resilient places. What are some ways you personally see landscape architecture positively impacting communities?

Brian Ruhl: Working primarily in DC, working in this urban environment, sometimes the sites are small, but the impact can still be large. A well-designed outdoor space nurtures block party celebrations and pop-up gatherings and farmers markets, creating a neighborhood atmosphere.

Peter Rinek: Great outdoor spaces draw people together, create spots where people want to be, where they can have conversations and have fun. That really helps foster community.

Jeff Kreps: I’m currently working on restoring the degraded landscape of a vital affordable housing community. Many historic old-growth canopy trees are being preserved, and the rest of the outdoor space is being updated and refreshed with additional vegetation layers, a biophilic pathway network, and small amenity interventions.  It is hoped that these enhancements—primarily at the pedestrian scale—will provide a richness that benefits not only this immediate community, but also the surrounding neighborhoods.

Nick Letteri: It’s perhaps not the first thing you think of, but thoughtful landscape design can also play a role in protecting communities. As severe weather increases, it’s important we design landscapes that help to negate or minimize the harmful effects of intense weather events. That might include grading our sites to treat stormwater efficiently and prevent flooding, using plant massings to break intense winds and reduce erosion, or choosing sustainable materials that will stand the test of time.

That’s a good point. How are changes to our environment affecting landscape architecture choices and direction?

JK: Flora and fauna across the globe are adapting to climate change by establishing their presence in areas where they may have been previously only migratory or minimally present. One thing I’m seeing is a shift from a focus purely on the traditional definition of native plants, which are already changing in many areas, to the concept of ‘resilient plants’ – plant communities that will survive today and also in 10 years as climate patterns shift.  We really are designing for the future. 

PR: We’re also using landscape design to inform and educate. On a recent project the bioretention area became a feature, with signage about its function. Walkways, bridges and benches encourage people to interact with and use the space. We can help people understand how their landscape is part of an ecosystem.

BR: In our dense urban region, land is at such a premium that sometimes it’s a balance of development and nature. Our role can be about how to use that limited open space in the most effective way, ensuring the landscape design can meet all these multiple purposes.

With all the many ways good landscape design has a positive impact, what do you find most rewarding about being a landscape architect?

BR: For me, it’s the transformation of a space into something more people can use or access or enjoy. It’s not always about designing a new setting, sometimes it’s just updating to modern needs or adaptively reusing what’s there. And seeing how that completely reawakens an outdoor space is great.

NL: I totally agree! Designing spaces that have impact. I feel gratitude and pride when I see a space I designed being used in a meaningful way.

JK: I enjoy the challenge of considering the landscape in three dimensions; after all, the landscape is something we all pass through and temporarily inhabit. The opportunity to use the design elements in our toolkit to create moments of calm, surprise, delight or wonder for others is both humbling and rewarding.

PR: I’ve always enjoyed looking at the big picture, how you shape and plan a new environment, and then getting to fine-tune the details that make it come alive: a play area, trellis seating, a little fountain or fire pits. The details that are right for that space and the people that use it.

Learn more about World Landscape Architecture Month