PRACTICE
Much of my project experience is with SWA, an international landscape and urban design firm. For any SWA projects pictured below, I acted as lead designer and project manager.
PHOENIX STREET EICHLER | CONCORD CA | PLAINS OFFICE LLC
private home - front + back garden / 2023-2024 / status : bidding
FREMONT CIVIC PLAZA | FREMONT CA | SWA with STUDIOS ARCHITECTS for CITY OF FREMONT
public plaza + event center / 2015 - 2020 / status : complete
A custom steel backdrop for the stage uses simple metal-craft artfully arranged to celebrate the Fremont Hills.
THE SANDY HOOK PERMANENT MEMORIAL | NEWTOWN CT | for TOWN OF NEWTOWN
winning competition entry co-authored by Ben Waldo and Daniel Affleck, project implemented with SWA / award-winning national permanent memorial for victims of the Sandy Hook School Shooting / status : complete
PRESS:
The New Yorker: The Contemplative, Unnerving Beauty of The Sandy Hook Memorial
New York Magazine / Curbed: Out of Horror, Beauty: A Visit to The Sandy Hook Memorial
Wall Street Journal: From Symphonic to Serene: The Best Architecture of 2022
Unique among memorials, this space is grounded in nature, ecology and seasonality, acknowledging that trauma is not an arrival point but a process. The design allows visitors to find their own path to a collective center, experiencing along the way a naturalistic garden tied closely to the existing surrounding woodland. In the center is a Sycamore tree surrounded by a gently circling pool of water with the shooting victims’ names.
The site is only 1/4 mile from the rebuilt Sandy Hook Elementary School, and on school days, you can hear children playing at recess.
The design features native plantings and locally sourced stone. Large field stones excavated during construction were repurposed throughout the site as follies and opportunities for rest. The layout and materiality of the space are intuitive, lending the sense that the space has been there for many years.
Roses left by a victims’ father at the survey point of the central sycamore.
ATHERTON CIVIC CENTER & LIBRARY | ATHERTON CA | SWA with WRNS for TOWN OF ATHERTON
public space + native woodland garden + LEED Gold + AIA award winning / 2015-2021 / status : complete
Carefully laid paths and oak-friendly understory gardens tie together new and historic architecture, while preserving a centuries-old woodland canopy.
SACRAMENTO RAILYARDS | SACRAMENTO CA | SWA for DOWNTOWN RAILYARDS VENTURES
privately owned public space + adaptive reuse / 2018 - present / status : groundbreaking 2023
Images produced at SWA for DRV
The design caps a superfund brownfield while providing public access to a nationally historic site which was the terminus of the first Transcontinental Railroad. The pedestrian- focused plan uses found artifacts and evokes the historic railyard - a landscape as machine.
Drawings developed at SWA for DRV.
