Three kinds, rotating, which is the mix Keith described: some about the work, some about the people, some about the idea. Each has a note on what image to pair it with. None needs approval from anyone to be true, because all of it already is.
Post 1 · the ideaStart here
There is a bus stop somewhere in Oakland where you sit down and there is no shade.
Somebody decided that. Or more likely, nobody did.
That is most of what landscape architecture is. The things you never think about, because when they are done well there is nothing to think about. Where the path goes. What grows there. Whether you can find the door. Whether there is somewhere to sit and eat your lunch.
We design everything outside the building. If you never notice it, we did our job.
Image: a bench in shade on one of your projects, shot at eye level. Why this is first: it is the clearest thing anybody said in the studio and it needs no prior knowledge to land.
Post 2 · the peopleMark
Mark came to landscape architecture from pre-med.
He grew up next to a factory. He always knew he wanted to help people with their health, and he assumed that meant becoming a doctor.
Then he found out there was a profession that works on the thing making people sick in the first place. Where the green space goes. What gets built next to what. Who gets the shade and who does not.
"I didn't realise I loved helping people through the environment."
He has been with us six months.
Image: a portrait of Mark, or Mark on site. Check with Mark first. This is his story and he should approve the words before they go out, though he told it openly to a room of eight people.
Post 3 · the workProject
A schoolyard has to work for two thousand students and also for the neighbourhood that uses it at the weekend.
Those are not the same brief. One wants durability and supervision lines. The other wants somewhere to take a toddler on a Sunday.
Designing for both at once, on a public budget, on a campus that cannot close, is most of what we do in K-12.
[Project name], [City]. Completed [year].
Image: the strongest schoolyard photograph you have, with people in it. Fill the brackets with Fremont High or Shannon Elementary. This is the template for every project post: who it is for, what was in the way, what you did, what it is like now.
Post 4 · the ideaEducational
"So you plant the trees?"
Did the architect build your house? Did the electrical engineer do your wiring?
We decide where it goes, what will survive there in thirty years, how a person in a wheelchair gets past it, and who it is actually for.
Then somebody else, who is very good at planting trees, plants the tree.
Image: a planting plan or a construction drawing, which almost nobody outside the profession has seen. Source: Monty's answer, word for word. It is funny and it is useful, which is a rare combination.
Post 5 · the workCommunity
The best compliment a shopping centre ever got from us was that you did not have to shop there.
There were play areas you could use without buying anything. Somewhere to sit that was not a table you had to earn.
Private money, public benefit. It is possible to do both, and when a developer is willing, it is some of the most useful work there is.
Image: Willow Shopping Center in Concord if you have photography, otherwise any private project with genuine public space. Source: Monty. Strategic note: this post does real work, it tells developers you understand commercial goals and tells your own team the mission survives private work.
Post 6 · the peopleAmy
Amy told her mother, decades ago, why she wanted to do this job.
"Everybody deserves a little bit of green. Whether they live in the city or out in the country. Everybody deserves a space where they can go and experience nature."
Her mother reminded her of it years later. She had not forgotten it either.
Thirty-eight years of parks, schoolyards and civic plazas across the Bay Area, and it is still the whole reason.
Image: Amy on site, or an early project. This is the single strongest piece of content the firm has. Save it for a moment that matters, or use it as the anchor of the 40th.
Post 7 · the ideaThought leadership
There is a new state rule on water use that is quietly changing how we work.
It requires more information at the planning deadline than anyone used to supply. In practice that means producing finished-level planting drawings at a concept-stage fee.
Every landscape architect in California is dealing with it. Most are absorbing the cost quietly.
We think the honest answer is to move the conversation about planting earlier in the project, rather than pretending the concept stage has not changed. Curious whether other firms are landing in the same place.
Image: none, or a drawing. Why it matters: this is the post most likely to get replies from peers rather than likes from friends. It is also the beginning of the conference submission.
Post 8 · the workCredential
Thirty-eight years of public work teaches you things that are hard to learn any other way.
How a bond budget actually moves. What a review cycle does to a programme. How to build on a campus that cannot close for a single day. What happens in year fifteen when the maintenance budget was never real.
That is the part we bring to private projects too. Not a style. A tolerance for the conditions everybody else finds inconvenient.
Image: a civic or healthcare project. Who this is for: developers and architects. It converts a public-sector record into a private-sector argument, which is the whole Public Place and Private Space idea in one post.
Post 9 · the peopleHiring
We are a small studio, which means the person two years out of school is in the client meeting.
Not taking notes. In it.
Three generations work here at once, and the reason we keep it that way is that we are building a firm the next generation will actually own. Not inherit a job at. Own.
If that sounds like the kind of place you want to be, our careers page is in the comments.
Image: the team, or the studio. Source: Amy's closing words to the team. Note: confirm with Amy and Keith before publishing anything about employee ownership, since it touches a plan that is not final.
Post 10 · the workProcess
The most useful question on any project is asked before anything is drawn.
Where does the building go? Where does the plaza sit? How does a person actually move through this place?
When we are in at that point, we can change how somewhere works. When we arrive at the end, we can choose the plants.
Both are jobs. Only one of them is worth hiring a landscape architect for.
Image: an early site diagram or a sketch. Source: Amy. Commercial note: this is a sales post disguised as a principle, and it is aimed squarely at architects who bring you in late.
Post 11 · the ideaThe Bay Area
There are more landscape architects per head in the Bay Area than almost anywhere in the country.
It makes for a demanding place to practise. The regulations push hard on ecology, clients are unusually literate about design, and the standard is set by firms doing genuinely excellent work.
We have been at it here since 1988. It is a good place to be held to a high bar.
Image: a recognisable Bay Area project. Source: Amy. Note: generous about the market, which is the right tone with peers, and it quietly establishes longevity.
Post 12 · the peopleCathryn
Cathryn got into this through early childhood development.
In high school she spent time in a kindergarten classroom and watched four-year-olds work out why sand moves down a slope, why some things float, where the bugs live.
The space was doing the teaching.
She is now a designer here, and she still thinks about who is going to learn something in a place we build.
Image: a schoolyard, or a portrait. Check with Cathryn first. Note: this post and post 2 together say something true about the studio that no capability statement could, which is that people come here for a reason.
