Culture of Togetherness

Just as robust landscapes draw their resilience from interconnection, our firm finds strength in collaboration. A strong culture of togetherness is central to how we operate, thrive, and grow as a practice. We view the firm as a design project—one that demands the same rigor, responsiveness, and iterative thinking applied to any site, community, or ecosystem. As we grow, SCAPE’s mission and values ground us as we look for ways to innovate and scale the practice to take on new challenges and allow our purpose to expand.

The name “SCAPE” identifies a shared body of work rather than a single person. This early decision set the tone for how we operate today: committed to collaboration, feedback, and community-building within its processes. Like the ecosystems it designs, the firm is organized through interconnectedness rather than hierarchy, with each role reinforcing the others.

At a leadership level, each partner brings expertise that strengthens the leadership team as a whole, from design to management to technical rigor in our built and planning work. Internal workstreams extend this model across the firm. These groups explore specific elements of our business with a focus on innovation, communication, and excellence, each with the agency to gather feedback, bring ideas to the larger firm, and drive initiatives forward. This structure creates an intentional balance between mission and the practical realities of running a company.

Listening is embedded in daily operations, both in design teams and wider firm culture. Sharing new ideas about the practice and soliciting feedback helps strengthen our work and build camaraderie within our team. This framework is integrated into a range of channels, from weekly team meetings to firm milestones, events, and retreats.

The business and operations of SCAPE are constantly evolving. We adapt to the firm’s growing needs the same way that living landscapes respond to change. Chief of Staff Will Klassen plays an essential role in translating the strategic vision of the leadership team firmwide and bringing the mission of the practice to its day-to-day operations. While this role is nontraditional for a design business, it emerged in response to the needs of a growing, multi-office practice. Hear more from Will below.

Core to SCAPE is the belief that individual and collective success are inseparable. The firm succeeds when our people succeed. Professional growth opportunities at all scales are expressions of our mission and essential to the growth of the practice as a whole.

We encourage a culture of professional growth by investing in benefits that strengthen and advance individual interests. We have a variety of programs to support this: a structured mentorship program, principal office hours, and skill-building workshops led by experts inside and outside of the practice. We believe that investing in our team pushes the practice forward.

SCAPE's commitment to community reaches beyond the studio. Through volunteer work and youth education programs, we work to extend our impact both across the industry and in the communities we serve through our design and planning efforts.

The Student Externship at SCAPE (SEAS) program introduces high school students from communities historically underrepresented in design to landscape architecture before college. Working with SCAPE designers, students develop foundational skills in sketching, mapping, site analysis, and model building while learning how design can address broader environmental and social challenges. Now in its sixth year, the program is beginning to form an alumni network, with its first participants now applying to college design programs.

SCAPE's ecosystem continues to thrive. As we scale our impact nationally and internationally, we do so alongside our team, our communities, and the greater design industry.