About our studio

SCAPE partners with cities, non-profits, developers, and communities to physically transform our world to meet the moment. As a national leader in climate adaptation, we take a holistic approach, designing with water and land at all scales to create a more resilient shared future. We are biased toward action, implementation, and learning by doing.

We center biodiversity and love for the natural world as a climate solution in all our work. Our process is equal parts design strategy and community conversation, translating analysis and ideas into connected, welcoming landscapes. We know how to transform bold visions into reality so future generations can share and enjoy the incredible environments that sustain us.

For two decades, SCAPE has pioneered an immersive vision of living within nature and helping cities thrive in the gradient between land and water. Kate Orff founded our firm in 2005 with the radical belief that nature can heal itself if we help it. We’ve grown into a team of over 85 landscape architects, urban planners, and fierce ecological advocates headquartered in New York with offices in New Orleans and San Francisco.

Today, the firm is led by five partners: Kate Orff, Gena Wirth, John Donnelly, Alexis Landes, and Pippa Brashear. In 2017, Kate became the first landscape architect to receive the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. SCAPE has been honored with several of the highest awards in the design field, including the 2025 ASLA Firm Award, the 2023 Obel Award, the 2019 National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and many others.