Curbed: Growing up in the forests of Delaware, Gena Wirth, a design principal at SCAPE, spent her days building forts and collecting sticks. Wirth recalls observing how elements in a forest function within their ecosystem: the way trees provide shade and create a layered habitat, how decomposition cycles work.

But living in cities as an adult, Wirth noticed that many of those ecological processes were “totally covered up, broken down, and disassembled” in urban environments. In some ways, it was her experiences with harmonious landscapes that led her—and her colleagues at SCAPE—to the field of landscape architecture.

“I think our work at SCAPE is really about revealing those systems—systems of water drainage, systems of vegetative growth, systems of geology,” says Wirth. “[They’re all] kind of hidden below the ground.” Continue reading>>