About
Studio Kongsgaard is a landscape architecture and urban design practice established in California. The focus of our work is design for cultural, civic, and private clients who value the public realm. We deliver innovative studies integrating transdisciplinary expertise with community perspectives.
The studio's design philosophy is grounded in collaboration. As landscape architects and urban designers, we partner with land trusts, landscape conservancies, and government agencies on projects that mediate across scales from the bioregion to the site-level. Our work is holistic, charting a coherent arc from research to design to implementation.
Approach
As practitioners, we find roots in landscape conservation, sustainable development, and the influence of the global pressures of urbanization and climate change on contemporary design culture.
Our work is guided by scientific understandings of how places change over time. As landscapes evolve beyond their historic limits, the question of if, when, and how to best intervene is critical to effective management. In this regard, the stewardship (and critical adaptation) of culturally significant resources is an important part of our design practice.
As designers, we focus on the spatial and systemic challenges of urban transformations as cities and regions adapt to climate change. We foreground the distinctive qualities of the places where we work to design spaces that resonate with their inhabitants. We excel in complex design processes that require not only technical proficiency but also effective consultation and compelling engagement.
Design Principal
Helen Kongsgaard leads the practice and typically serves as Principal Investigator for collaborative research projects. Trained in design and within the emergent field of climate adaptation, her projects exemplify her approach to design research. In addition to her practice, Helen has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of California, Los Angeles. She serves on the climate action committee for the American Society of Landscape Architects and chairs a research awards jury for the Landscape Architecture Foundation. Born into a family of vitners in Napa Valley, California, she now works across the Bay Area and beyond.
Helen holds an Master of Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and History of Science from St. John's College.
Planning Framework
Services
Geospatial Analytics
Landscape Architecture
Land Use and Conservation
Resource Stewardship
Scenario Planning
Urban Design