Ethos

site analysis

Our comprehensive site analysis phase is born out of our collective 40 years of experience in national and globally built work. Our firm strives to create a suite of ecologically aware design approaches through a comprehensive understanding of the local ecology and ecosystems through the use of high-level drone orthomosaic scanning to visually and quantitatively analyze project sites. We perform a classic comprehensive on-the-ground site analysis, catalog, and observation of the proposed project and surrounding morphology and ecology. Using our networks we conduct a thorough analysis of professional and scientific journals regarding indigenous flora and fauna, and the preexisting relationships between them. We simultaneously gather this information while learning of client needs so that the person and the place can be thematically woven into the fabric of the surrounding site to create a sense of belonging.

The firm keeps abreast of the recent scholarship in technology, architecture, and construction methods to help manage the two-fold challenge of climate adaptation and the client’s design brief. For example, we closely analyze the water consumption of our planting and hardscape ideas and actively seek new and creative ways to decrease the net impact our proposed work will have on the environment through a minute understanding of the energy consumption that our built work demands. We are invested in the deeper meaning between our respective projects and the impact of human consumption and climatic events. Our analysis products seek to increase the project’s success over long durations, resiliency of materials, and transitional survivability while keeping our eye on our prime directive of establishing a beautiful and timeless garden for our clients.

means and methods

CSS D/S LLP believes in decreasing carbon emissions and streamlined construction processes through ecologically aware practices. To this effect, we have developed a flexible workbook that are chapters in the story we wish to communicate to our respective clientele. These chapters consist of a series of operations, design, and planning tools to assist our clients in their mission to reduce wasteful construction methods during the course of our projects by focusing on the design first, and material sourcing second. We strive to partner with local plant nurseries and material suppliers who are conscious and care about the impacts of fertilizers, material origins, microplastics, and abundant water usage that the large scale construction industry produces and take steps to reduce over consumption of resources, reduce single use materials, and search for local and sustainable solutions.

We also believe that lower-tech slash local or time-tested methods of design and construction are worthwhile approaches to the new challenges that we face today. We should work with and within natural systems as opposed to overriding or supplanting pre-existing environments.

Our primary goal is to source local materials to decrease the amount of time that trees and plants spend in carbon intensive transit from origin to site as well as the growth and production of our nursery stock. We prioritize and cherish our established relationships with growers, quarries, and timber sources that practice what we preach and always try to find the balance between beauty, sustainability, and fiduciary realities.

We bring the belief in our practice that businesses should also strive to be sustainable through the way we tear down and reshape our environment, and to that effect we continuously reevaluate how our designs and specifications can follow the latest innovations and inventions to best aid our clients in our aligned environmental goals.

design process

As Landscape Architects, CSS D/S LLP is mindful of climate change and the impact that we have upon the greater good. We have responded by creating planting schemes that take advantage of native and adaptable planting, decreasing the carbon footprint of our designs by specifying local materials to reduce transportation and production emissions, and reducing the amount of concrete in our work.

Our belief system and design principles drive the way we listen to our clients, how we solve challenges, and the way we create responses to our client’s objectives. As a result, our work has personality, uniqueness, and paradigm shifting.

Our design process begins by sitting down with our clients and having conversations about their goals and objectives. We are mindful, hands-on and deliberate as we are specific with our means and methods when providing our services and solutions. We are analog using hand built site models, drawings, and sketches as we are high tech with rapid prototyping and 3D visualizations. No project is the same and requires the steadfast dedication of our team to provide turnkey, unique, and innovative solutions.

We offer full scope design services from Master-Planning, Concept, Construction Documentation, and Installation Services. We are licensed and registered landscape architects in the following states; California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Arizona.

labor

We conduct our projects with equal connection, compassion, and recognition of all the individuals we work with. This extends to the landscape installation crew, who we recognize wholeheartedly that these projects would not be possible without their skilled labor, metaphorical, and physical heavy lifting. When on site we strive to break down any perceived social and economical barriers so that our communication is conversational, fair, and allows for everyone to have a voice and potentially a solution.

We invite conversation with our skilled workers and laborers, who bring their own valuable experiences and perceptions to our construction projects which can help improve and strengthen our concept. As an office, we recognize that personal dynamics between the individuals who construct the project and the principal Designers have historically been rife with extreme power dynamics and prejudice. We seek to break this historical pattern by recognizing each individual as worthy of respect and equality and engaging each individual in conversation. The importance of our project timeline does not supersede the fundamental human right to health and safety on projects. Fair Pay, sufficient rest breaks, efficient transportation, heat stroke and exhaustion, shade, reasonable working hours are all things that we advocate for on site for the individuals who work with us.

We recognize our contractor’s hard work and with their permission, proudly display who we contract with on our website to give them credit where credit is due.