Inside the LA Studio—Michael Vergason Landscape Architects - 1.25 PDH (LA CES/non-HSW)

Recorded On: 10/07/2024

Michael Vergason Landscape Architects (MVLA) is founded on the belief that landscape architecture is a poetic response to the human need for connection to the world. Established in 1987, we are a studio-based practice committed to timeless design and resilient execution. The firm approaches each project with a creative and rigorous study of the site. We then identify ways to marry human use with the land's cultural and ecological systems. This process forges places that spark delight and rekindle our unity with nature.

Learning objectives:

Discover how hand drawing at all phases of design and documentation influences the process and the practice at MVLA.
Learn how the decision to stay "small" impacts the texture of the practice, the culture of the studio, and the business of the operation.
Understand how long-term collaborative relationships with institutions and architects create effective, efficient, and evolving approaches to design.
See how sensitivity to site and context, and a drive toward quiet contextual design, influences the collective character of the work of the studio.

Michael Vergason, FASLA, FAAR

Principal

Michael Vergason Landscape Architects

Michael Vergason founded MVLA in 1987 and continues to be deeply involved in all projects. His sketch work is an essential component of his design process, defining and enlivening the MVLA studio. He shows a particular sensitivity to site and context, careful consideration of historic significance, and a distinctly contemporary vision. He stresses the importance of a collaborative design process resulting in seamless compositions without distinction between design disciplines.

Beata Boodell Corcoran, ASLA

Principal

Michael Vergason Landscape Architects

At MVLA since 2003, Beata is driven to enhance human experience, engagement, and inclusion. She uses her degrees in architecture and landscape architecture to shape all aspects of her work. At MVLA her work includes the American Disabled Veterans Memorial in DC, The Wharf’s 7th Street Park and Pier in DC, and Washington University’s East End in St. Louis. She refined her interests in design as the director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design for the National Endowment for the Arts, a program emphasizing that physical design is a fundamental tool to positively affect social well-being and economic vitality.

Kameron Aroom, ASLA, PLA

Principal

Michael Vergason Landscape Architects

Kameron Aroom is a strong collaborator with instinctive design talents, natural graphic abilities, and a drive to integrate built and natural environments through detail expression. Kameron has designed and implemented projects of all scales with clear concept and enduring craft. His work includes Sundance Square in Fort Worth, Gutmann College House at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Missouri Botanical Garden Visitor’s Center in St. Louis. He has served on design juries at the University of Maryland and Virginia Tech, and has spent extensive time as an archaeological surveyor for the Ancient Stabiae Foundation.

Elizabeth Meyer, FASLA (Moderator)

Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture

University of Virginia School of Architecture

Elizabeth Meyer, FASLA, is a landscape architect and theorist who has taught and published for 30 years about the affective power and hybridity of the designed landscape. Her writings deploy thick descriptions of sites and critical theories--such as sustainable beauties, racialized topographies, and socio-ecological aesthetics—to imagine new possibilities for future public landscapes. Meyer, a Professor at the University of Virginia, holds a Presidential appointment to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a position she has held since 2012. Meyer recently founded the UVA Center for Cultural Landscapes to foster transdisciplinary research and practice on pressing landscape topics.