Interview with Sara Zwede

Introduction:

In this insightful interview, renowned landscape architect Sara Zewde discusses her inspirations, challenges, and experiences within the field of landscape architecture. From discovering her passion for the discipline after Hurricane Katrina to integrating storytelling and art into her designs, Sara delves deeply into her ideas and perspectives. She also sheds light on the evolving role of landscape architecture in addressing societal issues. Through her work, Sara continues to push the boundaries of what landscape architecture can achieve, making it a powerful tool for change and expression.

About Sara

Sara Zewde is founding principal of Studio Zewde, a design firm practicing landscape architecture, urbanism, and public art. Named to Time Magazine’s TIME 100 Next, Architectural Digest's AD100, and *Wallpaper’s 300 People Shaping Creative America, her practice is celebrated for its design methods that sync culture, ecology, and craft. In parallel to her design practice, Sara serves as Assistant Professor of Practice at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and is currently writing a book on her research retracing Frederick Law Olmsted's journeys through the Slave South. Sara holds a master’s of landscape architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, a master’s of city planning from MIT, and a BA in sociology and statistics from Boston University.

Q: What initially inspired you to embark on a career in landscape architecture?

S: I grew up on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas, after Hurricane Katrina, I started to read more about design and ecology, infrastructure, politics, and culture. I spent the next few years trying to look for a discipline that would allow me to engage in all of those and it was quite a journey to find landscape architecture after that. Along the way, I studied sociology, statistics, and city planning, all before I arrived at landscape architecture. But when I got to landscape architecture, I realized that the skillset of landscape architecture was what I needed in order to synthesize all of those interests into a practice.

Q: Among the many projects you have worked on, is there one that holds a particularly special place in your heart? If yes, could you tell us why?

S: No, not really. I genuinely love every single project we have worked on, each for different reasons. We have a very diverse set of projects, so it’s difficult to even point to one and say, “this project is exemplary of our practice”. We strive to have a broad array of project types, and the formal language of each project is diverse too. Ultimately, it’s about the collection of projects together that really represents who we are and what we stand for.

Q: Are there any personal experiences or influential moments that have significantly shaped your approach to landscape architecture?

S: Yes, I think two of my most meaningful experiences, or two specific jobs that I had, were shaped by the principal designers there and their approach. One of them is an IFLA 2019 Jellicoe Award winner, Kathryn Gustafson. I worked in her office in Seattle, and I think the approach of that office to form, craft, detail, layering, and planting was incredibly influential. They employ a really careful calibration of the medium of landscape, and that had a profound impact on me.

The other experience was working for Walter Hood in his office in Oakland. His approach to narrative and storytelling as a creative departure for landscape architecture was very meaningful to me. So, I have really been working to combine those two attitudes toward landscape architecture: to wield narrative and use a careful approach to shaping land in service of that narrative.

Q: How do you maintain a balance between your creative vision and the practical requirements of a site, such as infrastructure, environmental limitations, and regulatory approvals?

S: This is the fun part of landscape architecture—navigating all of these challenges. Just within Studio Zewde, we have landscape architects of course, but we have the overlapping interests of soil scientists, art historians, architects, folks from the construction industry, folks who come from high-end residential, research specialists, a textile designer, as well as folks who really see project management itself as an art, which it is!

These ways of seeing the world don’t just stay as big ideas—they really shape how we see the requirements of the site, how we understand what a detail might become, and what aspects of the project are important to fight for when dealing with limitations and approvals.

This approach helps us understand the hierarchy of priorities as we navigate all these aspects of landscape architecture.

Q: Storytelling appears central to your designs. Could you share your process of translating a story or cultural memory into physical space?

S: It never happens the same way twice! There is an important process of searching for the story, and that is a long one because there are many stories of place. The questions we commonly ask are: what is the collection of stories, and what do they come together to make, and through what framing?

We use a lot of different tools to uncover narratives that resonate with people and place. There is the review of existing literature and documentation, but there are also things like just talking to people, and just spending time in the place.

Going to a bar nearby, a block party, or the library, or other parks in the area—getting a sense of the reasons behind things. I think it’s important to spend time with elders who have seen a lot in the place and can share their wisdom.

That observational method of research opens up many aspects of a site—the way the light hits, the sounds that emerge, or the cultural production that comes from a place. What art are people creating? What music are they making? What does it tell us?

And you kind of layer all of those things and look for patterns across them. Once you start to identify a pattern, you move in that direction. You work to characterize those patterns, and we take that back to the client or the community and ask, "Is it this? Does this sound right? Does this feel resonant with this place?" 

With their feedback, and through some iteration working together with them, we start to move towards design. That process of finding a resonant understanding of a place takes as much creative energy as the design itself. It’s a big part of the design process for us.

Q: Your projects often seem to merge art with landscape design. How do you view the role of art in landscape architecture, and how do you weave artistic elements into your work?

S: I think every mundane element of the landscape is art. We have to own that, you know. What can a trash receptacle do? What about site lighting or paving? I don’t want to default to assuming that anything about our environment has to look the way it does. I want to ask questions about what’s possible in our everyday lives.

Everyday life is at the heart of what we do. Great design serves a function, but it can also tell a story. Everything is telling us a story at all times. The question is: What is it saying? What is it not saying? Is it choosing to be silent? Silence is a story, too.

So, yes, I think art is all around us. It’s not necessarily up to the landscape architect to force art into the everyday—it’s already there. It’s up to us as landscape architects to leverage and wield that.

Q: Okay, that brings us to the last question. Our last question for you is how do you think the field of landscape architecture has evolved over the past decade? And where do you see it heading in the future?

S: I think the last decade, or really the last 20 years, has shown landscape architecture inching toward positioning itself to take on the bigger challenges of society. We are not just designing the aprons around buildings; we are advocating for a landscape approach to tackling some of the big issues.

Obviously, there’s a changing climate, and in many places around the world, there are intensified political tensions. There are also increasing urban development pressures. Navigating these challenges has a lot to do with landscape and public space.

I am heartened by landscape architecture’s growing confidence in itself. We are increasingly making a case for landscape architecture to the world. I’m hopeful that we can grow in both our profile and our impact, because I think we have a lot to offer.

I am writing a book about Frederick Law Olmsted, who is considered one of the forerunners of landscape architecture in the United States.

I am writing about a period in his life from 1852 to 1854, when the New York Daily Times, which is now the New York Times, hired him to travel to the American South and write about the conditions of slavery. He did that before designing Central Park and going on to establish a really prolific career in landscape architecture in North America.

Part of why I want to write that book is because I think it’s an important precedent for us to understand in terms of the role landscape architects can play in democracy and in the public sphere in the contemporary moment.