I’m at the stage of my career that I have deemed swiss-army-knife.
I’m not entry level; I’m not a full fledged project manager. Not butter knife; not yet a cleaver.
Formerly, I talked about where I am with hesitance. Because, frankly, it’s awkward to not know exactly where you stand. How I say that where I stand is actually in a few different places, once?
It’s not that I’m lost, it’s that I’m adaptable. It’s that I’m experienced but always still learning. Those of us in the middle, we can contribute to all aspects of a project fluidly. I’m the point between PM and junior designer, usually directing my younger colleagues. And take on the tasks of both senior and junior levels where needed.
There are pros and cons to existing in the fuzzy, undefined middle. Yet, I’ve fully embraced the upside of taking on a new challenge and becoming a better designer because of it.
In a given day, I can illustrate a whimsical rendering, draft a scope of work, correct a redlined detail, and estimate probable costs. Or, or i can review playground equipment specs, draw a series conceptual plans, model a series of seat walls, and craft an effective engagement survey. You get it.
Overall, I like to have fun with design, push boundaries, doodle the margins, and revel in the precision and technicality. All at
now, here we go.
swiss-army-knife. Not a Because, How do all at experienced contribute and the I can needed. middle. challenge scope costs. series of effective doodle in once.
SELECTED PROJECTS
grant acquisition through construction admin
conceptual master plan within a larger trail network
ashland zócalo mariposa trailhead valley view
community driven park master plan
fresno mariposa plaza
stage modelling and detailing reslilience planning
bothin marsh
bonus: studio murals
ASHLAND Z
The first day at WRT- my fifth day of ever being in San Francisco or, actually, west of Chicago- I was lassoed into a meeting about an upcoming community engagement event (?!) over in the East Bay (?!?!).
my last week, I was helping to answer some of the last RFIs to come through and checking out the concrete finishes site. Five years after that first day, i had not only grasped the subtle complexities of engagement events and all the geographical designations of the Bay Area, I had been shaped as a professional.
The project was deeply personal to me but, more importantly, it is a vibrant new park in an under-served area of Alameda County. Vibrancy and a lush, green space were priorities from the community in the beginning, and we took that very seriously.
The context was bleak: flanked by gas stations, mirrored by low greige buildings, and along a major four-lane road. The program, however, had ample opportunities for personality and color: a large shade structure, a series of sculptural benches, a play and workout area, and a stage set up against an existing mural. With the inspiration of the community, infused liveliness into every element, shown from DD all the way through to the park opening in July 2024.
Ó CALO
Left Below:
seat wall modelling and detailing during early CD phases
Left side: our star plant, the prickly pear, informed our wider material palette
Below:
from grayscale to saturated color
In the materials plan, I, admittedly, obsessed over the lineweights. Who among us hasn’t gone down that rabbit warren? At the time, it was crucial to conveying our design work in the bid set and through CA.
Other parts of the design process, though, were similarly gratifying. Like working with students at San Lorenzo High School to design the demonstration garden. 16-year-olds are frighteningly opaque, but they later told me they enjoyed the process.
I had done CA before, but never for a project I was involved in start to finish. To see the work go from page to playscape, linework to lawn, callout to concrete was a long learning process that made me a more informed and highly motivated designer.
MARIPOSA TRAILHEAD
Like Ashland, projects along the Mariposa Creek Parkway were a through line of my work at WRT. Instead of a single project, though, it was all part of the 2019 Master Plan.
For the trailhead, the concept revolved around situ and season . Part of that decision was due to an undeniable constraint of the site: in 2023, the whole lower part of the site flooded in a pattern that is happening at a higher frequency. So, we looked around, thought, what else about this site is vying for our attention? And we found unique types of wildlife, geology, and plant communities to guide us.
Layer in the deep reverence for the rural context, the respect for user experience, and the sensitivity to the floodplain, and we start to discover our palette and possibilities.
many layers, many
This plan, as it evolved, contained information in different phases of design, of course. And we poked and prodded until it finally felt
We considered existing features (like the context (see: the second studio mural ). We materials that told the story of the foothills. engineers.
many iterations
information about the trailhead project and concurrent parkway projects. All And once we really dug deep into the layout of the trailhead design, right.
boulder outcrop you see to the right) and the strata of surrounding We followed the lead of the Southern Sierra Miwuk and chose foothills. We worked with the planners, architects, biologists, and civil
JESSIE STREET IMPROVEMENTS
SHADED BOULDER SEATING
TRAILHEAD SITE PLAN
DRAINAGE CHANNEL/ SLOPE DRY CREEK
UPLAND HILLSIDE WILDFLOWER LANDSCAPE
i didn’t make these graphics
Nor the seasonal diagram at the top of this section. Another junior designer did. She was the one opening up lumion and photoshop and making the edits that I was scribbling on Miro. We had a system and it really worked for us.
For this project, I made the transition from one who edits to one who directs. And this came with all the new lessons of how to clarify intent, prioritize changes, and get ideas down through another person. I learned how to ask for greatness instead of impossible perfection and be flexible with outcome, especially if the junior designer had better ideas.
GABION WALLS AT HILLSIDE EDGE
STACKED STONE WALLS AT MEADOW BENCH EXISTING
CREEK BED
In truth, I liked this project. (Hard sentence years of art training taught me that “likes” not relevant in critique). But I liked everything team at the park district, the supportive slightly-scrappy method of design development, course, this hilltop site.
The site had some sort of spiritual alarmingly unprofessional to admit (although, be overly self-aware, perhaps appropriate of northern California). It unlocked an process and an artfully collaged master
Our first engagement event, Coffee was breezy and optimistic as we heard neighbors envisioned. It got tricker when up with alternatives to justify site impact
Ultimately, a “light tough” concept took kept intensive programming to the flattest focal point of a hilltop loop as an inclusive, Quieter, gentler amenities radiated out spots for open isolation and meandering
VALLEY VIEW
sentence for me to write: “likes” or “dislikes” are everything about it: the supportive community, our development, and, of magic that sounds (although, if I were to appropriate to the woo-woo an imaginative design master plan.
on the Hill (2022), heard the ideas of what when we showed back impact and parking.
took the spotlight. We flattest stretches with a inclusive, multiuse path. out from the center, with meandering trails.
above: surrounding context, layers of design, and plan enlargement below: bands of use at different topographies
MARIPOSA PLAZA
This project, in fact, has nothing to do with the aforementioned suite of projects along the Mariposa Creek Parkway. The name is where similarities cease. Here, we have a small scope, an urban context, and a whole new set of materials to use.
I came on the project for the sake of a single task: detailing the stages and planter, which had formerly been outlined quadrangle blobs. There was a desire for tiling, as seen around the streets of Fresno, but the tiles had to have purpose and hold up to heavy wear.
Stage sculpting was the first step, getting into the nitty-gritty of ramps, stairs, handrails, seats, and skate stops. Which lead to the question: if this plaza will be central to the community in the future, what has been central to communities around Fresno in the past? The answer was a rich palette of color.
I developed a pattern for the tiles, a slithering wave of warm, cool, light, and dark tiles. The translation to a proper bid set was an exercise in leveraging illustrator for tile counts and reducing an idea into a swatch. I, like you, am very curious to see the end result, perhaps by 2025.
BOTHIN MARSH
MARSH
When I first started working, I regularly bounced from landscape to planning projects. I was never bored and I ate up a lot of interesting information.
Bothin happened early for me (2019-2020) and I saw that technical information needed to be extremely precise . But it was even better if it could be extremely nice to look at .
I was involved in the early phases, mapping existing consitions and illustrating alternatives as our team worked within the larger machine of the consultant group.
Over the years, I shifted focus more to landscape projects, but I consistently thought about this project and kept up with its progress. Cycling through this marsh-framed pathway almost every weekend- sometimes over the flooded sections- I was always hit with the purpose of our planning work.
It’s a crucial link in the Bay Trail, which I can personally verify from the vantage of my road bike. A driving factor for the project was active transportation in recreational access, all impeded by evident sea level rise.
When we were developing alternatives, existing sea levels were already threatening the shoreline habitats and wildlife. So, we looked into nature-based strategies, allowing evolution and restoration of tidal wetlands, ecological processes, and habitat function.
But a crucial part of this was understanding what the engineers were proposing, giving them feedback, and then translating the ideas into a more digestible format. (An actual document title from the geomorphologist: “Final Hydraulic Geometry Graphics of Modern and Historical Bothin Marsh Complex with Coyote Creek Tidal Channel Restoration Alternatives 1-3 for Hydraulic Modeling of South Bothin Marsh”)
Overall, the project supports the community’s vision for the shoreline, public access goals through mid-century, and the broader San Francisco Baylands ecosystem habitat goals.
Left side: existing conditions with medium risk sea level rise scenarios
Right side: concepts for trail alignment that can adapt to the changing tides
The original design was terribly simple in concept: show the transitions from the San Francisco Bay salt flats into the surrounding urban areas. You can look it up on google maps! But I myself was most surprised by the team building during the paint-bynumbers process and the visual impact afterwards. If you were on a video call with WRT in 2022-23, you may have seen it.
STUDIO
We moved offices and found ourselves once again faced with blank walls in 2024. When I finished this diagram meant for mariposa trailhead, we thought, yes, this is the new mural. It’s the existing bands of landscape character and the pushing, pulling, and revealing that happens during the design process. It was specific yet instantly general.
STUDIO MURALS
R É SUM É PROFESSIONAL
landscape architect
licensed in maine
FIND ME HERE
linkedin.com/in/emkell/ emkell.com around new england
• Full fluency: AutoCAD/ LandFX and the Adobe Creative Suite
• An opinion: Bluebeam > Acrobat
• Also pinned to taskbar: GIS and Sketchup
• Not scared of: a good Youtube software tutorial
• When possible: hand sketching
wrt llc, san francisco
This position required and resilience. I worked implementation in a
• Concept: Exploring context, crafting
• Production: Designing modeling and detailing
• Implementation: and manufacturers, submittals and RFIs,
• Communication: junior designers,
EDUCATION
• Study abroad Barcelona
• Student work was magazines and awards at the state
clemson university, college of charleston,
• Study abroad semester
• Focus medium: printmaking.
• Recognized for excellence
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
francisco
2019-2024
required flexibility and adaptability, which mirrors WRT’s ethos and work in environmental adaptation worked on both landscape architecture and city planning projects from contracts to workflow to a range of scales.
Exploring design alternatives through drawing and modeling, researching geographical and historic an overarching story, modifying concepts through community engagement process
Designing efficient workflows, mapping existing conditions, creating clear diagrams and renderings, detailing custom elements, working through construction documentation, SD through 100% CD
Managing projects and construction administration tasks with mentorship, working with suppliers manufacturers, cost estimating, monitoring several different projects on different timelines, reviewing RFIs, writing small excerpts, and proofreading planning documents
Collaborating on multi-disciplinary teams, coordinating subconsultants, providing direction to designers, presenting during community engagement events
EDUCATION + INTERNSHIPS
university, mla, 2019
semester for architecture:
was published- in university a book- and received several state and regional level.
charleston, studio art, 2014
semester for art history: Paris printmaking.
excellence at graduation
synchronicity land+architecture, 2018
• Typologies: Commercial and Multi-Family Residential
• Worked with architects to create thoughtful and cohesive master plans for new developments
• Leveraged the symbiotic nature of architecture and landscape in the Southeastern natural context.
j. dabney peeples design+build, 2017-2019
• Typology: High End Residential
• Produced ACAD planting and hardscape plans and detailed custom elements, in conjunction with class work.
• Learned the close and working relationship between designer and contractor.
so let’s wrap this up:
i had a lot of fun pulling this together and i hope it shows. always,
