PORTFOLIO
Jennifer Cooper
email: jcooperstudio@gmail.com
phone:415.652.0502
address: 1275a Ruckman Ave
San Francisco, CA 94129
About:
My journey with landscape architecture has spanned two decades, including the following portfolio of built work and performative landscape explorations. Writing, teaching, and speaking engagements have taken me around the world and I look forward to the next iteration in that journey.
Public Space 02) Performative Landscapes
Projects
PART ONE: PUBLIC SPACE
Drought Tolerant Lawn Pilot Project
Public Space:
Landscapes that affect people’s daily lives are the reason that I became a landscape architect. The ability to guide users through a space that moves them in ways you may not even understand. Creating tactile experiences using plant material that pulls you into the present moment can take infinite forms and is a true art. In all of the following projects I was the lead landscape architect and took the projects through to construction.
El Museo del Barrio Salsa Dancing, MNLA
Queens West 6
Location: Long Island City, Queens
Firm: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects
Project: Design a ground-level landscape and roof terrace for residents of a new high-rise residential building. The groundlevel landscape looks over a future waterfront park to the East River. The waterfront view inspired a series of wave-like wood benches that evoke waves when viewed in profile. A native grass and wildflower perimeter frames a pristine central lawn creating a contrast between wild and kept landscapes.
Queens West 7
Location: Long Island City, Queens Firm: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architect s
Project: To design a 3,000 SF roof terrace and streetscape. The roof terrace extends the interior concept of a dunescape. The entire terrace is a greenroof built over a parking garage. Due to loading requirements, the topography was built using graded styrofoam and thin layers of lightweight soil. The plantings were designed to mimic the actual distribution of plants in dune ecosystems. Also, due to the south and east facing exposure of the terrace a wide variety of sun loving shrubs and perennials were used to create an instant lush effect. Cabanas were designed by the architect to create intimate spaces where the residents can entertain.
Rooftop Dunescape
Stanford Landscape
Location: Stanford, CA
(Completed 2016)
Firm: Perkins+Will
Project: The design of an accessibility retrofit adjacent to the renovated Memorial Auditorium. A new ramp and stairs were carefully inserted between new and existing planters. Making additions to a mature campus like Stanford requires attention to detail in matching existing materials so that addition is seamless. In this setting is for the changes to be indiscernible.
Mt. Hope Community Center
Location: Queens, NY
(Completed 2008)
Firm: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects
Project: To create an entry plaza and multiple greenroofs for a new community center for an underserved area of the Bronx. The entry plaza includes a perimeter fence and gates, serviceberry bosque and seating. The fence and gates fit seamlessly, tied together with an eyelevel band of grasses pressed in resin.
There are two greenroofs in this project, a large primary greenroof in a sunny location and a small secondary greenroof in a partly shaded location. Special attention had to be paid to each area to meet lighting and load requirements. The greenroof is currently bring maintained
Bard Science Center
Location: Annandale-On-Hudson, NY (Completed 2007)
Firm: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects
Project: Integrate a distinctive, curvilinear building as a bridge between a wooded area and curated campus landscape for this project. The campus-facing plaza extends the elliptical motif of the building’s architecture. The transition from concrete under the building overhang to permeable crushed bluestone in the plaza to plantings that accentuate facade colors creates a destination for students walking between classroom buildings. On the opposing facade, mature trees of the native forest are preserved, augmented by new understory trees to restore lost species diversity. The composition of tamed and wild creates a dynamic and rich addition to five acres of the campus.
University of Pennsylvania Health Center
Location: Philadelphia, PA
(Completed 2008)
Firm: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects
Project: To situate a large new medical facility into the landscape of a developing Philadelphia medical complex. The entry plaza acts as both an announcement of the building in its corner location but also as an area of respite for the user. As a cancer treatment facility, there will be many patients and families in need of somewhere to be outside. We have provided smaller pockets of seating for solitude as well as places for conversation. A grid of trees has been superimposed on the plaza to give it human scale and to connect the plaza and disconnected adjacent landscapes. (fountain concept model left).
246 Spring St. Plaza
Location: New York, New York (Completed 2010)
Firm:
Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects
Project: To build a new plaza in SoHo in conjunction with a new hotel. Being a narrow site situated between the new hotel and the adjacent building, the light varies throughout the day. Great care was taken to create a variety of spaces within the linear boundaries. Angular planters frame smaller seating areas while large backless benches create space for impromptu gathering. The paving pattern undulates to demarcate the main route of travel from the more private seating areas. Locust and flowers trees create a feathery canopy to give a ceiling to the otherwise tall space.
Completed Plaza lush with ferns
Japantown Peace Plaza
Location: San Francisco, CA
(Construction in progress, estimated completion Fall 2025)
Organization: San Francisco Public Works
Project: To redesign the rooftop plaza at the heart of Japantown to reflect Japanese design principles and accommodate both large events and comfortable every day uses. The process included extensive community outreach
Daytime plaza view
Nighttime plaza view
Mixed Use Masterplan
Confidential Location, Canada
Landscape Architect: Perkins+Will Involvement: Ecological Analysis and Development recommendations
Project: Analyze the ecological survey for 180 acre site and determine the optimal areas for development. I worked extensively with the project ecologist to understand the development arrangement that would have the least impact on the woodland and creek habitats that currently support salmon are other protected habitat in Canada. Steep slopes were also excluded from development areas. The result is a new mixed use neighborhood in the forest connected to transportation, hiking trails, and a historic waterfront.
Left: Layered site analysis showing optimal development area based on ecological analysis. Right: Creek setbacks
Potrero Power Station
Location: San Francisco, CA
Landscape Architect: Perkins+Will Involvement: Landscape Architect
Project: Masterplan 21 acre former power plant site into a new mixed use neighborhood. Working with an interdisciplinary team of urban designers, landscape architects, and architects, Perkins+Will is creating a new waterfront neighborhood in Dogpatch. Open space scale distribution and character is integral to the plan, setting up the waterfront as the jewel of the neighborhood. The existing power plant will be adapted to a waterfront boutique hotel and a new plaza around the signature stack will be a new gathering point for the community.
Historical shoreline
Proposed view of the future development and open space
Before programming the site an analysis was done of the entire eastern waterfront including future developments and parks currently in progress.
1700 Webster
Location: Oakland, CA
Firm: Perkins+Will
Project: 21 story residential high rise with podium, rooftop, and ground floor amenitities. The interdisciplinary process is the most evident in the indoor/ outdoor lobby that included landscape architecture, architecture, and interiors. The roof amenities include urban agriculture, dog park, and rooftop pool/lounge. The bioswales in the streetscape will be the first in Oakland, built ahead of their revised streetscape guidelines.
Integrated bioswale in streetscape
Podium public amenity spaces
Rooftop dog park
UC
Location: Riverside, CA
Firm: Perkins+Will
Project: 50 acres of new North District student housing and open space for the UC Riverside campus. Our interdisciplinary team sought to connect the new campus to the existing while creating an important new center of activity for the new neighborhood. A central signature open space connects to views east to the mountains punctuated by a performance pavilion. And each housing cluster will have their own smaller scale intimate courtyards.
PERFORMATIVE LANDSCAPES
Multifunctional landscapes are a critical part of changing our built environment to meet the resilience challenges ahead. Landscapes must provide the function of stormwater management and habitat, as well as food systems, equity, recreation, and cultural identity. The following projects showcase landscapes designed for performance
Polonia Park Creek Restoration
Woodbridge Waterfront Park
Location: Woodbridge, NJ (Completed 2016)
Firm: Great Ecology
Involvement: Landscape Architecture, Public Access Design, Event Design, Construction Documents, Construction Administration
Project: Woodbridge Waterfront Park is the public side of an 185 acre brownfield redevelopment project on a postindustrial site on the Raritan River. Great Ecology developed a site wide strategy for wetland mitigation in coordination with the remediation activities. Public access trails, boardwalks, overlooks, and bird blinds guide visitors through the marshes and successional birch groves to the river for the first time in 100 years. Freshwater wetland, tidal wetland, and upland habitat restorations.
Completed Freshwater Marsh
Polonia Park
Competition Entry
Location: Torrolodones, Spain
Firm: Marginswild, LLC
Partner: Sandra Herrera
Role: Landscape Architect
Project: The Polonia Park riparian corridor was directly connected to the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Río Manzanares watershed. Water wound down the rugged topography, over rocky terrain, and fed into the small dry stream continuing its way down. But new housing developments have diverted the path. The corridor was piped, channeled, and left as a park, but really as a residual space without purpose. The proposed design reconnects the stream to its watershed in a form that creates diverse habitat, reduces erosion, and is a lot more fun! The design recreates the original stream corridor, slowing the water thus reducing erosion and allowing for increased infiltration.
Food Farm
Location: Wafra, Kuwait
Firm: Marginswild, LLC
Role:Landscape Architect, Phytoremediation, Agriculture
Project: Large private projects have the potential for the implementation of process driven landscape strategies that may be more complicated to achieve in the public realm. This 60 acre residential estate includes a new second home and a working farm. By introducing landscape processes on the site, the farm can become a more productive agriculture as well as rich habitat. The architecture and the landscape evolve in tandem over three phases. Water, agriculture and home all mesh to form an integrated complex system.
San Mateo Wastewater Treatment Plant
Competition Finalist
Location: San Mateo, CA
Firm: Perkins+Will
Role: Landscape Architect
Project: Reimagine wastewater treatment plants for the next century. As finalists in the San Mateo Wastewater Competition, our team explored the entire wastewater cycle including future potable reuse, biofuel, biosolids, and bioplastics. In addition to the systems of the plant, we looked to integrate the systems of the community. Infrastructure serves a public function and can do more so as a public park, educations center, and habitat. We raised the critical infrastructure above the projected 2100 Sea Level Rise of 66” and restored a channelized creek creating additional flood storage and habitat. The new plant will connect instead of block the community from the Bay Trail. The aim is to flip the perception of wastewater treatment to resource recovery and community amenity.
Wastewater Treatment Plants in the Bay Area
Distrbution of program on the site based on treatment train
PILOT PROJECTS/RESEARCH
There is no substitute for small pilot projects that test an idea or provide research opportunities. For students and communities to get their hands dirty and make change! This method has become a signature of my practice and teaching.
Historic Peach Trees at Mur a Peches
PHYTO GARDEN
2015 SUMMER TEACHING FELLOWSHIP
Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée
Location : Murs à Pêches Montreuil, France
Involvement: 2015 Summer Teaching Fellow and Lead Landscape Architect
As part of my Teaching Fellowship at Paris Est, I researched and taught an Introduction to Phytoremediation to a summer program for soil contamination PhD students. After the teaching fellowship, I corresponded with a current PhD student, Jusselme Dung who was researching lantana phytoremediation plantings at Mur a Peches, a contaminated former peach orchard turned community space. I designed a phytoremediation garden specifically to allow multiple rounds of testing over time and create a pleasure garden for community enjoyment. The design uses figure ground to alternate the areas that are planted, versus paved so that the design would reverse its pattern to clean 100% of the site while still maintaining usability. Collaboration ongoing.
Figure and ground are reversed to reveal variations on the garden design that allow for phytoremediation to take place in both path and garden
Year 1-5
Year 5-10
PARK*ING GARDEN
Presented at VERGE Santa Clara 2016
Landscape Architect: Perkins+Will Involvement: Lead Landscape Architect
Project: Park*ing Garden: As a reaction to the drought and southern California’s priority of returning water to the aquifer, we created the Park*ing Garden. The Park*ing Garden uses permeable paving and bioswales to return the maximum amount of water to the aquifer while also providing space for biodiversity. Ohytoremediation plantings also clean runoff from parking prior to infiltration. The premise was that parking lots can be much more beautiful and functional and designed in a way that mitigates their negative urban heat island, impermeability, aesthetic, and social impacts. We combined the typology of the Park*ing Garden with data from HAZEL, the 2015 Latrobe Prize winning project by the Arid Lands Institute and Perkins+Will to determine the most optimal existing parking lot locations to use as test in the San Fernando Valley. We then calculated that in the three test locations evaluated, 22 million gallons could be infiltrated annually.
SF STREET TREE NURSERY
Location: San Francisco, CA
Organization: San Francisco Public Works
Project: Build a street tree nursery and create workforce development program to facilitate tree planting in underserved communities. As the result of a Caltrans grant, my team designed the new nursery in collaboration with our Operations team including prefab buildings for offices and classrooms. The site had been infamous for drug use and other social issues. The new facility secures the Caltrans ROW and brings a productive use to the site while providing access to the community and schools for programs in environmental education. It is a great example of efficient government.
PARK*ING
SURFACE
PARKING LOTS
SOILS MODERATELY SUITABLE FOR DIRECT INFILTRATION
SOILS HIGHLY SUITABLE FOR DIRECT INFILTRATION STREAM / RIVER
June Jordan
Ecological Schoolyard Garden
2016 SFPUC GRANT RECIPIENT In Construction
Location: San Francisco, CA
Firm: Perkins+Will
Role: Lead Landscape Architect, Public Outreach, Grant Writer
Project: Transform a 1/2 acre asphalt lot into a diverse ecological schoolyard garden for the June Jordan School Social Equity (JJSE). As part of the Perkins+Will’s Social Responsibility Initiative (SRI), I engaged with JJSE in a workshop with High School students to explore the adjacent ecosystems in McLaren Park and understand how those could be encouraged on their own underutilized site through a native habitat learning garden. A second workshop encouraged students to draw and collage to express their preferred habitats and programs. To our surprise, opportunities for play was a large part of their requests so we integrated nature and play in innovative ways.
Habitat assocaitions presentation for students to understand flora and fauna
SNRAMP Mapping of the adjacent Mclaren Park used for design basis
Above: JJSE student workshops. Below: Site design collages
Birdseye view of ecological schoolyard garden
Outdoor classroom amphitheater and slide
Water garden for stormwater managment and science class study
Swings integrated into shade structure
Flexible posts in veggie garden for hammocks and other games
Overall Plan of Garden Modules that can be built in phases as funds are available. Funded Phase 1 includes all of the pathways and the Water Garden. Design inspiration came from the plexiglass petri dishes of artist Klari Reis (below).
DROUGHT TOLERANT LAWN PILOT
Location: 2 Bryant, San Francisco, CA Phase 1 Complete
Landscape Architect: Perkins+Will Involvement: Lead Landscape Architect
Project: During the long California drought, I led a drought tolerant lawn replacement project fronting Perkins+Will’s San Francisco office. In collaboration with the Port of San Francisco, we were able to remove 50% of the lawn and replace with a variety of native drought tolerant grasses and groundcovers to determine which might be most effective as a lawn replacement in San Francisco. Phase 1 has been completed and documented water savings of 47% compared to the control plot that was remaining. Phase 2 is about to begin with alternative plantings to replace the ones that were not successful in Phase 1.
SUNSET BLVD BIODIVERSITY MASTER PLAN
Location: San Francisco, CA
Organization: San Francisco Public Works Pilot Block complete. Project on-going
Project: During a period of drought in CA, the City of San Francisco turned off the irrigation at Sunset Blvd medians and other facilities. After the drought my team was asked to redesign it as a drought tolerant landscape. We quickly saw its potential as a habitat corridor between Golden Gate Park and Lake Merced. Through an extensive community process we developed a master plan. The pandemic delayed funding for the project but through a partnership with the CA Native Plant Society and community stewards we completed a pilot block that will be a model moving forward. To measure biodiversity improvement we used community science, app, iNaturalist.
