1. Stormwater and Recreation Planning in Denver | pg 4-5
2. Farm-to-Table Coop in Belleview Park | pg 6-9
3.Multi-Modal Transportation in Silt, CO | pg 10-13
4. Mapping Food Access in the San Luis Valley | pg 14-17
5.Dirt to Soil Mound: Mining and Ruins in the Utah Desert | pg 18-21
Education:
Bachelors - Recreation Management and Community Development | University of Vermont
Masters - Landscape Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning | University of Colorado Denver
Experience:
Landscape Design and Planning Research Assistant | University Technical Assistance Program
Landscape Designer | Britina Design Group
Skills:
AutoCAD, Adobe Suite, Sketchup, ArcGIS Pro, Post 3d Rendering (Lumion, Enscape and Twin Motion), Planting Design (hand rendering and LandFX), Community Engagement, Project Management
mllryorr@gmail.com | 443.223.6469
Graphite Study of a Gourd: Drawing I, School of Botanical Art and Illustration, 2024
Welcome to my portfolio! I am a passionate and dedicated landscape designer and planner with experience designing plazas, gardens, parks, play spaces, multi-family and single family residential dwellings, commercial spaces, farms, and recreation areas. I am thrilled to share my professional journey with you. My ultimate goal is to make a positive impact on the world by creating shared environments that benefit diverse communities. As a hardworking critical-thinker, I believe in the power of collaboration and innovation to achieve this vision. I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Recreation and Community Planning as well as Master’s degrees in both Landscape Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning, I am excited to take on new challenges and continue growing both personally and professionally. I have professional design experience with DOLA’s Technical Assistance Program and Britina Design Group.
Stormwater and Recreation Planning in Denver
This project is a master plan for George Wallace Park, in Denver’s Tech Center, the largest in scale of my current work load. The project is ongoing with Denver Parks and Recreation and Goldsmith Metropolitan District. The park acts as storm and surface water conveyance for Goldsmith Gulch, as well as an area for passive recreation for employees and residents of the area. We performed inventory and analysis of the site including: floodplains, climate, circulation patterns, accessibility, views, topography, vegetation, land use, zoning and demographic research. The proposal includes increasing areas of native vegetation, regrading to increase water holding capacity and providing accessible routes through the park and amenity areas while protecting them from future flood events.
The central courtyard in early morning
Work completed at Britina Design Group
The Farm to Table Co-op at Belleview Park
In this park design, landscape beds are centered around ecological zones developed through extensive site inventory and analysis. Each bed features medicinal plants that may be grown in Colorado. Structural plants such as Big Sagebrush and Oregon Grape are proposed alongside pops of color provided by drought-tolerant species that thrive in Denver’s high prairie such as California Poppy and Little Bluestem. Visitors from the neighborhood or the nearby Rose Medical Center can find a rejuvenating sensory experience. These diverse constructed gardens can provide nourishment for human visitors as well as pollinators like hummingbirds and native bees.
Belleview Park, near Rose Medical Center, provides an example for public interaction with medicinal plants and their digestive health benefits. Each landscape bed in the public area centers around a medicinal plant that is grown in combination with xeric flowers and structural plants. This Xeric Flower Bed acts as a demonstration garden, inspiring local visitors to try xeric species and waterwise landscaping in their own backyards, patios or community garden plots. One native species featured in this bed design is Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), which can be used as an anti-inflammatory herb. It is especially tasty and beneficial made into a flavored honey.
Multi Modal Transportation in Silt, CO
The Britina team has been collaborating with Rocksol Engineering Group to design and plan a non-vehicular access bridge that spans I-70 in Western Colorado. This would allow residents and visitors of Silt to safely cross from Silt’s downtown to the Colorado River, increasing the connectivity of the town despite the large highway and commercial rail lines that currently separate the two sides of Silt. Our team worked with the town to design a plaza for the bridge landing at 7th and Main Street as an add-on service. We were excited to show our collaborative design work to our team’s grant writers for our federal submittal for transportation funding.
The picnic area of the plaza at mid-day
7th Street and Main Landing Plaza
The new plaza design features a custom pergola above a stage for outdoor concerts in the summer. Additionally, we provided a large specimen evergreen at the corner of 7th and Main Streets for Silt’s famous Christmas celebration and parade. Across from the tree is a custom iron-inlay fire pit by Breck Ironworks. Moving east, a seat wall divides the plaza from the neighboring property and increases an opportunity to rest alongside picnic tables on the Bermuda grass lawn. Across the paved plaza, large granite boulders may be used for seating or play. A custom paving pattern design mimics the meander of the Colorado river which can be found by crossing the bridge via the pedestrian ramp.
Work completed at Britina Design Group
FRONTAGE RD
SOUTH RAMP
I-70 EAST
EAST BOUND ON RAMP
PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE COLUMN ELEVATION
Setting the stage for an evening performance
WEST BOUND ON RAMP
I-70 WEST
Sunset from the new plaza
RAIL ROAD TRACKS FRONT ST
Mapping Food Access in the San Luis Valley
The San Luis Valley includes Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Mineral, Rio Grande and Saguache counties in Colorado. Through my partnership with the San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition I assisted in the Local Food Local Places initiative. The San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition includes stakeholders such as nonprofits, business owners, government agencies, producers, and individuals. Their director asked me to enhance this project by providing resources for understanding the geography of the local food system during community listening sessions. The Regional Community Food & Agriculture Assessment (CFAA) and a Community Action Plan (CAP) were created by the Local Foods Coalition, Colorado State University, collaborators and New Venture Advisors. These documents were published in Summer of 2023.
Saguache
Conejos
Costilla
Mineral
Rio Grande Alamosa
For this project I created and analyzed maps and satellite imagery and researched food systems visualization and engagement processes. I used asset mapping in collaboration with my client partners to identify important locations and pathways for food in the San Luis Valley. I also used USDA CropScape data to quantify crops grown by area both for the Valley as a whole and within each individual county. I then compared crop areas by percentage to determine which crops were most prevalent during the 2022 growing season.
These assessments helped to identify two future planning goals:
Provide visual resources to show the interplay between access and transportation and how it influences land cover and land use across the region.
Determine the locations of farms and ranches in each county and quantify growing scales along with ownership to consider the effects of animal production on the local foods system.
*grassland/pasture is shown on maps but not included in county charts due to its overlap between ecological and cropland categories.
Dirt to Soil Mound: Mining & Ruins in the Utah Desert
This studio focused on a remote area of the desert, the dry Sevier Lake in Western Utah. Inspiration for the design includes earthen mound building, land art, mining and walking as an artistic act. The site inventory and analysis included sun aspects, winds, elevation, soil type and construction viability (information obtained through USDA Web Soil Survey). The mound was eventually proposed exactly one mile from the still existing potash mine pools.
Project Location
Every layer of this 240’ high earthen mound has varying slopes. From the steepest possible slopes for engineered soil (78%) to more mild rises (35%), each tier is connected with a 4% sloped landing. This creates a unique ascension experience with variation between climbing and meandering along the path to the peak. It also creates a varied stormwater holding system for absorption and movement of water for plant growth. The plant material varies as a result of the constructed topography, each layer simulates an oasis or desert, depending on slope .
Mound and Space Design - The mound is placed in a flat area of the lake bed allowing the soil mound to be viewed as a solar art piece, casting various shadows depending on time of year, month and day. A cut is made in the northeast corner to allow users to experience shade from the heat of the desert. The mound is accessible by all, no fencing or privatization. This aspect is informed by my research of Puebloan community space design.
Environmental Harms: Mining - The proposed form of this art piece is a mound exactly one mile from the drying salt beds that remain from the potash mining that took place on Sevier Lake before our team arrived. The looming 240’ mound creates an earth viewing platform for the changes on the lake bed. It is made up of the dirt from the building of nearby features including material from adjacent mining and recreation sites.
Counter-culture Land Art - This immersive studio allowed me to explore a variety of earthen art pieces which have a massive impact on their surroundings highlighting the features of the natural world that the user must travel to in order to see the art. They also highlight ecological change over time. The varying slopes and massive structure of this earthen mound make changes in light, soil and vegetation over time visible to the explorer.
Walking as Seeing - In my exploration of the desert I found vast reaches to explore upon the salt beds. This design features a mile and a half long trail from the salt beds up a series of stairs and ramps to the top of the mound. This varies the user’s experience in contrast to the flat characteristic of Sevier Lake.
